batterseasaint

It rarely fails to surprise me how negative you lot can be sometimes. The player is clearly impressed with the club and it's ambitions, and it looks like that has stolen us a march over other interested parties. And remember, this is a 23 year old on the verge of the Dutch national team. Yet some of you use this to scoff at and deride the club you support. No doubt you would be *****ing like little girls if the player chose another club over us, citing lack of ambition as the reason. All rather pathetic really.

Our colours are red and white. This shirt is... Erm... Red and white. Fair play to Nic and whoever was involved in the decision for deciding that 'true' red and white stripes are intrinsically linked with our past failures. Time to move on and evolve our identity.

Ah, but now you're basing your opinion on 2 frankly ambiguous photos. Let me ask you a question... Would you be prepared to hold off from making a judgment until you've actually seen it? I'm not massively crazy about it myself, but equally I'm happy to wait until I see it in the flesh and see what it looks like with eleven of our men out on the hallowed turf of St Mary's; I would hazard a guess that it will become quite a popular kit if we end the season with some very happy memories of watching us play in it. Another thing... Many people have said that it is the same as the Liverpool Crown Paints kit. I'm an 80s kid and for me that was a classic design of the 80s.

'Well balanced'?! The original poster suggested the designer should be shot. I would hate to see what sort of comment you think is over the top. It's only a bloody kit, FFS, and I didn't see many people suggesting that the sash disregarded our history. And likewise with the Rank Xerox kit back in the 80s. And the many other kits in our recent history which haven't been red and white stripes. Thankfully the football will start relatively soon and you moaners will have something important to moan about.

If Lampard, Barry or Wilshere were fit (all of whom play for CL teams) Parker would have been a bit-part player. Parker and Henderson were our only options alongside Gerrard.

Would be interesting to see if Lallana is elligible for the Olympic squad/ is picked/ is allowed to play by Nic.

To be considered realistically for England, a player needs to have experience at the top level; champions league or at a push, the Europa League. Young English players do not represent value for money in comparison to foreign equivalents, so the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal and Utd look abroad, with the odd exception such as Young, Wilshere, Oxo etc. all of whom are getting their chance at international level. Sad though it is, the likes of Lallana need to be playing in the Champions League to play regularly for England. It's the age old argument that our national team is failing as a result of foreign imports. And no England manager has had the balls in recent years to regularly pick anyone from a lower team; because if they lose, the media will accuse them of picking mediocre crap. It's a vicious cycle which results in some very good players slipping through the net. This explains why Gary Cahill suddenly became an instant pick the moment Chelsea picked him. And same with Oxo; does be look a significantly better player now than he did with us? No. The moment he moved to Arsenal, he suddenly was deemed 'good enough for England'. If Lallana has an excellent season, he may get the odd sub appearance in a friendly, but until he plays CL he won't be considered for a full time spot.

We aren't interested in Green; why would we completely change our transfer policy for an aging keeper when we already have an aging keeper? I think the tabloids are putting two and two together on the basis that we have to sign a keeper this summer. We haven't signed an old player since Connolly and Jaidi, who were very much brought in to do a job when we were on -10 in League 1. We will sign a keeper who is under the age of 28 (possibly much younger) who will not be too upset to not walk straight in as our number one. Our policy is clearly to try and snap up the best young players around, attracting them with a five year plan rather than temporary glory. Older players will be looking for temporary glory in the twilight of their career. I am sure we aren't after Green, and frankly I cannot think of a worse fit; for both Green, who would have to compete with a club legend, and for the club, who would have to break their transfer policy and handle a potentially divisive situation within the squad as a result.

You can do both at the same time if you have a car... Lake Como is about an hour's drive south of the Swiss mountains. We did a road trip last year from here through France, Switzerland, over the San Bernardino Pass and then stayed in Bellagio on Lake Como.

The prices per se are fair, but the way it is structured for concessions, not. My 9 yr old daughter has been coming with me for the last three years, but now she has to pay full whack I can't get her a ST. Because many games will be evening matches, it will cost me about 30-40 quid more per game if I get us both STs. And I can't get myself a ST only, because then my daughter wouldn't be able to sit with me for the games she can come. It also removes the material bond that children feel through having a ST. It will be harder for football to win against all her other commitments and interests if there isn't the ST to keep her coming to games. As a result, I am giving up on my ST for the first time in living memory, and I suspect the club may lose a young fan. My brother is in the same predicament with his daughter, so that is 4 STs gone immediately, and I suspect I ain't going to be the only one in this situation.

This. Thoroughly enjoyed that day and if I remember rightly, it was Venables' birthday which was ruined my Matty and Jimmy Case, who put in an imperious display in midfield. My favorite individual moment was the goal that sealed it for us v Watford at Villa Park, and the realization that we were off to the final. In my appraisal at work that year, my boss actually commented on my lack of performance at work for about a month, and he openly said he thought the reason for this was my pre-occupation with Saints' cup run. He was a lifelong Fulham fan so he kind of understood.

