CLOTH EARS

I am getting so ****ed off with this style of play. We never get enough bodies in the box, our crossing is average at best. If you offered me Koeman back tomorrow i would snap your ****ing arm off!

A lesson in how to hold on to the ball and do **** all with It!!! Crossing not the best and we are as about as potent as a pint of Asda Smart Price Lager!

i have to say firstly i am very pleased that we got the three points. There are still issues that Boufalls goal cannot paper over. Is it Puels system or is it the players not carrying out his instructions correctly? Whatever the answer is there was still to much sideways and backwards stuff for me. The result buys Puel a bit more time but we desperately need a few new additions.

If anyone can find a positive out of that then thy need to go and see a psychiatrist asap! I'd rather be a bedwetter than a deluded ****!!! Negative beyond belief. Oh and if Charlie boy is out injured you just as well call us Southampton Nil. Some SERIOUS INWARD ACTIVITY NEEDED IN JANUARY transfer window or we are F----D!!!

Thats what i and the lads at work said as well. If he ain't sure, or he doesn't like what he is hearing with regards this proposed takeover the current club philosophy could be going out of the window. So he is getting himself out there just in case. My gut feeling regarding this Chinese consortium is not that positive.

Definitely need another striker and back up at centre half.

If anybody tells me now that we don't need another striker they need to go and have a serious eye check. If Austin gets injured we will be f----d!!! Lots of good football from us with **** all to show for it.

That line up worries me. We will struggle to score again......FFS!

I am very disappointed with this transfer window. We should have been more than capable of pulling in another centre half, Right back and striker. We needed them in my opinion. I predict we may finish as low as 14th. I have huge concerns ver Rodriguez and Austins fitness records. Even if Jayrod stays fit will he be the player he was? Puels system will not help us. Will Puel still be our manager come next May?

To be honest, Eddie Howe is the perfect fit and i think he would jump at the job this time. When he was offered the job by Cortese i think Howe knew there would be difficulties working with him. This time though i think he'd take it. He wouldn't have to uproot his family either.

I remember having conversations with people back in the 90's who said that we were wasting our time going for a 25.000 stadium at Stoneham because we didn't always sell out every week at the Dell with a 15.000 capacity. Then Stoneham collapsed and St Mary's came up as an option with a 32.000 capacity some people (Saints fans included) were saying there would be loads of empty seats BUT WE FILLED IT MOST WEEKS!.....Now, i know at the moment we get gates sometimes a couple of thousand short of capacity BUT I know that this club could get 45k if the seats were sensibly priced and the club were showing some genuine ambition. I feel totally comfortable with saying this. When Saints played Man City a couple of weeks back we also had the 40th anniversary celebrations of the 1976 FA Cup win. I did not have a ticket for the City game but i went in to see the 76 boys off from Guildhall square. I stayed in town during the game and i was amazed at how many Saints fans were in pubs around town and in town itself, there were loads of people knocking around with Saints shirts on. Don't think that every single Saints fan is in St Mary's on a matchday, there are loads of fans who for whatever reason don't go to games. I personally know lots of people who at the moment don't go to Saints games but they are very much interested in whats happening at the club. In short this club has a lot more support than people realise! 45k is doable and i reckon we may be able to go beyond that figure.

Remember it well. I was 13 when he signed and whilst I was at school on this day 36 years ago i remember someone telling me that we had signed KK and i laughed at him convinced it was a wind up. A little while later somebody else at school said Saints had signed him. Thinking the two rumours had all originated from the same place i was still convinced it was all bull****. I was on my way home from school and a woman i knew who lived at the bottom of our road was stood on her doorstep and she shouted to me that Saints had signed Keegan.......I sprinted up the road to my house and put the radio on and they were talking about it at the time i switched it on. As a Saints mad teenager to say i was excited was an understatement. In them days we were reliant on TV and Radio and newspapers for news, there were no mobile phones or internet to check things out back then. Any youngsters reading this this will wonder why the story is so special. Well Keegan was the European footballer of the year, he was England captain and he was playing for one of the top sides in Europe at the time in Hamburg. Can you imagine Saints signing Lionel Messi tomorrow? Well this was akin to that. Keegan was widely regarded as one of the best players in the world at the time. Maradona was still young and emerging but Keegan was at his prime. It was a truly unbelievable signing by Lawrie McMenemy at the time. The city was buzzing. It was announced in February but Keegan didn't actually make his debut until August as he was seeing out the remainder of his contract at Hamburg.

I was chuffed with the desire and heart of the players. We were extremely disciplined and kept an excellent shape. I also felt that the crowd helped the players massively, they really got behind the side after Wanyama got sent off.

Graham Baker scored after 54 seconds on his debut v Blackpool at the Dell in late 1977. He only scored the one though.

Delighted with the performance, i thought we played very well, just as we did against Watford. I am pleased to see players that i have criticised stepping up to the plate. Ward Prowse played very well as did Steve Davis and Big Vic. Defensively Van Djyk won everything. Long worked his nads off as did Mane. Lots of positives.

I have to agree with some of the above posters with regards Matt Targett. I have been a little critical of him in the past but tonight was probably the best game that i have seen him play.

Much better from Saints. Lots of positives out there. We should have had more goals. Watford were poor on the night, but Saints gave them nothing. I still think we need another striker. I think we can beat West Brom Saturday as well, although it will be a tight 1-0 win i predict. Then we have two tough away games, hopefully we can go into those games in a much better frame of mind.

