Who knows H? It's not out of the question that NW
continues the overhaul and the team doesn't start
fully gelling til xmas. If we have new owners in place
prior to that, we could see a couple of marquee
signings in Jan to give us a push. Reading finished
strong but didn't really tear it up early on. It's all about
end of season places after all. I'll try and stay positive.

true batty but it worries me the amount he is getting in.

yup it how ya finish & where ya finish aye so the mrs says.

I am trying to stay positive, always disliked moancock & his hoofball football, but as my name staes gonna give him time

lufc_batty*, good point about Reading, i've said many times before when trying to work out the sale of Howson that we were level on points with Reading in January, and they didn't just fluke promotion, they won the league with a game to spare.

Didn't Grayson do this every year with us?

Got a team together, then every summer dismantled it and started again?

I remember a post on here a week or so ago saying this will be our 5th Season in a row with a different GK between the sticks on opening day.

Says it all really.

This is from Andrew Haigh

http://twitpic.com/abkz5m

Lets face it though, Grayson arrived with Casper in goal, not very reliable and shocking distribution, so brought in Higgs for our promotion winning season. Good decision, but he wasn't a Championship keeper which resulted in Kasper being signed. I thought he did okay, but to me the reason he was sold was because we wouldn't have been able to extend his contract and would lose him on a free so we made profit in the exchange between him and Lonergan. Now once again under a new manager he sees it differently and brings in a reliable keeper who has played at a higher level.

Common denominator is Bates. That's the crux Hors.
If we are indeed shot of Bates soon. Is it far-fetched to
think that the new owners will look to do what all
successful teams do and that is stress continuity
through youth teams, philosophy and ambition?

That never entered Bates' head once.

I'm with you H, it's frustrating right now. Just have
a feeling that we'll be better than last season and
that there is light at the end of the Get-rid-of-Bates
tunnel.

Pompey went down so half of our teams isnt good enough

Nice summarising SKB, think you're pretty much spot on.

Completely agree Batts, Bates is the catalyst for all this.

I just fear with NW signing more 'experienced' (for the positives) / 'past-it' (negatives) players then we maybe in a similar situation next Summer.

Reading built upon an already top 6 team that made playoff final.

We're building on a top 14 team that didn't.

We look like Italy - for once, and as others have said before, look at the real reason for Pompey going down!!