The glamour of owning an English Premier League club might soon lose its lustre for Suleiman Al-Fahim, who completed a takeover of Portsmouth FC this week.

The team is currently second bottom in the league, with three losses from the first three games of the season.

British bookmakers have made Portsmouth odds-on favourites to be relegated at the end of the 2009-10 campaign.

Having reportedly paid £60 million ($100m) for the club, Al-Fahim stands to lose around £30 per year if the club is relegated to the second tier Coca Cola Championship.

Since Arabianbusiness.com is a business site, not a sports site, I will spare you my pub punditry on the quality of the squad, but will instead look at the mathematical likelihood of Premiership survival based on the evidence to date.

The decision Al Fahim has to make now, or more likely in the January transfer windows, is whether to invest in new players. The cost of luring players is inflated for teams in relegation trouble, and typically teams in the lower reaches of the league opt for loan players who are not playing regular Premiership football elsewhere.

But before January, one key person can be replaced: the manager, Paul Hart. In the 16 game tenure at the end of last season, his record was a tolerable played 16, won four, lost seven, drew five - 1.06 points per game.

Having lost the first three games of the season, Mr Hart now has 35 games left to reach what is commonly reported as a safe number of points for survival in the Premier League: the magic 40 point mark.

If Portsmouth continue to average 1.06 points per game, they will reach 37.1 points this season, a tally that most people would expect to see the club relegated.

But, hang on. Conventional wisdom on the points required to survive in the Premiership is wrong. It is true that every club that has scored 40 points or more in the past six years has survived, but it is also the case that 37 points would have been enough to stay up for every season but one since 2003.

Should Paul Hart remain the manager of Portsmouth for the whole of this season? The statistics suggest that it would not be a disaster.

But football is a game played on grass, not paper and, if I were a Pompey fan, I would not enjoy the season if the target was 37 points.

British bookmakers not only have Portsmouth favourite to be relegated, they also have Paul Hart as strong favourite to be the first Premiership manager to lose his job. Who am I to argue?

As the anticipation and arguments build up ahead of Dubai Metro’s launch on 09.09.09, I’m reminded of another epochal event in the world’s transportation history - the launch of Tata Nano, the world’s cheapest car, in India.

In fact, there’s a similarity - both the achievements are significant, yet have been constant subjects of scathing scepticism.

If it was the overcrowded ‘public transport’ and the lack of a cheap vehicle for an Indian ‘family of four’ that gave birth to the $2000 Tata Nano - it is the necessity to curb the burgeoning boom of private vehicles - that  Dubai’s Road Transport Authority resolved to push ahead with a world-class ‘mass transport’ system.

If the Tata Nano-bashers waited to see whether the car would indeed hit the roads at its promised price of $2000, the Dubai Metro-bashers are rubbing their hands in delight with the prospects that not ‘all the stations’ would become operational on Sept 9, as the RTA had promised.

But even while ‘intellectuals’ have argued over the social, financial, political, economic and environmental implications of the projects – one sect of people would have been earnestly praying for the successful completion of these endeavours.

The father of the Nano, Ratan Tata saw from the comfort of his car - an Indian couple travelling on a two-wheeler scooter in the lashing rains – their little son standing at the front; the wife riding pillion, a child in her hand. Moved by their plight, he vowed to create the world cheapest car.

If you visit any of the bus-stops at Dubai’s Trade Centre roundabout, watch the anxiety and desperation on the faces of the low-wage and medium-wage-earning blue and white-collared workers, as they scramble to catch their bus.

Observe the disappointed shake of their head when they are asked by the bus driver to step down after a 30-minute wait – because the vehicle is loaded to its full capacity. You won’t understand what the Filipinos, the Malayalees or the Pathans mutter to themselves, but yes – you do know that their ‘tone’ is the same – of helplessness.

The Tata Nano is a blessing for the family who might have otherwise been drenched in the rains - choosing to ply riskily on its two-wheeler, wait for an eternity to be able to board a crowded train or a bus or plead before a cab or autorickshaw driver to drop them home. (Most of them don’t, especially if they think they won’t get a return fare.)

Are things different in Dubai for those at the Trade Centre R/A? It’s the sweltering heat here, the prohibitive taxi fares (the waiting charges have made it worse) and the long wait for their particular bus.

As for the arguments of interconnectivity - those who currently walk a mile to their bus-stops in any case – will they really crib much about finding their nearest Metro station?

They might not be the ones who would actively participate or even have an access to online polls slamming the Metro or bashing the city. But they surely have something that will keep them taking the train with pride and gratitude. Dire need.

For them, the Tata Nano or the Dubai Metro might offer a true vehicle of liberation and freedom.

The trouble with being a global statesman, world-renowned horseman and UAE Prime Minister these days is that it is so hard to keep up-to-date with the restaurant and nightlife scene in your home town.

Thankfully, Time Out Dubai (sister publication to Arabian Business) has come to the rescue of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai.

His Highness maintains a popular page on Twitter, with a healthy 4411 other tweeters following his every move and thought.

In turn, his Twitter page follows a mere 13 sources of news and information, among them venerable news sources such as Reuters.

But when it comes to the important stuff about Dubai: eating out, shopping, sport, music and film, His Highness trusts none other than Time Out Dubai, the city’s preeminent “Intelligent Guide to Life”.

Follow His Highness at http://twitter.com/HHShkMohd, and follow his lead through to TOD’s twitter page at http://twitter.com/timeoutdubai.