Red And White Barmy Army

cracking attitude from Andy Ritchie saying saints had no chance of keeping him when he was just 15. that's the exact losing mentality that got us from fa cup final to league 1. also very rare to see a pro start so late on as he did. i always said, even at saints, he wasn't, and would never be, rounded enough as a footballer. i like him and think on his day he can be awesome when used in the right tactics against the right team that get there defensive tactics wrong also. like he did away to croatia last year. i look on in embarassment that he can play for arsenal some of the time tho - the defence show him wide and give him 5 yards to cross the ball on purpose - watch it next time if u don't get what i mean. stand off so he can't run past u and then watch his cross go str8 out at the opposite corner flag. looks like his parents also got caught up in the excitement of his move to the big arsenal as well. can't blame them, however u can blame his advisors IMO. a couple more seasons at saints and he might not have gone to the world cup in 2006, but he would have in 2010 after a move to arsenal or some1 else in '08. A quote from Theo: "Moving to Arsenal was a big contrast, from running around with your mates to being serious". says it all. congrats andy ritchie, george prost, et al

Appologies if already posted here but it would seem they are working on crossing with Wally Downes - if u've subscribed to saints player then u can see it in the background of the interview with Pardew or Chris Perry (can't remember which 1) at Staplewood. Normal small sided game in the middle which becomes unopposed if they take it into or receive it in the channels. pretty basic coaching drill which i have implemented myself many times, but effective at encouraging crossing from varying positions nevertheless.

any chance of her putting it on ebay and posting the link on here? i do actually want it.

i remember that tackle as if it were yesterday!! lmao. good times!

The Ollie Lancashire stand would be good IMHO

why do people keep saying we need a new DM. AP needs to bring the best out of Schneiderlan and he will be one of the best DMs in this league and Wotton is back-up. Simples. Gillett is the box-to-box midfielder to support him and Lloyd is his back-up. Right winger, striker or two and 2 CBs required now.

Sometimes managers just look at a video of a player or get a report on his attributes and say yes please. I think skacel for us is a good example of inconsistency - played well under Burley for Hearts, but not for long enough for GB to realise he was inconsistent. Vignal was along those lines. He hasn't played for that many number of clubs for any other reason than inconsistency. He'll end up with a couple of man of the matches in the prem but probs also score about 8 OGs!

i don't think we need a new DM cos we have schneiderlan and wotton as back-up. I change my mind every day atm but now i really feel we have our CMs and LM sorted. I'm still reserving judgement about Thompson - if Pardew thinks he's good enough to be our regular RM then i think he will stay, but just being an OK back-up for Lloyd James won't be enough - Lloyd won't drive at the opposition defence and widen the play as much as we need to in this league (bearing in mind we're one of the best teams here we should be looking to use our wingers to run at defenders and use the width). 2 CBs is a must IMO. I think having Jaidi, Perry and Thomas as 3/4 of our CBs is very risky. They are all injury prone/old and we could easily face 6 or 7 games this season having to put lancashire in. JPS, Thomas, Perry and one other decent L1 CB would be my dream scenario. Up front, assuming we lose Rasiak and Saganowski, we need to replace both of these. Lambert should be our regular striker with Patto as his back-up. We need a regular 2nd striker and a back-up for him. In summary, 2 new CBs (inc JPS but not Jaidi), an attacking minded right winger and 2 new strikers, unless we hold on to Rasiak and Saga (Craddock and one other would be good). Anything short of 5 new players in the next 3 weeks and we will directly lose points as a result before January.

thinking about it now, i defos have my doubts about lallana's ability to play with lambert in the same team. they cover so much of the same area i feel you need either a ST that will push further on, or a DM (Schneiderlan) and a normal fabregas type CM that won't advance so much as Lallana. If AL can adapt to the left wing it will be great. Competition between him and Fish. I didn't get to the Northampton game so am surprised by the turn around between saturday and wednesday to say the least, but it looks as tho pardew has been working tirelessly with him. he seemed very frustrated at Lallana's positional play when we didn't have the ball vs. millwall. such a great/strange feeling to have a manager who can get the best out of his players and put them together as a team. things like this just don't happen in southampton we'll reserve a bit of judgement over him till this weekend tho i thinks.