As i have said in another thread, the warning signs are there and they seem to looming larger by the week! HUGE decisions need to be made in the boardroom and by the management quickly. January NEEDS to be a busy month! If it ain't then we could be paying a huge price for it come May. Don't think it cant happen because IT BLOODY WELL CAN!!!

Wanyama was careless in the extreme! It does make you wonder if he was trying to make a point! I was hoping we would try to keep him but his actions today tells me that perhaps we are wasting our time trying to persuade him. We need more quality asap. We look powder puff up front. If their is anybody out there not concerned at losing 7 out of 9 then you need to get your heads out of the ferking sand and quick!

In addition to my previous post, i Just want to expand regarding the playing side, Aside from the big decisions that need to be taken by the club at boardroom level. RK knows that big decisions need to be taken soon regarding the playing side. The team needs quality reinforcements asap, IF we are genuinely wanting to be challengers for the top 6. When you look at our squad, we undoubtedly have a number of quality players there but not enough of the depth in quality that is needed to challenge for a top 6 finish. In truth our league position is about right for the players that we have IMO. We have allowed the quality levels in our squad to drop over the last couple of transfer windows. We have made signings to replace those that have left, but those coming in have yet to prove that they are adequate replacements with the exception of Van Djyk i would say. A few of those signings may turn out to be decent in the longer term but atm they are not consistent enough. We have accrued a number of players like that. We need to think about what we are going to do with the likes of Yoshida, Caulker and Martina, none of these are anywhere near good enough and re-Martina don't be fooled by the Arsenal game! We need to make more signings and they need to be GOOD signings, they need to be able to step straight into the side and do a DECENT job. If we allow Wanyama and Mane to leave then the scales tip towards us having a squad that's suitable for a side in the bottom half. I know both of those players have been inconsistent themselves recently but they are decent and with added quality around them they will do what we know they can do. On the horizon looming we also have to think about replacing the likes of Steve Davis (who has been excellent for us IMO) He is now 31 and i have heard a number of fans say that perhaps he is past his best. Obviously there seems to be question marks regarding Pelle and whether he is wanting a move back to Italy. If this is not being at a crossroads then i don't know what is.

I think the warning signs are there for us. We are very much in a simular situation to 2003 in that we could have built on our top 8 finish and our FA Cup final appearance. The club continued with its policy of selling its best players and guess what within two years we went down! The club chose to 'Play safe' as they saw it, and ultimately it bit us in the arse and it ended up almost killing the club as without the Premier League TV money we eventually slid into administration. We were VERY lucky that Markus Liebherr came to our rescue! The club appears to be following a simular policy to that under Lowe, the only difference being that we do not have shareholders wanting a cut this time around. I think its pretty apparent that Kathrina Liebherr is not going to throw millions of pounds of her money into SFC's pot any more without pay back. She wants the club to become self sufficient, which on the face of it is a good thing. The club is now left at a crossroads. It has to decide whether or not we are going to 'genuinely' attempt to compete at the top end of the Premier League (top 6) or whether its going to be happy to just stay in the league and take the TV money (which was Lowes policy) If we are going to genuinely compete we somehow have to find money to substantially increase the capacity of St Mary's and we have to start paying more money to players. Risky YES, but its also very risky just trying to stay in the Premier League because continually selling your best players will 'whether you want to admit to it or not' WILL gradually weaken your squad and i repeat IT WILL BITE YOU IN THE ARSE JUST LIKE 2005! UNLESS you are bang on with your recruitment all of the time and judging by some of our more recent signings we need to do better. My gut feeling is that Mr Koeman fears the direction the club is going, i can detect frustrations in some of his interviews. When you see clubs like Leicester, Crystal Palace, Stoke and West Ham overtaking you its concerning. Another thing to remember, West Ham are moving into the Olympic Stadium with a capacity of 54.000!!!, Crystal Palace are going to rebuild Selhurst Park to make it a 40.000 capacity!, Leicester City are looking at expanding the King Power Stadium to 42.000!. We could end up being left behind people! I know some of you will say i am talking crap but i feel pretty comfortable with what i am saying. We have big decisions facing us as a club.

Along with players such as Ramirez and Yoshida from previous transfer windows, Saints have signed to many average players over the last couple of windows. We have quality, but not enough quality outside our best 11. You CANT keep selling your best players and get away with it. It WILL bite us in the arse eventually.

I don't mind being proved wrong. I have been critical of Saints recently saying that we are gradually gathering up a squad full of average players. A few of those 'average' players proved to me that they can be better than average tonight. More of the same please and I won't mind being proved wrong in the slightest.

I now follow AFC Totton home and away. I followed Saints since 1975, went to lots of away games through the McMenemy, Nichol and Branfoot eras. I still love Saints massively, but I don't get to see them as often nowadays, I have been to St Mary's twice this season (FC Midgtylland and Man Utd). I gave up my season ticket in the summer of 2006 but kept going to a bulk of the home games until the end of the 2007/8 season. I got worn down by the Lowe, Crouch, Wilde fueds that engulfed the club in 2007/8 as that was all we seemed to talk and argue about, the football became secondary to the politics at the club. I have followed Totton home and away ever since really and I really enjoy it despite some of the results! By the way with no Saints game this weekend AFC Totton are charging just £5 for adults £3 for Oaps and Students and a quid for under 16's. They are playing Tiverton Town in a Southern League game at the Testwood Stadium.

Totally agree. You cannot keep getting away with selling your best players every season. When people within the club call us 'a showcase club' that to me sounds as if we are happy to be a stepping stone for players on their way to a big club, but losing a few every summer is dangerous!!! That philosophy will bite us in the arse and its now starting to happen. People within the club have gotten complacent after what happened last summer.