Ken Tone

Look at it this way. If we didn't know Saga at all and we'd just heard that we'd signed, even on loan, an experienced, Polish full international striker with champions league experience, wouldn't we all be pleased -- delighted even? Personally I always thought Saga was much better than John at holding the ball, and in general play, regardless of goalscoring. I too thought Burley really messed him about, like he did Rasiak as well --- seemed determined to undermine their confidence, which affects all strikers more than most players. This has to be good news. If he is anything like motivated (and that's up to Poortvliet to manage) he will be an asset to the team. If we are lucky and he scores early on, then the confidence boost will make him a *real* asset. K.

It was "City are going down with a billion in the bank", and it was to an Oasis tune to rub it in because they are City fans. Your mistake only goes to show that Oasis really do rip off Beatles tunes. ;-) Why on earth would Man u fans have a song for us? K.

Personally I thought they were beginning to showboat and take the pi** at one point,then Rooney came on and shook them up a bit, as if Ferguson had told him to stop the pi**ing about and make the team get on with it. Why else bring him on when he was being rested? It's not as though they were getting worried about losing. K.

What is this obsession with 4-4-2? Too many people are listening to Merrington on Solent it seems to me. United didn't play 4-4-2. Berbatov was clearly playing behind Welbeck, not next to him. Liverpool don't play 4-4-2. They play 4-2-3-1, not unlike us ;-) In fact really the most valid criticism of Poortvliet's tactics is that 'total football' is common place nowadays, not the novel idea he seems to think it is. At one point I saw Rooney covering at left back against us! If that is not total football, what is? K.

Well it is now getting on for the end of the office day on monday. Any sign of Dailly actually signing? I'd like it to be true. K.

Just sour grapes from a failed player. When he came on a sub in hs first game he didn't do much in general play but scored a real striker's goal and I thought "we've got a good 'un here". But then he was given a whole game and did absolutely nothing --- looked appalling in fact -- and showed no sign of scoring either. That was why he ended up sitting in the stand. He just wasn't very good. K.

Joking apart, is there any chance that the game will be off? The lake near my house is frozen over, the car thermometer shows -2 still and the garden is absolutely solid. Given we don't have undersoil heating ,and what is more that I remember one game at the Dell being called off becasue the toilets were frozen even though the pitch was playable ... there has to be some doubt surely? K.

There'd be no point at all in our paying up his contract in full. However, financially, it might make sense if he is on a big wage to offer him say half of his remaining money, thereby saving half and from his point of view making him a free agent to find another contract. Whether it makes sense in football terms is another matter. K.

Well I reckon it took 6 posts in this thread. Do I win this round of the game ? I agree wth the sentiment of your post, even though of course it wouldn't work,as ths very thread has already proved. Personally I am sick to the back teeth of the repetitive anti- (or pro-) Lowe posts on here. I don't like Lowe either, nor Wilde for that matter, but for goodness sake let's occasionally just discuss football. K.

Well if you're like me, most weeks, you'd be sitting at home whingeing about the number of games that are now on sundays, mondays, saturday evenings, etc ;-) But I will be renewing season tickets. I'm a fan. That's what fans do. K.

Just thought this was worth drawing attention to. If we're in relegation trouble, so are they. Every cloud has a silver lining. K.

Not directly saints-related. Sorry mods. But it is a totally different world running a club with a squad of overpaid millionaire prima donna, mostly foreign, mercenaries, to running a lower league club where the players are desperate to impress the manager to get/retain a contract. "I used to be a Man United player" wins repect in Macclesfield or Milton Keynes, but is likely to get the response "So what?" or "So did I", or even just "Que?" at a club like Blackburn. K.

Ince ? ...you're joking. He's a first rate idiot with an inflated sense of own importance. I've said it before but I'll say it again. How can you take anyone seriously who invented his own nickname as a player ("the Guv'nor") that of course no one actually used, except to mock him. What a prat! K.

Sensible idea. Gets my vote. This letting season ticket holders buy more smacks of desperation to me. If there really high demand why on earth let S-T holders buy more? Whenever an organiser can't sell tickets he advertises saying , 'just a few left'. This looks rather like that to me. Try to build up demand by pretending there is already high demand. K.