IMO we need to sort out the left side of midfield (lalanna out of position) as a more urgent priority than the right side (lloyd james assist last night) :s

my neck did get a bit sore on saturday, but it was hardly wimbledon/derby style. more direct when they had men behind the ball and less direct when there was space to move into or when we won possession back in midfield. he certainly liked his wingers to stand off when they had it - so as not to get caught out by millwall's overlapping full backs. a very methodical and cautious game is probably fair to say. wingers created a 4-2-4 when we were hitting the long ball as well which seemed to work well - less box to box balls and more diagonals which are easier to win. will probs get more adventurous should we sign a more attacking minded CM to replace wotton or move lalanna there and get a LM (altho saying that, i thought wotton was a good leader - just didn't play as well as schneiderlan). A CB and a LM plus a couple of other 'squad players' and we should walk this league IMO. Might need another fairly average L1 striker or 2 as well, should the poles decide to move on.

may as well get kaka while we're at it

all i will say is that the amount the majority of their fans seemed to be drinking was nothing short of rediculous from what i saw. bad bad anti-scoial behaviour from not just a few in the minority, but the majority IMO. when will they get the message that football has moved on from the 70s and 80s? no1 likes u and u dont care? get a bloody moral conciouns (sp) and grow up. when our fans consume alcohol away from home the most anti-social we seem to get is shouting 'there's only 1 tesco' very loudly and disrupting a few happy shoppers. for us to be classed in the same policing category as them is a scandel and nothing short of defamation of our club.

if i lived in winchester or wherever then i would defos go to watch them on a regular basis if it was for free tbh. the main factor that puts alot of ppl off watching semi-pro/amateur football is that its rediculously over-priced. if saints paid winchester £1000 for example - it would only need to sway 3 extra season ticket holders in2 buying 1, and would almost certainly make economic sense for the lesser club as well. the only prob might be trying to arrange fixtures so that they don't clash where pos but this wouldn't be a major issue if they did clash. im sure most would get over it.

WTF!!!! this just doesn't make sense. if he didnt think he would get a work permit then he wouldn't have bothered with the medical, contract negotiations and all. There is no harm in at least applying for the permit. simply doesn't make sense and thus i don't believe the article has an ounce of truth if im totally honest. may just be optimistic thinking - and there may well be a delay in the signing due to the WP so we'll make do with perry and lancashire on saturday at least.

i registered on the birmingham city website for no apparent reason a few years back and get loads of stuff from them still. had a season ticket, membership, etc etc with saints for years and dont think i get so much as the new kit brochure that used to come thro annually any more :s good idea indeed.

9) cheaper

why are we talking to Usain Bolt-on?

i actually prefer going to st. mary's on my own alot of the time. a match day is a thing i have to do between me and southampton football club. it makes it more special that way, especially if the game is sentimental - i remember making a point of not allowing any1 to go with me after we went into admin, and to many other games. when im in the ground i feel like i have 30,000 friends sat with me (or maybe nearer 20,000 these days)

would be better if we all just rocked up in saints shirts!! i'm seriously tempted to go... but maybe not on my own

also different earlobes IMO

it's nourine off big brother

maybe we don't really exist any more and we're all still living in a dream thinking we have a billionaire owner... ... or maybe we do YIPEE!!!!!!!!!!

bit harsh! he was a good CCC CB so i think he would easily be 1 of the best defenders in this league. some1 needs to put in the ear of AP IMO cos i doubt he knows much about him atm. i hope either henderson or some of the players are having this word.

look at how many 'good' L1 players we have in our team - kelvin, harding, thomas, murty(?), schneiderlan, wotton, john. i dont think there are more than 3 teams with a better select 7/11 than that. we can expect at least a couple more according to Pardew which brings it up to 9/11. then the squad lets us down a bit when jump straight to youth players. my main concern atm is without significant enough depth in any position, we will lack competition for places and times will be hard when we get just a few injuries. i would guess there are probably 10/11 teams with better 'squads' than us in league 1 - leaving us somewhere in the middle of P4 and P12. Add the Pardew factor and u would have to say we should be competing for P8 without the -10 should we only get a couple more players. however, it wouldn't surprise me if we end up with 6 or 7 newbies which could propell us to around P7/8 even with the -10. just IMO.