batterseasaint

Pompey 2 nil down :-)

Yeah it was originally built by a Sky-owned company called Sports Internet Group (many years ago), who were then incorporated into the Sky New Media department. So it was basically a Sky template that was also used by a number of other clubs. I guess once we fell out of the Premiership, Sky couldn't care less about us anymore, so were happy for us to move to another supplier.

I decided to get a season ticket for my 5 year old girl this season (basically free with mine), despite the fact that she had made it absolutely clear that she really did not want to go! So I did her a deal... that if she came to the first game of the season and she didn't like it, then I wouldn't force her to go again. So there we were against Millwall, fully loaded with sweets, Nintendo DS and such like, but she loved it so much that we didn't need any other distractions. She was absolutely hooked, asking questions about everything throughout the game, just taking everything in. She's now been to every home game this season, and is gutted that I won't take her up to Carlisle tomorrow! And if you're worried about the fact that you can't have a few beers after the game and so on, really don't worry about that. Taking my little girl to the football infinitely outweighs the enjoyment of having a few beers afterwards.

So where do you play St Will? Noticed earlier in the thread that you talked about Farnham/ Guildford... I'm based in Godalming, so frequent all sorts of courses round here like West Surrey, Milford, Hurtmore etc. Any recommendations of decent courses? West Surrey is about the only really good one I have found, though can only use it sparingly as it is members only so I have to rely on a work colleague who is a member there.

Seems Shropshire is a bit of a Saints hotbed! My old chap, who travels down for every home game, lives in Shrewsbury, whilst my brother and I both grew up there as Saints fans. But I canfirm my dad doesn't have furry dice in his car. Oh and Fletch, I used to go to the 6th form college. Many years ago now though.

Yes, that was another thing my friend confirmed... that it was indeed Oldknow who set the whole thing up, and that is the reason he got the gig to start with. Oh, and the Strachan thing was never on the cards. Complete red-herring. And apparently Pardew was only approached on the Monday, before signing on the Thursday. So clearly they had put a lot of work in identifying the right man before making their approach. As far as my friend is aware, no-one else was interviewed or approached about the job.

I was talking to a friend of mine at the weekend, who is very close to Pardew on a professional basis, and indeed was involved in the negotiations of his contract. Although Oldknow was involved in the initial negotiations of Pardew's contract, Pardew has since told my friend that Oldknow has absolutely no involvement in the running of the football side now. He is purely there to look after the commercial operations; ie. catering, ticketing etc.

Didn't Lawrie do a bit of ringing round personally a few years back? Think that was all in an attempt to get people to renew.

That is not the point. I am not saying he should necessarily show us loyalty, but what I am saying is that he has clearly fooked us about for his own gains. He has used us. He should have made it clear as soon as his contract ran out that he was looking for another club, as is his right to do so given he had no contract with us. On the other subject you raise, how we treated John is a bit of a moot point. I think if we had the choice, we would certainly have kept him rather than send him out on loan. Fact is, we couldn't afford his wages anymore, so we had to do whatever to get him off the wage bill. The 'brave new world' of youth was something that was forced upon us due to mismanagement over many years.

Yep, and in order to get the use of those facilities, he fluttered his eyelashes at the club, saying he was keen to earn a new contract with us. So AP works on the pretence that he would probably have John upfront for us this season, and focuses his attentions on getting players in for other positions. In the mean time, Oldknow etc. are busy preparing a new contract for John, and all the while, John's agent is busy hawking him to other clubs and lo and behold... a hint of another offer comes in, and John is away. So AO and AP have wasted their time which could have been much better spent trying to secure the services of someone else in that position, and in the mean time potential targets have gone elsewhere, and numerous friendlies have gone by which would have been well-served in helping to bed in a new striker. Thanks for nothing, Stern John. Good f*king riddance.

Think its important that we keep John and Rasiak, but also sign 1 other striker, and a central defender (maybe who can also fill in at full back). Going against the grain here, but I don't reckon we need much more than that. Think Gillett and Schneiderlin will be an excellent midfield partnership in L1, so I think midfield can be left alone. Not a priority right now. Given all of that, we will have a sturdy, experienced back 4 with cover if/ when Thomas gets injured. We will have a midfield with a good engine (Gillett) and some good quality to unlock defences (Lallana and Schneiderlin). And we will have a strikeforce which is strong (John) and will guarantee goals (both Rasiak and John). If we lose Rasiak, I am a bit worried about where the goals will come from, unless we punch above our weight and sign someone like Lita. Personally I would like us to try and get a big b*gger up front to give us another option. Steve Howard for example. Then we can re-assess in Jan and if we are looking good for play-offs/ automatic promotion, re-invest then.

