Charlie Wayman

On the evidence of last week's match, he's made excellent progress. Nearly all our forward passes went to opposition players dressed in blue and white. Prediction? 0-0 again

Thanks Badger. We can't give up it's in our DNA. I am determined to hang on in there until we win the bloody First Division…...

We were a really good side in the late 1940's and unbelievably missed promotion to Division 1 three times by the narrowest of margins. Many fans thought it to be deliberate, that the board didn't want promotion for fear of having to spend big money to stay there - very much shades of today! (Nothing new in conspiracy theories). I remember particularly a match against WBA in April 1949. We had built up quite a big points lead at the top of Division 2 and looked certs to go up but we lost form on the run in and dropped to third. The WBA match was crucial, in today's terms a 'must win'. If we won we would probably have gone up. The then largest crowd ever turned up at the Dell hoping to see us triumph (30,826). Then the PA announced that Charlie Wayman our top scorer couldn't play as he was injured, a huge groan rang out around the ground. Saints played well but WBA scored midway through the first half and kept their lead until the last few minutes then out of nowhere Eric Day equalised. The Dell erupted but it was too late. The final whistle at 1-1 meant that bar a miracle Saints had missed out on promotion again. Incidentally Ted Bates played the striker role that day. There was another away game after that but we lost that anyway and ended up 1 point behind the Baggies. We missed out again in the following season. What might have been eh?

Heading should have been "Who has been the longest suffering Saints fan" My first match was v Swindon in the FACup in 1948.

Utterly ridiculous stats.

Evidently, Will Still is a very poor communicator witnessed by his painful press conferences. Is there any reason to suppose that he is any better at communicating with his players especially the more stroppy and arrogant ones. That could be part of his problem, players take little notice of him because he can't get clear messages across

First class post.

The clock is ticking certainly with some fans after a series of turgid performances against very average sides. This cannot have gone unnoticed even upstairs where management always seem to be chronically tone deaf. There is no sign yet of Saints stamping their mark on this division as many had hoped and expected including the board. My own expectations were much lower, for mid table mediocrity (14th) and so far that's how it is turning out. In fairness Still has not had much to work with up to now, our best players having bolted through the stable door as soon as the lock was clicked. It remains to be seen if we have recruited well and if Still is the right man to forge a new Southampton from the remnants of the old and the pick of the new. Probably, that gives him a free pass until Christmas but if at the end of October we are still churning out performances like today's then the flames will start rising from the embers.

Clueless bloody rubbish, if Still has a plan and a way of playing we've yet to see it. Today it looked like Sunday League kick and rush, awful and I'm surprised the booing wasn't louder at HT and FT. If this shapeless mess goes on he'll be under pressure before Christmas. For all his fauts and failures, Martin at least taught our players how to pass to one another accurately and they became quite good at. Today in the first half we seemed like a team of strangers, how in hell's name we couldn't differentiate between red shirts and blue is beyond me. Don't get me started about team selection. Robinson has been our stand-out creative player so far this season, yet he gets benched for all but ten minutes. Make sense of that if you will. Wood and Edwards cannot be worse than Stephens and Harwood Bellis on today's showing and Downes should have been hooked long before HT. Charles didn't put a foot wrong all afternoon and Fraser played his heart out. At least they rose to the occasion. Manning was Manning, busy but largely ineffective.

Still will stick with what he knows best tomorrow simply because he has not had enough time with the new players and the full squad to integrate them into a functioning collective as he likes to call it. We'll probably line up as we did last time out with five at the back and maybe the new left back in place of Manning. One or two of the newbies will be brought on after 60 mins to see what they can do in this physical league which they won't be used to. Don't expect miracles from them. For me likely 0-0 or 1-1, probably the latter as Shoehorn will almost certainly concede a silly goal.

I mis-spoke. Should have said 1948!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cwyn15619dxo

Top 5 recorded attendances at The Dell (ranked) Rank Match (competition) Date Attendance 1 Southampton v Manchester United (Division 1) 8 Oct 1969 31,044 2 Southampton v West Bromwich Albion (Division 2) 23 Apr 1949 30,586 3 Southampton v Sunderland (FA Cup) 16 Jan 1937 30,380 4 Southampton v Tottenham Hotspur (Division 2) 8 Oct 1949 30,240 5 Southampton v Swindon Town (FA Cup 5th rd) 7 Feb 1948 29,134

Withdrawn. Poor taste

Thank goodness.

He drives a vintage Porsche so must be a great guy

We have different opinions on this. I think there is a very big economic issue

That's daft!

I am aware of the growing presure for WSL teams to play at their home club Stadia, e.g Aresenal women play all their home fixtures at the Emirates, but they average 25k +/- crowds so they can probably break even on operating cost v income from gate receipts. The lure of SMS might lift attendances for Saints women to maybe 7k (?) gates but surely it will not be economically sustainabale to use SMS even then. Important fixtures for the youth sides which amount to 2/3 games per season are probably subsidised by the SFC.

Hardly making a case to play many matches at SMS.

Sorry Will but I haven't a clue what you are rabbiting on about. A peculiar post.

Well NO, some of us with longer memories and experience will recall that Pompey won Division 1 twice just after WW2 in 1948-49 and 1949-50. They were also runners up in the following year. Their midfield of Scoular, Frogatt and Dickinson drove that success and was legendary at the time. Also, in those days Saints fans could attend matches at Fratton Park without being clobbered by rival fans, indeed many locals supported both teams! We've never quite matched that achievement so credit where it is due.

It seems Still has his favourite already so expect Archer, Stephens & Fraser to start. Charles, Downes & Robinson deserve to start so only 4 outfield positions up for grabs. THB for sure, Roerslev, Jelert almost certainly so Jander or Azaz?

Nothing resentful in my judgement, Jay Robinson has come flying out of the blocks at full speed from nowhere without hype or fanfare and has taken most of us by complete surprise. He has been called up by the England Under 18 squad so it's not just us admirers saying he is a possible star in the making. With Tyler it has become difficult to make a true assessment of his real potential beacause of the inflated rhetoric that surrounds every move the lad makes. Probability is the two kids are very much on a par so their future successes may come down to oppurtunity and hard graft which is why I back Robinson.

Robinson will be the better player. He works harder, is difficult to knock off the ball when running at defences weaving his way past opposition players and he works much harder when tracking back. He also seems stronger and more robust. He could be the new Bale which will not be necessarily a good thing for us when the vultures come sniffing.