Charlie Wayman

Sir David Beckham. Once he's finished winning the World Cup he'll be up for a new challenge and he loves teaching kids so he can run the Academy during the week and knock in a few goals at weekends.

Well **** me, it's 3-1 again! Pardew out! We want a manager with more imagination.

You didn't tell me anything useful so I'll have to go to the OS website to find out when I've got to brave the elements and make my way up to SMS. can never get the on-line thingy to work.

Now there's a story. Is it perhaps that (a) we are Swiss-owned business so restricting commercial opportunities and (b) we no longer have Rupert Lowe's influence who was a big-hitter at GHQ at one time. Remember the Macedonia game? We were 'persona grata' in those days. Still, do I care? DO I BALLACKS!

Where will they put it, it's all inside the stadium. Hope it's got mirror glass, I'd hate to see in!

They're probably over-training for the role, it used to be good enough to do a few stretches against the goalpost just before ko and a good old rub of the beer belly to settle any flatulence form the pre-match pint. They're all becoming too bloody precious by half. What's there to do except pick the ball out of the net from time to time and chat to the blokes behind the goal? All that diving around nonsense never happened before high definition telephoto lenses became 'de rigeur'. That Derby bloke Bywater now he looks and sounds like a real goalie, spends his time with other blokes wives whilst their out training rather than shifting weights and running around the training pitch like headless chicken. That's why he's up for it on match days. Get off your Rrse Kelvin and get back out there!

As we saw on Tuesday, there are many factors at work and in the end it is TEAM performance on the day that counts. On our day we can indeed beat most of this divison, on the other hand if it's not 'our day' we struggle against even the bottom clubs. I hope the new found solidity of defence was not a one-off freak occurrence, if the back line play as well on Saturday as they did on Tuesday at least we will have a basis for at least a draw. What concerns me most is how all of our younger lads and most of the older ones as well were well and truly knackered by 75 minutes on Tuesday. If those conditions prevail again - the weather forecast is not good for Saturday - then we might be totally ****ged and off the pace from the start. In which case expect a long ball afternoon, a scrappy match and probably a 0-0 or 1-1 scoreline if we're lucky. At the back of my mind is concern over the inevitable sigh of relief from our players at being out of the bottom four, if the lads go to sleep on the back of that there is a clear and present danger we'll be 2-0 down in a flash and out of it. It has to be 100% concentration from ko and I am not so sure our lads will be fit enough to do it.

'Au contraire' trousers, my friend. We should target the financially crippled clubs like Preston in the lower reaches of the CCC if our aim is to be back there next season, building for the future means better players than Division 3 can offer.

Um! We are still 12 points off which is worse than where we were about 6 weeks ago when we were 11 points adrift and Nick started getting hot flushes. Realistically, we are playing exactly on par with Millwall who this morning are running 8th, they match us every week so how will we pull back 10 points on them by season's end? My advice, don't set your sights so high as you'll be one very miserable bugger at season's end. Look forward to next year.

What a strange match. We were frustrated all night by the offside trap and couldn't beat it and they were useless and never looked like troubling our defence. With Stuart Pearce watching you'd have thought Adam would have turned on the magic but he seemed to **** it up time after time by trying too hard when the simple thing would have netted him about 4 goals. Superlative Schneiderlin, Mighty Murty, Peerless Perry and Juggler James... Wow! What stars, and Jaidi played a blinder as well. What's happened to Hammond, he seems to be all at sea since AP gave him the skip-band, now it looks like he needs a band-aid! After another woeful display of laziness and shooting incompetence amounting to grand larceny, I am convinced that Lambert is a waste of space even 'though somehow he manages to get his name on the score-sheet every week. He just isn't good enough for our team now. He was supposedly worth £1m, I'll bet Bristol Rovers have been laughing with their bank manager ever since.

Bolton, Blackburn or Wigan at SMS but not one of the BIG SEVEN and certainly not any of the crap sides we played in Division 2 last year promoted or not, we can do them over later when we've cashed in a few chips. A draw against in form WBA or Newcastle would be a bummer

Another good day at the office. The important point to remember is that we are winning on heavy pitches in rain-sodden conditions whereas or slickest football is designed for fast dry pitches. If we can win ugly repeatedly in these conditions then it should be fun when spring comes and we can knock it around a bit. SUID

Yeah! Typical Echo. Why make things up when somebody else has already done it for you?