If the creditors are paid off in full, then the remainder of the cash gets shared around amongst the shareholders. So no, nothing.

I actually think it is quite difficult to spend money in this league AND get value for money. If you have to pay for a player, then it means they have a contract with another club, which means it would be very difficult to tempt them down to League 1. And if we signed L1 players for, say, 100k, I would imagine you will be the first to moan that we lack ambition because we're only signing L1 players. Much rather we go for Bosmans such as Harding, Lita, etc., whilst trying to pick up Premiership loan players like Jack Cork. Fact is, there is a higher quality market for us in the Bosmans etc. than there is for contracted players. And as for opening up the corners... why should they, if they aren't going to sell enough tickets to warrant it? My guess is they are waiting to see how many ST sales we get.

Didn't Ricketts have a trial with us the season before last? Think we preferred Vincent Pericard over him :-)

Well I've never seen a game in this league before, but I would hazard a guess that it is marginally lower than the league we were in last season.

Its not exactly rocket-science to work out why the Reading fans are saying this seeing as he walked out on them for West Ham. But please show me a manager who wouldn't walk out on a club for a bigger, better offer. It is not a symptom of Pardew's character. It is human nature. I 'walked out' on my last employer because I got a better offer elsewhere. Bet most people on this forum have done the same as well. If Pardew does leave at some stage, either during or at the end of his contract, then we will get over it. Equally, the club reserves the right to bin him at any stage of his contract if it is not working out.

Although Pardew's record is mixed, there is no doubt that his 'stock' is probably above that of a L1 club with -10 points. No doubt he could have waited to the first round of Championship (or even Premiership) sackings to get a job higher in the leagues. So what therefore attracted him to Saints? I would say it was partly down to the challenge, but there was no way he would take on that challenge if his hands were going to be tied, much like he was at Charlton. So clearly Liebherr has outlined his plans to Pardew, and I'm quite sure that will include having money to spend on the right players. So I would expect to see a fair degree of movement in the transfer market in the coming couple of weeks. And I think the majority of the money will actually be spent on wages rather than fees; we need to attract some good quality proven players, and there will be quite a few players who's contracts have run out who will be starting to get a bit nervous about not having a club for the new season. So, given the offer of decent wages and a good challenge at Saints, we may see that some players such as Lita will be prepared to take the drop to us. So, who else could we expect? Chris Baird is out of contract and I haven't seen anything about him signing elsewhere. Danny Mills? Rory Delap? Dominic Matteo? Pele? Sibierski? All are out of contract, and it is this sort of player that I would expect Pardew to go after.

And you can add Wenger, Ferguson and Mourinho to the list of managers without top level playing experience. But if you are after attributes of what makes a good manager, I always think the following are pretty important: - a bit of intelligence. It may come as a surprise to you to hear this, but not all footballers are blessed with rapier-like intelligence. So those that can display a little bit of perceptiveness can easily spot things tactically which others don't. Also it is constantly a source of enormous frustration to me that some of the more obvious things are not spotted by lesser managers. A good example: it is clear that the best teams are differentiated by the talent they have in their side. But not all teams can afford that talent, nor hone it in players that don't have that God-given ability. So how can the manager plug that gap? Seems simple to me, but you basically make your team the best in what you can affect. Ie. you make them as fit as possible, so they can run quicker and for longer than the opposition. I am amazed at the number of managers who fail to spot this. - An attention to detail. Advantages in sport hinge on tiny things. Whether it be noticing a particular player on the opposition is less effective when pushed on to his left hand side, or eating pasta 3 hours before the game rather than 2 so the players don't feel sluggish come warm-up time. Whatever it may be. David Moyes is a fantastic exponent of this. - Ability to use new methods of preparing players. I have played a bit of sport in my time at various levels, to varying degrees of success. And what I do know is that if I don't believe I am going to succeed, I generally don't. And on many an occasion has doubt crept into my mind actually while performing, and invariably that signifies the end for me. It is clear to me that at Saints, we have had a losing mentality for far too long now, and I know that is bred from losing, but I am quite sure that there must be available methods to instill confidence in players, and any manager in this day and age needs to embrace that. Those 3 are the major ones I can think of right now, and largely seem to have been lacking in our last glut of managers since WGS. Anyone think of any other attributes they would like to see in a manager?

