sandwichsaint

Had to chuckle at the earlier comment that 'we were short of LB's'; LB must be one of our strongest positions historically? Damn it, we could field a whole team of them: .......... Bale ....... Statham ............ Bridge ... Pycho .... S Mills ...... Holmes Peach ... Hollywood.. Benali ..... M Mills ...................... Vignal .................... Not the most balanced team you ever saw but they would probably beat the current lot, hands down. I've seen all of these play; it's Steve Mills for me, but I'd take almost any of the others in his stead.

Bit early for a christmas tree isn't it?

We were fecked from the day we went PLC, that model was never the 'traditional' model of football club ownership and has proved to be disasterous. Outside the top few 'brands' (for that is what they are) their is no money to be made in football. The Premier Lge/Sky far from taking the game to new levels have effectively killed the game as a competetive spectacle, 4 teams playing for the title every season, another 4 or 5 striving to finish 5th (FFS!) and the rest scrabbling to stay there. The £££££££'s from TV and sponsorship continue to dissapear into the pockets of a relatively small elite of players/agents/hangers-on etc etc etc. Saints have just happened to be the wrong club in the wrong place at the wrong time. With no sugar daddy we borrowed 30m+ for a stadium that with hindsight (or even foresight!) necessitated us staying in the PL for 20 years; who can guarantee that for a traditionally against-all-odds club? The logic of burning the whole of the parachute money with hindsight was probably the right thing to do, unfortunately the wrong outcome! What's clearly not arguable is that if we had bounced back up in season 1 or 2 we would not be in this position now, unfortunately (small understatement) that didn't happen. Saints without the parachute money (or indeed without all the other Prem add-ons in terms of corporate income) have quickly proved themselves to be unsustainable at this level. Where to now? Administration looks inevitable unless we can shift just all about all our adult pros and even that might not be enough. Their worth must be severely constrained by le crunch, Surman 3m? Do me a favour, and with other clubs knowing our circumstances, we would snatch their arm off for 750,000. Relegation looks distinctly possible, either via the selling-all-our-decent-players route, or by points deduction. Personally I hope Saints win on Saturday and I'm looking fd to going to Charlton away in a couple of weeks. Maybe a few others should go while there's still a chance to watch 'Saints' before we become AFC-non-lge something or other. I hope Saints win on Saturday.

Give it the January window and the likely loss of Surman, Lallana, Davis and Euell and we will be probably be seeing rather more than we might have liked to of these Gods of the footballing under-classes.

Briefly. and just for the record, what was the injury situation/availability going into Saturday's game? I rarely read the OS and I'm not in touch with the local media etc down your way. No Perry again? No Spiderman? Euell on the bench ... after being most peoples' MOM against Norwich. Euell's clearly a missing link in the side and one of the few players in the squad that ticks the experienced/leadership box. Was he injured? He would have been the second name on my teamsheet (after KD). Where's Robertson, half-decent debut against Norwich but not been seen since? Why was Gobern starting? Embarrasingly inept performance, looked and played like a school boy. He did it as a one-off last week (a bit like the non-lge sides in the FA cup 1st round on Saturday) but clearly nowhere near ready for this league. Why not Pekhart (who I don't particularly rate) or BWP up front with McG? This 4-5-1 is killing us at home.

