RobM

Can't your sources within the club get you a season ticket, since you're so ITK and well connected.

Coming from the most old-school, back-handed manager that says a lot.

The look on his face says: "Who is this man?"

This. 100% this.

Then you would have walked away from a big fat payoff. Being sacked will do Adkins future career prospects no harm at all, in fact it may help them since he was on the up and can rightly feel hard done by, so it's not like there is any shame to it. Waiting until Cortese pushed him means he would have been paid off. Walking away earlier would have sacrificed that. It would have also left is in the lurch with no manager for the Chelsea game (plus others, perhaps). Sadly, that's how football works these days.

We weren't doing terribly when Pardew was sacked and a less experienced but highly rated young manager came in. We were starting to make progress. Sounds similar to now really. I'll wait to see whether it's the right or wrong decision, only time will answer that.

Forums are about opinions, opinions are formed emotionally as well as factually or practically, everything here is valid if that's the opinion of the person who posted it. I'm reserving judgement on the new man until the end of the season. We gave Adkins half a season (just over) and he got us to safety. Newbie has the remainder to show us what he can do with the squad. A squad, incidentally, he doesn't think needs any additions in this transfer window. That's a brave statement. Giving the newbie time before making a judgement doesn't mean I'm not ****ed off at the decision to sack Adkins though.

Surprised at the timing, surprised that the replacement has less Prem experience than the man he replaces, surprised the new man doesn't speak English yet is being thrown straight into thing but sadly, it's not really surprising that NC has done this again. Not at all surprised that the forum tossers are now out in force telling us all how they knew this would happen because they are so ITK. You knew **** all, or you'd have posted it. Shut up.

An excellent man manager, who doesn't speak English. ****ing fantastic.

Stupid. Just stupid.

Ramirez has been consistently average, if not poor, when played in that position. Guly at least gets about, helps out defensively and pops the odd cross in. IMO Ramierz only works for us in the hole, with a more free role to roam. He doesn't work on the left. More importantly, this shows how weak we are in that position if we have to fight it out between Guly and playing Ramirez there when Adam is out.

I don't think this is likely. Adkins has never been afraid to drop our most popular names if he thinks it's the right thing to do and Adam is no exception. He dropped Rickie and Gaston last night, he dropped Rickie for the Man City game... if he thinks he is doing the right thing, the opinion of fans won't come into it.

Punch has been one of our best performers this season, no doubt about it. He has the ability to hold the ball well, but also to score some wonderful goals too. I just wish he had a few more ideas about him, rather than break down the right, cut into middle, get tackled, repeat. When it works it's a joy, but more often than not we lose it at that point. It might be because of the calibre of player in and around the penalty area of late, but a few more ideas wouldn't go amiss.

****ing Ramirez and his ****ing messing around with the ball and trying to be clever. It'll cost us big one day. Chelsea will take it and break in an instant.

My opinion on Fox is well known, but the thought of getting shot of him without a better quality replacement being in-place worries me. We have very few LB's that we can rely on, so one injury means taking another player out of positioning and weakening two places. A poor LB for cover is better than no LB for cover at all.

I never once thought he lacked pace today, he was at worst a match for AV's defenders but usually had a yard on them. He put in a great shift today, a very good performance.

Jos should get a mention today too, he stood in well for Fonte. Not amazing, but solid enough to make up for previous games.

That was one of the best yet worst games I've witnessed. We dominated the first half and couldn't make it count, hung on for dear life in the second, got a penalty we shouldn't have, Boruc kept us in it (which is great, but never a good sign!) and still came away with what may be the most important 3-points of the season.

He has, he has been awful at times and looked like catching was impossible for him, but he has gotten better with every single game so far.

Agreed, a couple of dodgy moments where he should have held the ball but fumbled it, but by far the best performance from Boruc in a Saints shirt and those few moments were well outweighed by the fact he kept us in it today. Some really brave moments too, putting himself where he could get hurt.

You can imagine what Adkins said to JRod - Don't do that, don't play like that, don't cheat, don't dive, but fu**ing well done son.

De Ridder really is a liability

That one save alone has turned my opinion of Boruc around.

Why is Lambert playing as a RM at the moment?

100% what I was thinking.