For some reason I missed all the stuff in the press about Adams and Celtic, so have been doing a bit of digging back to work out what all the fuss is about. And I have to say, reading the article below, I have never come across a bigger load of self-agrandising, delusional bull**** from anyone in all my time! For those of you who are not yet convinced about Adams either way, read this... and yes, that includes you Nicola, Andy and Markus... http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/scotland/article6415408.ece

i wonder if this is as a result of contractual discussions with various players that the new regime see as being key to next season's success. Ie. Something along the lines of 'i'll sign a new contract ifThe manager goes'.

i think we need to be positive. With the likes of Our Kel, John, Rasiak, Perry, Murty and then some of the youngsters such as Gillett and James (who improved immeasurably last term), we have a team that can certainly challenge this season. -10 or not, we should be aiming for the play-offs. I dont know much about L1 football, but i don't need to to know that the quality amongst that little lot means we should be up there. However, if Wotte is given the opportunity to lead the team, we run the risk of wasting half a season, when we need to be hitting the ground running. I think the new owner should be now making a real statement of intent to give us the best possible chance of promotion at the first attempt. So, as much as I respect Wotte for his attitude the last few months, i think he represents too much of a risk at this stage. I would like to see him step back down to the Academy and someone like Tisdale appointed as manager. i'm not thinking promotion is easy, but I believe we can get back up through the play-offs largely with our current squad. if we do then get straight back up we will then need to do the re-building exercise at that point.

it is plain for anyone to see that Lallana has talent. Last season he wasn't able to produce an end-result for that talent, but lets be honest many young players are the same. Even Ronaldo was criticised in his younger days for not being able to produce an end result. Maybe this was due to his general attitude, maybe not. Maybe it was due to him not getting on with Wotte. But maybe not. However, what i do know is that the responsibility for getting the best out of players is just as much with the club as it is with the player, and i would hazard a guess that our previous regime were hardly conscience-free in this regard. I would really like to see our new regime going out of their way to encourage and motivate our best players to stay and be part of something special. Kelvin has an older head on his shoulders and it seems he is able to see this and wants to be part of it. Lallana is obviously younger and maybe his head will be turned by a Championship or even Premiership club. But, given the right support at this club, there is no doubt he can now achieve his long term career ambitions with us. But he needs someone to persuade him of that. If not, i think we will regret it. All those people saying he should **** off if he doesn't want to play for us... Would they still be saying that if he fulfilled his obvious talent last season? I doubt it. I have no doubt that Lallana will go on to become a good player, given the right coaching and mentoring. We should give him that support; if so it will be us that reaps the benefits, not some other club.

Am completely with you on this Benji. I really don't buy all this stuff about Fry and MLT being duped. They both got into bed with Pinnacle based on the FACTS, and those facts were originally that the investors were there and had proven funds. Neither can be blamed that those investors then pulled out for whatever reason. And because Fry had granted exclusivity for a set period, he could hardly renege on that. And as for Le Tiss, he had publicly put his name to the bid, and even when the original backers pulled out, he felt it was the right thing to do to assist in finding alternatives, for his own love of the club. I think they both knew the whole truth all along, and no-one kept them in the dark over anything. Us fans were the only ones kept in the dark, due to Lynham's various messages that everything was in place apart from a few legal issues and the FL argument (and he forgot to tag on the end that the money wasn't in place either).

I like this post; it sums up my feelings exactly. I've spent too long feeling miserable about Saints, one of only four real passions in my life. The fact that I feel so ground down over the last 3 or so years prevents me from feeling absolutely over the moon about this, but **** me its a good starting point for me to re-gain that passion. Its enough for me to get the season ticket, and its enough for me to get one for my daughter as well. Hell, she's never been to see the Saints and she may hate it, but at least I can say my little girl has a season ticket at Saints, and equally the club and Mr. Liebherr will know that I am committed to this new cause. He has shown a lot of commitment to us by following through with his bid even though someone else was given exclusivity, so he will get the same in return from me. Goodbye all the ****e... at least if I have something to moan and whinge about now, it will be because of the ****s on the pitch, not the ****s in the boardroom.

I've had various discussions with my brother (also big Saints fan) about who we could possibly support if we went to the wall. And the upshot is, no one. With Saints goes my love of football unfortunately. Our Dad brought us up as Saints fans from the moment we were born, and regardless of anything that happens, that can never leave me, nor can I get rid of it myself (however much I want to at times). I've never lived in Southampton, or even in Hampshire. Nearest I have ever got is where I live now, in Godalming, but I have lived a fairly itinerant life, living in various places across UK and the world, but the only place that makes me feel vaguely like I miss home is Southampton. Not because of the place (let's be honest, it's not the loveliest), but because of my football club that lives there. As soon as season tickets go on sale, I am looking forward to getting an ST for my 6 year old daughter, and thus my family's support of Saints moves on to a fourth generation. To be able to do that will mean an incredible amount to me, especially after what we have been through in the last 2 months, 1 year, 4 years. So, no way could I ever support another club. Life will be very, very different if this week doesn't go as we want it to. And much sadder, less fulfilled for myself and my daughter, for it.