Before you start having a go at the ticket office for their spelling and grammar, I would be having a word with your mates first about how they spell their names. Jamie seems to get her vowels all mixed up, and as for Taylor... Let's not even go there!

36 and live in Godalming. Grew up in Shrewsbury but have been going to Saints since before I can remember. Come from a long line of Saints fans and my first game would have been around 1979. I don't remember it, but my early memories include the Manyoo game when Keegan scored the disallowed overhead kick, and I also remember a reserves game at the Dell where beat Bristol Rovers 8-0. I missed every goal thanks to a notoriously weak bladder and too many cokes before the game. Have been a ST holder since St Mary's came along, but went to plenty of games a season in the Dell days.

Says a lot about the mentality of some people that they HAVE to have a 'worst player' even though we have just put in an excellent collective team performance in which no one overtly put a foot wrong and there was quality throughout the pitch. Anyway, the facts about Guly are these: - he currently stands 7th in the top scorer chart, ahead of the likes of Maynard, Sordell and Jutkiewicz, all of whom many fans advocated that we break the bank for. - The 10 league goals he has scored this season have directly led to 3 wins; in other words, his goals have been the difference between us and the opposition 3 times. Without those goals, we would be somewhere near the bottom end of the play offs. - this does not include assists such as Reading, where clearly a magic touch from him set Stief up to equalize. There are those that seem to suggest that Puncheon should have played instead of him yesterday. Does anyone think that Puncheon, if he had played all season ahead of Guly, would have a similar record? What about Chappers, another competitor for his place on the right? No, i don't think so. I like Chappers, i like Guly and I think Puncheon will offer us a lot between now and the end of the season. There will be games where one is preferred over the other. For what it's worth, i hope Puncheon plays in that spot on Tuesday night ahead of Guly. But what i do know is that a player who has been a major contributor to our season does not deserve some of the crap written about them on here.

What we saw from Guly yesterday was him responding to his critics who have said he is lazy, lackadaisical, inconsistent and unpredictable. He covered lots of ground in both defensive and attacking moves, his passing was crisp, and he played a major hand in dictating our pace of play in a game that we comfortably won. At times he looked to move the ball forward quickly to Frazer overlapping, but at other times he held back, helped to re-build across the back, and go again. What we perhaps lost in his attempts to prove his knockers wrong, was his unpreictsbility near goal. His ability to pull off something brilliant to either score himself or create for someone else was missing yesterday. Or maybe he was asked to do a job by Nigel, which he did with aplomb. He was taken off with ten minutes to go because firstly he had worked his socks off all game and secondly because it was time to bring Hammond on and close out the game. The suggestion i read earlier that he was taken off because Burnley had put us under pressure for 10 minutes at the beginning of the 2nd half and this was Nige's reaction to that is just laughable. Whoever that was, are you a regular at football? Do you have ANY understanding of the game at all? Hammond was brought on for Guly because it was job done. Our game plan had worked, Burnley were a spent force and we had them beat. So we switched to a more defensive formation to ensure they didn't find a lifeline. Guly was NOT taken off because he was seen as a liability instrumental in giving Burnley a way back into the game. You may have your opinions, and of course it is your right to express them, but there are situations when one opinion is more valid than others. Ie. When one opinion is completely wrong. Like yours is at the moment.

I believe he is hosting a dinner tonight for those who went on the Kenya trip. I would say that Nic prefers the more personal fans' dinners because he is able to get a good understanding of the issues that fans are concerned about without having to put up with the idiots who want to make a name for themselves in the fans forums. He'll still get a good cross section of views in a smaller party and will be able to address the issues in more detail, as he won't have to spend time fending off idiots.

January tends to be more about clubs shifting round dead wood rather than big signings. Most of the big money signings tend to be very good players with 6 months left on their contract; clubs cashing in while they can. The reason is clearly because prices are so inflated in Jan because clubs don't want to lose their best players, coupled with the fact that cash-flow is good because of gate revenues which aren't there in the summer. So even cash-strapped clubs can afford to keep hold of their best players for now because at least wages are covered by income during the season, and if cash-flow then becomes a problem in the summer, they can always cash in then.

Tough one. If I close my eyes and try to imagine how I would feel on hearing us signing any of those, it would appear that I'm most excited about Hooper, closely followed by Rhodes. I think the Rhodes thing is because he is the next big thing at the moment, with bigger clubs mentioned in the same sentence as him, so i like the idea of us making some waves in the transfer market. Plus, I think we need to think seriously about a young pretender to Rickie (someone who can come deep and make the play as well as get on the end of sequences) and it would appear Rhodes would fit the bill. Having said that, Rhodes would be guaranteed a starting spot in a handful of Prem teams but he wouldn't be with us, so i don't think he is a serious option for us. I don't know enough about any of the others so i can't really comment. A bit of pace would be nice though, so maybe Sordell would be a good option.

