Portsmouth played their part in a thrilling 1-0 defeat to Chelsea in yesterday’s FA Cup final, but now it appears that half the team will have to leave immediately. Pompey’s financial troubles only seem to be getting worse, and since they can not spend money on any unnecessary expenses, they will have to let go no less than six players.

The two loanies, Jamie O’Hara and Aruna Dindane ,will have to go back to their parent clubs, while arguably Portsmouth’s star player – goalkeeper David James, who was picked by Fabio Capello for England’s World Cup squad, will have to find a new club to play for. The situation hasn’t looked for a while, and to be fair this isn’t entirely surprising. Not that that’s any consolation to Pompey fans.

It contributed to a bit of a surreal final, as one can only guess how a team can prepare for such a big final, knowing that half of them won’t be there tomorrow. They have had to deal with many off-field issues this season, though, and all credit to the players, as they went out and had a great last day in the sun. They managed to hold Chelsea for large periods in the game, and even missed a penalty, which really would have made things interesting.

Despite being apart of a team that finished bottom of the Premiership, there are no doubts that a number of clubs will jump at the opportunity to take Pompey’s departing stars.

The PFAs are awards that actually mean something, since they are not voted on by pundits or critics, but by the players themselves. And so to have Rooney recognized by his coworkers as better than Fabregas, Tevez and Drogba (the other finalists) should be a big boost for the Man United striker. He has not played the past few weeks due to a groin injury, but hopes to be back before the end of the season for United’s title race run in.

It’s funny that James Milner and Rooney are both 24, yet the former actually won for Young player of the Year. I suppose it’s more beneficial to spread the awards around, instead of allowing one player to hog all the glory. Milner is another very promising player that can help England’s midfield, though how or if he will be included in the starting line up for South Africa depends entirely on Capello.

The above table shows the net spend of each Premiership club since 1992, or how much money they have spent on players compared to how much they have sold. It is not adjusted for inflation, though, so some statistics might be a bit exaggerated.

It’s an interesting table for a number of reasons, though it’s worth discussing that other than Chelsea who unsurprisingly take 1st place, the only other league title winners find themselves in 6th, 11th and 18th place.

The £80 million summer transfer of Christiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid might be skewing Manchester United’s numbers a little bit, if anyone is wondering how they find themselves behind clubs such as Aston Villa and Tottenham, who haven’t won much of anything in recent times.

It is “impressive” also how much money Manchester City have managed to invest in less than two seasons after their new owners took over, as they had spent the majority of the years before yo-yoing between divisions. With big money come great expectations, however, and so far the squad isn’t quite delivering.

Perhaps a more proper type of impressive are Arsenal, who have only spend £32 million more than they have sold for all their Premiership years, yet still have managed to pump out some of the best young talents in the league. In my view, Arsenal really are a great example of how a modern big club should be run, even though they have gone a few years now with always being near the, top but not quite getting there.

Their hopes of playing one of their star players, Aruna Dindane, in the final vs. Chelsea have been dashed, however, by his parent club, Lens. Dindane is only playing in England on loan from the French side, and has already reached 21 appearances for the season. One more and Pompey would be forced to pay 3.5 million British pounds, money that they absolutely do not have right now. They contacted Lens and begged them to allow Dindane to play just for this one match without paying, but the French team have stood their ground and confirmed they’d want their money in such a scenario.

It makes you feel a little bit sorry for Portsmouth, who have been plagued with injuries on top of everything, and you feel it would have been nice of Lens to allow this exception for something as special as the FA cup final. The rules are the rules, however, and the English side will just have to play without him again. Should they do the impossible and actually beat Chelsea, though, I think they can make some good money by selling the movie rights to their story this season to Disney.

It’s true that for the first time in five years there will be no Premiership representative in the semi-finals, but the manner in which Arsenal and Manchester United went out is nothing to be ashamed off. Arsenal had the misfortune of being drawn with Barcelona, the best team in the world at the moment, and for a short while they were sending them out in the 2nd leg, before Messi weaved his magic. United, on the other hand, were undone by a fantastic volley by Robben, and more importantly the away-goal rule.

While the Premiership clubs might have been defeated by the European giants in the Champions League, things were quite different in the Europa Cup. Liverpool swept aside Benfica with little effort, while Fulham, who find themselves in the bottom half of the table, followed up on their amazing victory over Juventus by knocking out Wolfsburg. This leaves two English clubs in the semi-finals, which promise to be very interesting as well.

All this is quite positive, I think, because it shows the balance between the top European leagues continues to be maintained. For the neutral supporter it’s probably good that the English clubs will have to take a back seat as far as the Champions League is concerned, but by all indications, they will be knocking on that door next season again.

It’s been an interesting number of weeks at West Ham United, though that’s probably not how supporters of the club would describe it. After a string of unfortunate losses, including a 3-1 home defeat at the hands of Wolves this past week, the Hammers found themselves on the verge of the relegation zone. Players admitted the dressing room was in bad morale, the fans chanted for manager Gianfanco Zola to resign, but the most controversy was generated by one of the new co-owners of the club, David Sullivan.