Never mind the quality feel the width! It'll do for me for now. Well done lads!

A few weeks ago when this idea started about us reaching the play-offs, we were 11 points behind. Now, 6 or 7 games later we are 13 points behind. By any standards that is regression not progression. Forget the play-offs and look forward to maybe a top-ten finish, for which we should be grateful all things considered

Lambert just didn't seem interested yesterday, I wonder if Conolly is beginning to get to him. We saw from Conolly yesterday, how effective a striker should be and in truth Lambert has never been in that class. It seems to me that as Saints up the tempo and skill of their movement Lambert is being left behind. I fear he doesn't have it in hmi to respond in the way Conolly has either. It's not just Lambert that is poor at the moment, somehow Hammond was all at sea again yesterday as well. Why they chose him as Skip and not Murty is beyond me. Lambert, Hammond and Davis need a run in the reserves to sharpen them up... I know, I know who'd replace them?

We are not good enough for the play-offs this year. The limitations of our back four are starkly evident. In truth probably only Murty is good enough. Jaidi's age is beginning to tell, Trotman seems unreliable under pressure and Harding is an enigma somehow contriving to look better than he is, great going forward but defensively awful.

Well, not what you'd call an uneventful match, this was full-blooded end-to-end stuff that enthralled the crowd from beginning to end and would not have disgraced the premier league. It was hard to believe at times that we were watching third division football. Norwich were good, not spectacular but solid, well-organised and skillful and an odds-on bet for at least a play-off place. Saints were at their frustrating best and worst once again, at times magical at others pedestrian and awful. It is strange indeed to watch such an amalgam of sublime movement at one moment followed by sheer bloody incompetence almost immediately afterwards and moments of madness from some of our brighter stars that defy imagination and which seem not to afflict other teams. Who'd be a Saints fan? Who would not have wanted to be there on Saturday. The best match by far at SMS for many a long year. A draw was a fair result. This is our level in this league with this team. The positives to take away? The fast close-linked interplay of Schneiderlen, Lallana and Conolly, the breath-taking arogance of Antonio and the never-say-never, do-or-die, win at all cost approaches of James and Schneiderlen. The penalty, the fluffed shot-stop that led to goals? **** happens, every player has a moment, they'll get over it so will we. Don't expect promotion but please let's get away from the drop zone before Christmas. and... More games like this please!

I am beginning to wonder if Pardew has given up on this lot mentally and is ready to quit himself... Just a hunch but watch his body language on Saturday, I don't like thelook of it lately.

It's what happens when you sign other people's rejects.. Why do you think they couldn't get into their own clubs first teams and were allowed to leave. There's none so blind as those that DON'T WANT to see.

I've not been inside their ground but have driven past and it seems very easy to get to and it looks modern although small. Hartlepool is a bit dead these days but there has been some regeneration of the old docks, a bit like the original Ocean Village development and there is a very nice Italian Bistro type restaurant right on the dockside. If you are staying over, Middlesborough is the place and has some cheap B&B's and small hotels. Not at all sure about a dark, dank Tuesday night up there. We visited as a stop-over en-route to the Great North Run (1 35.30).

So is Gus Poyet the Man?

I missed this one as away on holiday. Oh Dear! It seems certain now that we will be fighting the specter of Relegation all season. On this showing, promotion is doubtless beyond us this time however fanciful our notions and ambitions had become with recent successes. Otherwise had a great holiday, lots of sun, sea and sand AND with FREE room Premiership football pretty much every day although 5 hours behind local time. Didn't fly with Flybe 'though as they don't go far beyond Eastleigh airport. Used Emirates instead... Yes, (sigh) I know... closet Gooner. But, fair do's guys, they can knock it around a bit pretty, can they not?

To say the least this is a very peculiar point of view as midfelders always operate in or around the 18 yard box; "putting the boot in" invariably leads to direct free kicks in front of goal and at just the right distance to get it up and over the wall and down again into the net. This is just what we don't need as we saw against KKD the other day. This has been one of PAUL'S biggest problems and why he is regarded as a clunky tosser. I cannot recommend you to the coaching staff either...

Not him. He was pre-war 30's guy.