Watford swoop for City's Helan

Second best again. I'm truly fed up with us being second best or worse when it comes to signing players on loan or permanently: its been like this for years. We bring them in on loan and into the spotlight, they shine and then end up at another club; very disheartening.

I don't know where I would be without your level headed approach OM. I hadn't looked at things that way but you are spot on as usual. Us compete with the big boys the very idea. I have no excuse I should have known better than to leave a post like that. I realise now I'm just being downright unfair with comments like that, I'll try harder in future to be more sensible and if you feel I need correction in future don't hesitate to set me straight. I mean to say one day we might even be as big a club as say Millwall or Peterborough or, dare I say it, Watford.

just don't get it - i know the finance rule comes in soon but MM should get his cheque book out and gazump watford's offer because his potential is huge and would be great addition. Marshall situation all over again - great loan period and someone else gets him

I have to say that ANDY710 comment when you look deep into it has a familiar ring to it whilst exchanging correspondance with one of our vital colleagues from Pompey who made a statement "please be aware of MM it may seem that he is putting money into the club but in reality theres nothing there". Who are we to doubt our Pompey collegues. There is no doubt that if it wasnt for MM paying £8m for the clubs £28m debt we would be as sick as Rangers fans. I may be way off the mark here but as i see it We are now £8m in debt to MM. the bank ballance started at zero we must be making an operating profit now week in week out with 25,000 loyal supporters at every home game and the commercial side. The wage bill is a fraction of what it was 3 years ago. There should be no massive repayment on the £28m overdraught. Yes we all know that MM is in it to win it and we can't argue against that but he is clearly reluctant to add to the squad with cash transfers after all there is no return on human assets when it comes to selling. DJ will be well aware of this and if MM pulls it off we will all be happy 1) he will sell a club who is a stable Championship club. 2) The fans will be content. 3) MM will move on to his next project probably at Bramall Stye and take agent Jones with him.

Selling is something we have to face up to because that's MM game plan. And its a case of when not if but I wouldn't want to become another Blackburn looking at the antics of their owners and on balance I don't think I'd want to be another Chelsea because they prove the point that money isn't everything and doesn't necessarily bring stability. Lets face up to the fact that a new owner could even make the massive play in sky blue pink axing the famous stripes if that was the new owner's corporate colour scheme: there is precedent. I think the above comments highlight the truth that MM won't spend a penny more than necessary to get to a stable position in this league and then look to sell. His is a completely different agenda to ours as fans and we just have to get used to situations like those with Marshall and Helan. What we do time and time again is work on the basis that he's a fan and he isn't, he's an owner, no more.

We're all reading from the same page here because we all want the same things: Success on the pitch and (hopefully) achieved in a style we can be proud of. This first sniff of real progress and crowd numbers will increase once more. But football has got a lot crazier since we were last in the top flight and I'm not sure what it's going to take to get us back up there and punching our weight. Foreign investment seems like the quickest route but fans of many clubs in that situation are right to be concerned. Some owners see the opportunity to make cash, others see 'their' clubs as an extention of their own egos. We'll probably see the day when PL clubs 'belong' to the 20 richest men in the world, but there will still be the same number of trophies to win so most of them will have to get used to failure for perhaps the first time in their lives. Great, if fans want to tune in each week and watch a soap opera. Not so great if they value progress and long-term stability.