In an open letter to the fans, Sullivan voiced his outrage at the “pathetic” way the team have been performing, both as a unit and as individuals, but pleaded for their support in these testing times. This action, however, angered Zola and a number of the players, who feel that the owner shouldn’t be speaking negatively of them in public.

It led to further speculations over Zola’s job, but the whole situation seemed to wind down when Sullivan said he is fully behind his manager. They tried to mend things in preparation for yesterday’s life-or-death game at home vs. Stoke City, to try and finally get that win to give them peace of mind. The result? 1-0 to Stoke.

West Ham are a club in crisis if there ever was one, and drastic changes need to be made to arrest this freefall they are in. Would a new manager so late in the season be of help? Well, soon they might not have much else to lose.

Liverpool midfielder Albert Riera is the latest player to reveal some of Rafa Benitez’s curious antics as manager, by stating that the Spaniard isolates and gives some of his players the silent treatment. The winger has started only one game for the club since the turn of the year, and he has been wanting to speak with Benitez about his position, but with no luck.

His comments should remind people of previous Liverpool players who also claimed to have been ignored by Benitez, most notably Peter Crouch, Robbie Keane, Craig Bellamy and Jermain Pennant. Much like Riera, they were also dropped from the team, given no explanation for it, and eventually forced out the club because they simply could get no answers.

It probably wouldn’t be right to tell Benitez how the manage his team, but all these revelations do suggest he is showing a poor attitude that can’t help boost the morale of the team. At the same time, Benitez will have been frustrated that Riera’s comments, which labeled the club as “a sinking ship”, came out right before Liverpool’s crucial game vs. Lille for the Europa Cup, which they managed to win 3-0.

Given the talent which has left Liverpool because of this, with Riera possibly the next casualty, it’s probably not too far stretched to suggest that Rafa needs to seriously reconsider his psychology towards his players. I’m pretty sure Bellamy or Crouch would have come in handy in these testing times.

Takeover bids and stories seem to be getting more and more attention these days, unfortunately sometimes even more than the football itself, but the group planning to take over Manchester United sure have an interesting gimmick. They call themselves “The Red Knights”, and are a group of wealthy individuals that seem set to test the resolve of current owners the Glazer family.

While they say they are not in direct opposition to the Glazers, they have been gathering support at Old Trafford, and seem to want to “take the club back” and “save” it from its current position deep in debt. They plan on “putting the supporters back into the heart of the club”, something which the American takeover had pushed back.

Rumors were even circulating that Alex Ferguson had added his support to the Red Knights, but that story was quickly squashed by Sir Alex himself. Despite the uncertain financial position the club finds itself in, the Glazers have so far been unwilling to sell to anyone. The ambitious group, however, has began an online campaign where it hopes to recruit at least 100,000 members, a good deal of which would be season ticket holders. Such a large support would definitely have an impact and might usher in some interesting times at Old Trafford.

The curious thing is that the Red Knights are mostly composed of bankers and businessmen themselves, so what their true intentions are if they take over remains to be seen.

That one is for the horror-books. Arsenal have been no strangers to terrible injuries over the last few years, most notably Eduardo’s leg-break last term, but the challenge by Stoke defender Ryan Showcross on teenager Aaron Ramsey ranks up there with the very worst of them.

The incident happened at Arsenal’s away game to Stoke, which they managed to win 3-1 with two late goals at the end. It is a result that keeps them only three points off the top place, but undoubtedly the team’s thoughts will be with Ramsey, who suffered a broken leg after Showcross tackled him in the 2nd half. The challenge itself doesn’t look so serious at first glance, but when you see the way the Arsenal player’s leg is twisted when he’s lying on the floor, you realize something is very wrong.

The challenge sparked outrage amongst the Arsenal players, but Showcross had no complaints over his straight red card. He was even in tears at what he had done, and I don’t think he can be blamed for any malicious intent. Stoke have made their reputation as a hard yet fair team, and things like this unfortunately are bound to happen every now and then.

It will come as little consolation to Arsene Wenger, though, who just cannot get rid of this injury curse it seems. The only thing he can hope for is Ramsey to make a full recovery and maybe come back before the end of the year, much like Eduardo managed to do.

It finally happened—on Thursday, February 25th, Portsmouth became the first Premiership club in history to enter administration. It has been a remarkable change in fortunes for the club that won the FA Cup in 2008, and seemed like a more than respectable Premiership force under the reign of Harry Redknapp.

Administration saves them from complete liquidation for the time being, but they only have eight weeks to straighten up their finances, or else they might not finish the season. The administrator in charge of saving the club has said he is confident Pompey will live on, but they will almost definitely be deducted nine points, which would make them relegation certainties.

The people you really need to feel sorry for in this whole situation are the fans, who have been let down by the bad management of their club. Porstmouth have spent money well beyond their means, and no matter how many costs they try to cut now, with a squad full of decently paid players they cannot sell, their debts have risen to over 60 million pounds. This is by far not the biggest debt in the English top flight, but the club have switched no less than four owners this season, and unlike other clubs, there is no one willing to give them the money off hand.

It is certainly a sad thing, but the question other clubs of similar size and debts will be asking themselves is who’s next? The houses of cards are beginning to fall.