Giordano

oops...posted this on the puncheon thread by mistake...... yay i got a reply to my phishing FB message to our possible new CB.....from Ammar Jemal two minutes ago....."Thank youuu its a pleasure for me..". Insightful....I said "bienvenue a Southampton Ammar ...le premier equipe del sud de angleterre avec les fans plus fidele, loyal et bruyant des toutes....crap french i know but you get the point....if its genuinely Ammar it would be pointless replying unless he means it...if its a pleasure for him its not "im not coming" is it.... I take it as a positive pointer that unless some horrid wind up merchant has hijacked his FB site that we might have a new CB on the bus soon.

yay i got a reply to my phishing FB message to our possible new CB.....from Ammar Jemal two minutes ago....."Thank youuu its a pleasure for me..". Insightful....I said "bienvenue a Southampton Ammar ...le premier equipe del sud de angleterre avec les fans plus fidele, loyal et bruyant des toutes....crap french i know but you get the point....if its genuinely Ammar it would be pointless replying unless he means it...if its a pleasure for him its not "im not coming" is it.... I take it as a positive pointer that unless some horrid wind up merchant has hijacked his FB site that we might have a new CB on the bus soon.

Im not having a pop at NA in case thats how it might appear. This thread has seemed to take a little bit of a detour. I was just interested in knowing if Nige thinks its gonna be plus ca change this season and if he has a relatively low impression of the technical abilities of championship teams versus his Saints players. He managed a Championship team before so he is as entitled to an informed opinion as anyone. FWIW I like him and I'd rather him than an old fashioned type. I especially like that he tries to bring sport science into the building. :-)

OS gives a different slant...suggests Saints will be attempting to retain possession of the ball lots in the Championship...NOT that our Championship opponents cannot retain possession of the ball. Anyone else clear if he said "like" or "unlike" in that Saintsplayer interview? Im still unsure. IF its unlike, which is what i thought he said, It might be fair to say Nigel is expecting a rerun of our Div 1 season. IF its like then we will have a different season. I'm sure the Championship clubs are fairly clear on how we play ie passing / possession play by default. I recall NA trying to encourage teams to attack us a bit more at times last year in the prematch build ups as part of the pyscho-ops part of his job but it would be interesting to see of the clubs we face this season which could be categorised as predominantly "passing/possession" teams and which could be regarded as predominantly more direct...and then guess how he tries to get them to change their tactics against us..

paraphrased..."we're facing two teams on saturday who, unlike the teams in the Championship, will be comfortable in possession of the ball". Hmmm...a massive dissing of the technical abilities of our future opponents this season. Its possibly one of those "Brighton" comments that might be recirculated a few times....unless i have misheard him and he meant to say "like" rather than "unlike". Have i heard him correctly? If so its a revealing comment as it shows what type of approach he thinks most teams will use against us this year..ie pretty much like last year in the main....when i thought we might get a few more teams opening up against us...interesting..

Just in case forum poster forget...we DO have a player with all the required attributes already......His name is Lee Holmes/ If Lee Holmes gets fit and stays fit I think NA will give him a chance. He is a busy and skillful player with a left foot that can score, put crosses in and beat defenders with tricks and pace. He's got a low centre of gravity ability (well he should do at 5ft 8") and likes to run with the ball.....If he stays fit that is. He can do Adam Lallana stuff and is in our squad already. No signing on fee no transfer fee no additional wages. He's virtually a new player for us this season if you think about it in that way- bit like Connolly.

The relegation from the Championship season was 2008-2009 and certainly that squad was short on QUALITY older players that's true. We relied on Davies, Perry, Thomas, Euell and Wotton too much and paid the price. Thing is I don't think we could afford older experienced but better QUALITY players, so playing too many youngsters at the same time saw its predictable conclusion when we went down to Div.1. The point being the balance of blooding younsters with high quality older professionals was wrong - NOT the approach of incorporating them. It was a forced-hand policy brought on by financial limitations rather than some megalomaniacal dogma by the Chairman.