It's not even that long since idiots like Dennis Wise allegedly got away with homophobic abuse of their own team mate, Graeme Le Saux --- abuse based solely on the fact that he openly admitted to taking part in perverted activites such as "reading", occasionally "watching a play" and perhaps even "liking some art". I wasn't at the pompey/spurs game and do not know what was chanted. I do know that there is a line that shouldn't be crossed in terms of what is said. Whether it was crossed that day, who knows? That is not to say that fans shouldn't abuse opposing players, or indeed their own chairman. They always have and always will. It's the nature of that abuse that is under scrutiny. K.

A rather glass half empty post! 1) It's good news that Cork likes it at Saints. It suggests that the dressing room is a happy place with the team pulling together. 2) I think you're wrong. Were Cork to be on the fringe of the Chelsea first team I could see some logic to what you say, but he's surely way down the pecking order yet. A more likely scenario is that they might sell him to a weaker premiership or top championship club in the summer, if he continues to develop here but seems unlikely to make it at the level Chelsea require ..... the most likely fate of every youngster at any club that can just buy ready-made international players at will. K.

No, that's a misinterpretation. I was there and have seen replay. Both slid towards the ball, at 90 degrees to each other. Wolves player in effect slid across the front of Euell, knocking the ball out of Euell's way and putting himseif there in the way instead, because he got there a split second before Euell did. I'd have said both were a little reckless but neither committed a foul as such. Had Euell been later and able to pull out from his attempt, then yes a foul, but as it was almost simultaneous, then it was effectively a 50-50 ball. The Wolves player clearly was hurt btw, and any suggestion (that I've seen in some other posts) that he dived or made the most of it is unfair. And to answer the thread title, yes we can and should appeal. K.

I too thought he looked good. In fact he stood out against us, but even so, on that performance I wouldn't have rated him much higher than "he'll play in the premiership one day". K.

Quite. I was there on Saturday. I didn't see any hoofball. Frankly I wish I had seen some occasionally! Davis didn't kick it out once, whilst his opposite number was kicking into our penalty area. K.

But on premiership wages, supported for a while by parachute payments, and maybe having made more of a name for himself with more media coverage so that he might then be 'rescued' by another so -so premership team - cf Rory Delap's career! So you couldn't blame him for going. However I would be really sorry to see Drew go. He is both a proper saints lad, and a really promising player. He won't ever be a star in the premeirhsio, but he is certainly going to be of at least 'journeyman' premiership standard, which is more than can be said of most players. As I said last season, he is the new Oakley,ie appreciated by managers and those who watch *football*, but not always by the more gung ho, "just get it in the box" type of fan. K.

I will, whichever league we're in. It's called supporting your team. You're supposed to do it through thick and thin. K.

An what the hell is the Muratti ? K.

Am I alone too in thinking that the apparent instruction to our keeper to always roll the ball out to a nearby player, so we build from the back is OTT. By all means make this a tactic, even a frequently used tactic, but not *every* time surely? Quite apart from whether this is agood tactic in itself, it became so predictable for the opposition. Just occasionally, Jan, please let Kel just welly it upfield. K. PS Dear Jan, Can we please swap all 3 of Smith, Robertson and Pulis, for one Clinton Morrison or similar?

It seems to me that I keep seeing us play pretty pretty football, but with no bite up front. It's been really noticeable in the last 2 home games how Clinton Morrison and Dele Adebayor (sp?) have been the real difference between the teams. In this league a big, but mobile, striker makes the difference. Stern John and Rasiak are not mobile, and Saga is not big. Nor is McGoldrick. On the other hand Euell is both, and has played quite well in 'the hole' lately, behind Mcgoldrick. He began his career as a striker. Why not play him in front of McG ? Poortvliet can stick to his precious 4-2-3-1/ 4-4-1-1 formation, but just swap those 2 over. I wouldn't expect Euell to actually score all that many, but McGoldrick and the midfield might get more playing off him, and either way we'd keep the ball up in the opposition's half a lot longer. At the moment the keeper rolls it out, clearly under instruction never to kick, it gets played up to about 2/3 of the way up the pitch via some very pretty passing, but then it bounces off a big defender or one of the passes goes astray , and it comes straight back into our penallty area. K.

Not wishing to join in a private argument, but taking your first few questions seriously: I thought the atmosphere yesterday was better than it has been of late at St Mary's. More of the crowd were singing than usual, not just the really sparsely populated northam. I was not aware of anyone abusing the players, apart from occasional abuse at just about all of them from a bloke behind me who I've never seen before, so is presumably not a regular, And ditto reaction to the defeat ..mostly resigned frustration -- no abuse apart from fly-by-night pillock behind, who I think is simply habitually foul-mouthed. K.