greg_hill

Both playing for Stockport today. Please close thread. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/eng_div_2/8186242.stm

Thank you so much for this :-)

This has gone on for too long now guys. This is our neighbours we are talking about, and the laughing has to stop. I've put together a tribute video to Pompey fans featuring their players, and expressing my own personal feelings over this matter. I invite Pompey and Saints fans to watch it and get some perspective:

I can't follow your logic at all. It's a well known fact that a player has to re-apply for a work permit if he changes club. So anyone who is in a position to make an offer for a professional player would be aware of this. The agent would not need to tell people the situation, they would already know how it works.

A formal application for a work permit cannot be made until a contract has been signed. Until an application has been made, nobody can know for sure if that application will be approved. The department can offer guidelines, but not individual decisions. SFC's line makes perfect sense, your conspiracy theory does not. As has already been noted, of course we are weaker than last season, we are a league lower and dealing with rebuilding after administration.

What do you mean 'anyway'? As in: "'We shouldn't bother trying to sign anyone because he won't be as good as the Millwall guy'? Well the good new for us then is that the rest of League One shouldn't even bother signing a goalie!

But what's going on with the actual takeover? Will it collapse altogether? If this guy is serious, why doesn't he give them some cash up front to avoid this fallout?

If we can sign him and by some miracle Thomas can play Vs Millwall, then we can relax, at least a little. If they can both avoid knocks for a couple of weeks while Pardew adds more names to the squad, then things will truly be looking up. People talk about the whole squad being in need f strengthening but that is a long term view. Rasiak and Saga - whilst they are here - can score goals for fun in this league. We have a great first choice goalie too. And like I said, if we sign this guy and get Thomas fit, that's three out of four areas covered in the short term. We just need some bite in midfield.

A lot of fans of other teams in the Facebook League One Group have predicted us to go up: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=21183686103&topic=9872

I think you forget that most of the other teams in L1 are as weak, or weaker than us. I call it 1 - 1

So because we have a player on trial who has not signed full time yet but probably will soon, this means our billionaire owner who tok over three weeks ago has no money? non sequitur, anyone?

I know that's a popular theory but I'm not sure I agree with it. Playing against lower level opposition and scoring more goals can automatically generate confidence in a player that can carry over when competing against stronger opposition. I've seen it myself on several occasions. If Saga or Rasiak can be picked for Poland when scoring, say, one goal in three in the CCC I don't think they will automatically be ignored if they score one in two against L1 opposition. Your opinion that: "this is exactly what the Polish manager will be thinking" is opinion presented as fact and I find someone presumptuous, especially since you don't even know the manager's name :-) Then again, it could very well be correct but I just wanted to point out your theory is not the only possibility.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who felt slightly but genuinly ticked off by that heading from the OS.

Yeh I think Saints fans and those in football were supportive of him, I was thinking more about Joe Public .

Sounds interesting and I think I'll have to order a copy of the book. What I found interesting about the DJ case was how it seemed to bring out the worst in people. So many people I knew seemed to have him down as guilty and convicted before the bloke even went to trial. Over and over again I heard people say "Why would so many people say something if it never happened?" which was totally ignorant of the way the case unfolded and of people in general. Then I remember one time I was defending DK after he was found innocent with a guy at work who still refused to accept he was innocent. The guy said: "Who will want to employ him now?" , I replied: "He's already got a job at Wolves, actually." Other guy looked at the league table and said "Yeh, but look how badly Wolves are doing!". Just goes to show how illogical and vindictive some people really are. Anyway, as I said, the book looks good. Hope I get to read it.

Remarkably pessimistic, and I can only hope you are wrong. I would guess that the club will stick to a wage structure and not break the bank just to keep someone like SJ (much as I rate him) at SMS. As someone said, surely it will come down to loyalty and a desire for 90 minutes at Saints vs higher status and wages at Palace. As for being run as a profit making company, that is not going to happen unless we get back to the EPL. I can't see that ML spent 10M+ on us just to settle for generating a few thousand every few months in L1. You say a leopard never changes its spots, but this leopard is still a cub, give it a chance! :-)

Is it just me or is the grammar on their board even worse than ours?

You can't just transfer the passion I/we have for our team to another team, it just doesn't work like that. You might want another team to win (that would be Arsenal for me) , you might 'follow' another team (Ebbsfleet for me) , you might go and watch a 'local' team (the Thai national team for me - drew with Liverpool last week) but could you really say you supported any of those teams? I would have followed whatever team rose from the ashes, whatever league they started in. If that didn't happen for any reason (though I can't see why it wouldn't) then I would just say I support Southampton, even if they no longer existed.

Most important point: Can someone tell me if the new service will be available for GNU Linux users like me? SaintsTV is Windows/Mac only. I cancelled Saints TV a year ago as the service always seemed poor, it sounds like that has not improved but hopefully this new service will be the start of something good, just like the club as a whole :-)

Yep. I myself recall giving Kevin Davies stick in his first few games. Gordon Watson got a lot of stick early on but eventually became a fan favourite. Neil Shipperly took a lot of flak. Crouch got lots of criticism in his early games for Saints, too.

I pray we keep him but I fear his latest efforts may be designed to put him in the shop window. Pardew's post match comments seem to confirm this.

I just don't believe it.

If anyone read the "Letter from Bangkok" in The Eye a few weeks back, that was written by yours truly.

I would think the first day would be mostly getting to know the squad and finding his way around in the morning, some fitness work in the afternoon. A few phone calls to agents and players in-between.

Find it hard to take you seriously mate if you judge a striker by five pre-season appearances.