PS. And Morgan was only 12 when we signed him three years ago.:-)

Talk about re-writing history...... The kid-based approach? You make it sound like we put out a team of 11 teenagers every week under Lowes tenure. Which is not correct. And whats wrong with picking some homegrown kids in your first team anyway? Do you mean setting up the Academy thats produced some of the best young talent in GB football the last decade was a bad idea? Or do you mean the approach by which we tried to produce and play home grown starlets rather than pay ridiculous fees to other clubs who had done exactly that, money, incidentally that we did not have, like Portsmouth. Do you mean that rubbish kid-based approach that saw us play 17 year old Gareth Bale in our 2006 squad, that had 22 year old Kenwyne Jones in the same team, or how about 20 year old Andrew Surman, 19 year old Nathan Dyer, 18 year old Adam Lallana, 19 year old David Macgoldrick...i could add best, blackstock and others all half decent players.. ....whose hands were held by experienced professional players like Mica Svensson, Powell, Claus, Belmadi, Kelvin Davies, Idiakex...all in their 30's......even Jermaine Wright was 30 (blushes)..... The 2003-2004 squad did not have one single teenager in it and that was the end of an era.........yes kids don't win stuff but that was clearly a bad model for Saints to have....our experiment of integrating youth with experience resulted in disaster fair enough but whats the alternative for a team like Saints?????Nobody says Wenger is an idiot for trying to bring young players through but protecting them along the way. Don't bring through youngsters is the alternative for Saints, leave the likes of Oxo Gobern even on the bench another two or three years....never play Aaron Martin.....so we didnt get the right "gel" from the teams that went down but look at what some of those young players who we brought through went on to acheive and ive not even bothered to mention Theo.Nah. Kid based approach is exactly what we need. We just got the balance wrong. And FWIW: I ALWAYS want Saints to pick home grown young players and give them a chance whenever possible. When we turn into Manchester City and can just pick up the players catalogue to buy whoever we want around the world I still want us to play our homegrown players. Winning with a squad with no homegrown youth is no fun and the antithesis of what supporting Saints is all about.

Hold yer squeegees there matey.....Seaborne is NOT a waste of time - far from it, and Martin's an outstanding athlete and an in-demand prospect. I think he will be a superstar CB of the future like Mark Wright once was for us.... Rumours of Jaidis demise are also way exagerated. He is still a model pro and will win headers all day down the middle and who CAN and DOES pass to a guy with the same colour shirt if its on the ground.His experience and know-how are underrated by some - but thankfully not by NA.

jordan sibley posted that on twitter...........

hey crablungs...whats your FB details...you still impersonating a footballer?

I can write somefings about footballs and saints if you need Daren. Only opinionated mildly humorous prententious rubbish mind you, and random pyschological pyschobabble about the Saints past and present with occasional reference to our supporters...for header examples: "Kelvin's guide to rolling the ball out of defence", "The Hammond school of pass, move, shoot, oooh its over the bar", and a homage to those days of player profiles when their favourite meals were always an essential piece of info for the keen fan: Saints players favourite meals and how they prepare them at home : Week one : Oxo : Chilli con carne. First of all I call up my mum to come and help me cos I'm not allowed to use knives in the kitchen they're a bit dangerous, plus she boils the rice and that can be dangerous too, plus the chillis can burn so im not allowed to touch them either, and she blows each forkful in case i burn my tongue and its yummy not as nice as toast with jam but im not allowed to use the toaster because its electric and could be dangerous, mummy says im allowed when im a bit older"... "This weeks great debate - Connolly or Keegan, who was the shortest?" (I think that last one is a belter btw), "The man who put his head on the ball : the thoughts of Radhi Jaidi", regular one-liner feature: "More thoughts of Chairman Adkins "Impact player, go get me cup of tea, NOW", or "get off bus, you not in right seat Jason",maybe even "Gus Poyet, he verry funny guy". Got loads of filler ideas and regular article ideas ...let me know if you want any of this kind of rubbish. Mind you if you got Grant writing then your quotient of crap writing is already high( only joking steve, not really, yes i was only joking, mainly secretly i was'nt, maybe i was or was'nt I...). If you got Duncan im sure it will be worthy stuff so maybe you need somefing a little less incestious a bit less steve grant-like(soz again steve - i really like your hampshire cricket tweets by the way- "collapse ahoy" and all that, very good) a bit more not mainstream.. Anyways, let me know!

appreciate any price tips on trains to swisserland and back for the biel preseason game, best i seen so far is eurostar st pancras to paris about £120 rtn and gare d l'est to basle £46 return...

Any Surrey or London based saints intending on going drop me a message. Might take a little jaunt out there to offer my advice to Nigel and check out our new marquee signing(s) to replace Oxo.. At present return flights LGW to Basle are around £125 but until i know the fixtures and the dates/timings it could be better to fly/stay elsewhere and travel a bit round Swisserland...

i took my under 2 yrs old son to sweden on a pre-season tour one year with saints with my 7 yr old daughter and he loved it. Now hes 8 and his sis is 13 and ...well he thought it was great fun like he did at preseason this year when i brought him for acclimitasation training....he enjoyed watching the crowd during our laboured 1=0 win but my daughter was......uninspired by it...my offer to buy her anything she wanted in club shop not even changing matters''''''' ..id say there is NO minimum age and in fact the earlier the better.....