It doesn't back up your assertion that we were complacent in the slightest. However, it does back up the fact that we had more modest expectations, which is absolutely fair enough given the fact that we'd just got promotion. That doesn't make Cortese and Nige complacent though. Both of them recognized that we already had a strong squad of good, loyal players and the core of that squad could give us a year of solid acclimatization in the Champ. So they rewarded that squad who gained us promotion by building the Championship team around them and adding some high quality players with experience at a higher level, such as Cork, De Ridder, Fox and Hooiveld, all of whom have played either in the top division or in Europe. Clearly we wanted another striker on top of that; we all know that. But the right player could not be prised away at the right money. We could, of course, have taken the approach that you seem to be advocating. We could have thrown lots of money at the problem and bought just about everyone who was available who was willing to play at this level by enticing them with big wages. Then we could have stuck half our promotion squad in the stiffs to get disillusioned so by the time injuries come round half way through the season, these players are in no fit state to step into the team and are demanding a january move anyway. If you want some proof of how successful this approach can be, take a quick look at Leicester's league position. And then take another look at ours.

My take on this is that Lee looks to be potentially an excellent signing for the medium term. It is an opportunity to sign an international striker from a reasonably high-ranking country, and Nige and the scouts have surely done their research into how he plays and feel confident that he will fit in with our style. I'm sure they've also done their research into his attitude and even without English language, he will be willing to learn and probably has the ability to do so quickly. However, just like with Stief, Adkins is not going to hurry him into the first team unless he really does take things by storm. There will be a bedding in period, both culturally and from a footballing point of view. This is not a signing for now; I think a few goals from the bench in the first few months could be the most we can expect. So he is NOT a signing to cover Lambert's ban and Guly's injury, and it is not even a signing to try and 'rubber-stamp' our promotion credentials. It is a calculated gamble on an international striker available on a free transfer. It does not fulfil our immediate need for a proven striker at this level who is currently on a good run of form and high in confidence, who can fit straight into our team, possibly knows one or two faces around the dressing room, can cover Rickie's absence, and can give us 10 goals between now and the end of the season to help fire us to promotion. And seeing as I don't see too many Premiership strikers queuing up to join us, that leaves only a select few names that fit the bill, namely the likes of Sharp, Maynard, Jutkiewicz and Rodrigues. OK these names have been trotted out for months now but the simple fact is, we have a very specific need for a striker who is on-form at this level and can slip straight in and continue their run of form for us, and there are only very few players who fit this particular bill.

Been doing a bit of online research about this. Looking at Lukeyjuke's Twitter, there are plenty of 'kind messages' but many of them relate to him scoring last night, as well as messages from Saints and Cov fans. So although it looks like he may be his way somewhere, it is hardly conclusive proof. The Cov boards all seem convinced he is on his way, most likely because their manager basically said he was off. They also seem convinced he is coming to us. I had a look at the Boro board and they all seem to think that he is definitely not coming to them. In fact, there are reports of them trying to sign a young striker from Carlisle. But on the other hand Simon Peach, a PA reporter and Saints fan, is saying that the rumours about us being in for him are a smokescreen released by Cov to try and get Boro to come back in for him/ up their bid. In short, no-one knows anything and we are unlikely to until any news is released by the club. But it does seem, if Andy Thorn is correct and he is definitely leaving, that we are the most likely destination.

If they let Jutkiewicz join us, they will be clearly short of a striker. Wouldn't surprise me if Connolly or Barnard goes the other way, just for a month or so. If Connolly goes, we still have Barnard as another option up front and vice versa, while we would also have Jutkiewicz and Stief just in case something happens to Rickie or Guly. Am not sure what the benefit would be to Connolly going on loan at his age, whereas it might do Barny some good to get some match fitness, as I'm not sure he will get much opportunity to start for us just yet. And I quite like the idea of Barny knocking in some goals against teams that we are competing with! Coventry aren't going to be challenging us, so why not lend them one of our better players who won't get much game time for us at the moment?

I'm from a reasonably long line of Saints fans and I wasn't going to take any risk with my daughter. I took her to her first game when she was 5 (Millwall, first game in L1) and had to bribe her into doing so. Having bought her a season ticket, she flatly refused to go, but after careful negotiation (promising her that if she didn't like it, I wouldn't ask her to go again) I got her through the turnstiles. She was immediately addicted and now is obsessed with anything Saints, and by Christ do I love her for it. She is now the 4th generation of Saints fans in our family and each game is a fantastic family day out. She has thankfully grown up on a diet of winning, so I had to sit her down before the Leeds game and tell her that this season is unlikely to be another procession of win after win... we then promptly thrashed Leeds, Ipswich etc and she still thinks its a walk in the park!

Jason Dog.

The problem we have is that we don't have a clear partner to Fonte. And that is because none of the possibilities are making the spot their own. Adkins wishes he had Jaidi five years ago, but he knows he can't rely on him. So we end up having to chop and change the centre back pairing. We need a clear first choice pair, who play all the games unless injured.