Here we go again; we've had six(?)!!! managers since WGS left and only one that has really united the fan base, NP. Face facts, we have been royaly shafted by the appointment of JP, he's not up to it, never was and never will be. One dimensional, naive, lacking in any understanding of the 'english way'. He is a one-way ticket to oblivion, 1 home win from 8 (bring back Branfoot!) and crowds (real people, not made up figures) nudging 10K. Looks like we're back to 'continuity' v 'let's change while there's still time'; would we be where we are if so many hadn't pleaded for GB 'to be given more time'? What a waste that turned out to be giving him all that parachute money and then some again, when what we really needed was a bit more ambition/togetherness/direction/expectation (and a lot less drift and naked under-performance) . Much as JP seems a nice guy I'd have to come down on the side of change while there's still time; and as to the title thread, who would 'realistically' come here? Narrows it down somewhat doesn't it? I'd take any of these from where we are now, over where JV's taking us: Andy Hessentaler (kept the Gills in CCC for 3-4 years against all odds. Currently flying at Dover with 15 wins from 16 this season and could still play in this league! Have to be quick though, he's a decent long shot for the vacant Watford job apparently). Steve Tilson (I would have taken him when GB was appointed. Has over-achieved year on year at Southend and deserves one shot at the big time, if SFC can still be called the big time. Plays good football on a very limited buget) Phil Parkinson (where's he now?) seems to have gone off the rader since Hull but did really well at Col U for several seasons. Peter Taylor, my fave lower-league budget rent-a-manager. These youngsters would be made for him. Micky Adams, Saints connections and years at Leicester and Cov must have taught him something about relegation dog fights! And there's a bloke at Leicester that fits the bill but apparantly he's too expensive so we will pass over him. You asked for realistic candidates so I've discounted the Dowies/Davis'/Shearers/Wengers etc. and for Wotte it's worth I can't see RL parting with JV for at least 12months up to and including relegation and/or admin, he would rather part with another 5000 fans before admitting he was wrong (again!)

Have we learnt nothing? You'll win nothing with kids etc Let's hope he gets a core of experienced old heads in on loan...

Ramos out at Spurs and C***face given permission to speak with the North London Yobboes (guardian 12.06) a small silver lining perhaps?

So what we're really saying on the bi-polar message board of choice is that nothing's really changed? Despite clearing a lot of Viaffara/Ostlund/Idiakez-style deadwood and all of last year's loans we seem to have retained the nucleus of a reasonable CCC side. My too-good-to-go-down X1: Davis Cork Perry WT Rudi Surman Euell Schneid Holmes Llallana John Subs: Bart, Gilett, Wotton, BWP, DMG You would have to be particularly unlucky (or careless) to get relegated with that lot, or have a particularly interfering chairman or incompetent manager wouldn't you? What might be holding us back is that four of that starting X1 are injured? Or that we can't afford to play several of them? Or that three or four of them could go in the Jan window (please not KD!)? In the big scheme of things I'm not sure that last night's (welcome) point really counts for much?

Chelsea at home on a boxing day at the Dell; Chelsea fielded the first-ever all-foreign starting X1 in an 'English' game. Must have been around 2000? 2001? Score? We lost I'm pretty sure. 2-1 possibly?

I LOL'ed at this; there hasn't been much on here to enjoy recently but I enjoyed that one. Worthy of it's own thread surely? '10 reasons why David McGoldrick is like Eric Cantona'. I'll go first; 1. They both have heads.

Drowning_Not_Waving

I was looking round last night thinking much the same; with hindsight (or as some of us said at the time) they might as well have shut the whole of the Chapel and kept the Itchen/ Northam corner open. There couldn't have been more than 700-800 in there last night and they rarely contribute any 'atmosphere'. If those fans were dispersed into the Kingsland and Itchen we could more than afford to re-open the two corners closed at the Northam end. Which would give us a presence in more than one section of the ground and not let the oppo fans have it all their own way as Ipswich fans did too much last night! As for keeping the family centre open (or whatever it is in that's the Chapel/Kingsland corner) what a joke. Some might say 'it's midweek' but you could count the individual people in there last night. Surely we would have saved more real money (on police / stewards / operators / catering) if we had just completely shut the top quarter of the ground (the whole Chapel and the two corners that end) and concentrated the fans into the remaining three quarters of the stadium (where lots of people wanted to go anyway!) DUH!