Head says draw is best as both teams drop two points each which in theory we have the chance of profiting from in one of the games in hand we have (were we to win that game in hand that is). Given the respective run-ins it I fear P more than H so P NOt collecting three points is hepful...so overall a draw.( but i wanted to say P win!)

The9, I'm afraid you misquote me....i said "a" Heskey, with "a" Heskey being my the generic term for another player clearly less gifted....or put another more pejorative way, a donkey. I do admit i thought Heskey had overlapped with MLT and stand corrected by you on that but the gist of my comment was that inferior players were picked ahead of MLT, which i doubt many on this forum would denounce as incorrect....or are you seriously going to say his omission benefited english international football?????tbf it probably kept sfc up a few more times than we should because tiss was always fresh but it did not aid our international results surely...

I think it was always clear that it was Le tiss or another forward- not instead of another midfielder ie Gascoigne. And that other forward was invariably Heskey or am i being bias? lol.

I like footage of the old away end at Plough Lane as well.....Aghhh sighs...the away end at plough lane....I remember one year there with Saints some fans made a mini bonfire on the away terrace at Plough lane made up of newspaper it was that cold.....of course could'nt would'nt happen now aftermath of bradford but shows different times different standards..remember watching Vinnie Jones actually doing ball juggling tricks in pre match warm up and us taking the p out of the hodcarrying thug so obviously trying too hard to show that he could actually do something with the ball apart from kick people near it ( he could do about 4 keepy uppys as i recall...lol) ..

wonderful ...loved seeing some of those early goals again......love the goals but then i get all irate knowing how lacking in his flair the (failure) england teams of his era were and why it is still the most scandalous exclusion of the outstanding player of his generation year after year from the england team...its like Argentina not picking Messi year after year....or Portugal not picking Ronaldo year after year....only in flecking england could we dispense with a Le TRissier in favour of a Heskey......groans gnashes teeth and they ask why we never win anything at international level...you get a genius and you pick the donkey instead...cretins...

interesting feedback.. Channon was'nt a transfer, neither was MLT BUT extending his contracts were definately worth mentioning, macdougall/boyer i thought about but decided that they were'nt quite up there, neither Worthington or Phillips but Phillips WAS a big noise but on way down..ditto Alan Ball as he was 31 or 32 when he joined and although played well he was past prime, i LIKE the WGS vote for the williams pair- imaginative thinking that was...maybe Bridger is worth a shout? Liked Golac (first foreign player to play in domestic final) forgot, shamefully, CMFG from birminham - another 5 year term+england international, Stevie Williams 8years a saint -his contract renewal was another good one for me, Pyscho dennis from brum is worth a mention though maybe not top ten, Supermarianpahars MUST be a top ten...bought from Skonta Riga...

Having just read a post from Gemmel on the Howard thread about how he rated the Lallana contract extension as one of the top ten, possibly top five Saints signings of all time has prompted me to think about what my top ten, or top five would be, and why. I guess theres lots of variables at play that would affect your perception and its very subjective but here goes- my first draft - 1. Keegan. Signing the European player of the year, the coup of coups. No question. 2. help! 3. help! 4. help! 5. help! Names that spring to mind and im missing loads out but ......Peter Shilton from Forest, got over 50 caps for eng whilst with saints 5years, Razor Ruddock from millwall who saved us from relegation one year, Peter Crouch from Villa, made us £5m in one year on transfer fees plus knocked pompey out the cup, Kevin Davies from Chesterfield- bought for £750k sold for £7.5m.....Mark Wright from Oxford played brilliant for 5 years sold at multiple times what we paid and england player too...don't think we paid a fee for Theo...must be dozens of obvious ones ive missed..help!

You mean special teams like american football? Not much of a conundrum then. Sorry was being bit thick there. But how do you defend against Jaidi and Lambo if you are also one of the attackers or defenders...still bit confused...

Something of a philosophical conundrum for me.... IF we spend a lot of time practising set pieces as Lambert says in the last Echo report on Swindon game, and it's good when it pays off......does it mean that our defenders are being conditioned to think they cannot defend against a well conceived and executed set piece. Is this a pyschological achilles heel we are drumming into our defence? And by the other side of the argument ~ how do we practise defending against set plays ~ and does that condition our forwards to think they are not able to score from them?