I'll try and do it geographically-ish! Gillingham Charlton West Ham Spurs Arsenal (Highbury) Arsenal (Emirates, if Bruce Springsteen counts) Chelsea (old Stamford Bridge with the track and the curved shed end, 76 semi etc) Chelsea (the 'new' Chelsea village) Wembley (old) Brentford Crystal Palace Wimbledon (at Selhurst Park if that counts) QPR (and QPR with the plastic pitch) Luton (on grass and on plastic) Ipswich Colchester Brighton (Goldstone Ground) Portsmouth Dell SMS Bristol City Millenium Stadium Coventry (Highfield Road) Coventry (Ricoh) West Brom Aston Villa Leicester (Filbert Street) Wolves (the 'old' Molineux before they turned the pitch 90 degrees) Wolves (in it's modern form) Stoke (Victoria Ground) Derby S****horpe Middlesborough Blackburn Sheff Weds With a bit of 'creative accounting' that's about 35 grounds I've seen Saints on. Non-League: Dover / Folkestone / Margate / Fisher / Hastings / Sittingbourne / Dartford / Deal Town / Staines Abroad: Chatereaux / Nancy / Lille (all France) Favourite ground(s): The Dell! Highbury. Ipswich. Bristol City is also a good 'old' traditional ground Biggest dump: Luton or Selhurst Park Best atmospheres: Millenium cup final! the old Molineux. West Brom at the end of last season Least atmosphere: Middlesborough, nothing happened, we got beat, and dreadful 'goals' music every time they scored! Best Saints away game: Derby play-off

My first post for ages (extra busy, hence not posting much) and haven't read all of the above but for what it's worth: reading some of the above I'm wondering if I was at a different game last night? I went to the Brum game and after an exciting first half of 'total football' we rather predictably ran out of legs and were comfortably beaten in the end. The kids looked keen enough but it was real men against boys stuff in the second half. I left SMS pretty content that I'd seen the future (and the future was Division 3!) Then the false dawn of Derby who let's face it hadn't won a league game in 12 months, then the total car crash of the Blackpool game (on Sky for me) and again on Sky last Sunday at QPR. All in all I travelled my 150 miles with a fair sense of foreboding last night. Rocked into town at 5.30 and I've never ever seen the pubs so empty and devoid of atmosphere on a match day. And so to the match: I didn't think the actual game was anywhere near as poor as some on here are making out .. I've seen much worse in terms of 'entertainment' over the last few seasons. Ipswich have always tried to play football and you can't fault our players for any aspect of their effort and application .. it's just that several of them are completely out of their depth at this level. I thought we rode our luck a bit in the second half but not our fault the lino gives their forwards offside when they are (!) (and if we got lucky then we were owed one after Sunday's second goal). Thought on balance 2-2 was probably about right. We play some tidy football up until the final third but lack any sort of a cutting edge up front. Perry made a big difference at the back last night though we still look all over the shop when the oppo attack. Cork doesn't look a centre half to me (too good!); we should have begged/stealed/borrowed a brick outhouse McAuley-style CH as a priority. The right back (don't even know his name) was better last night than the other 3 games I've seen him in this season. Surman was penny dreadful last night, I was a big advocate of him at LB after the last few games of last season but he is completely wasted there in this team. Wotton tried hard, Gillett's confidence looks shot at the moment and he needs a rest, I thought Dyer was OK within his obvious limitations. Haven't read all the thread but can't believe McGoldrick isn't getting some stick (maybe he is!) .. **** poor last night... again ... after Sunday's no-show. John lacked any sort of service and he needs that; Lallana was excellent again although I thought he could have been involved more, if he plays in the hole we need to play through him more. Despite all those obvious and known limitations I really enjoyed it last night, you get the feeling the crowd (most of them) can appreciate the effort being put in and are willing the young players on. Go and watch Saints this season and you will see some decent football (not sure if you will see many wins though!) Bit of a rambling post (out of practice) but what I'm saying is make up your own mind ... don't beleive all the negatives on here... go and see for yourself ... and SUPPORT THE TEAM ... ! I travelled with a certain trepidation last night and I was probably inwardly hoping for another 'Blackpool' so as I had an excuse, a reason, not to bother for a few months. In truth I came to bury them but travelled home praising them. I'll be down again for the Norwich game and looking forward to it now... Saints are for life, not just the Prem! COYRs