The Kraken

I'm thoroughly tired of this cliche already; it's no longer relevant in any way. No excuses this season, we're underperforming (last night aside, which is eminently forgivable considering the opposition) and need to improve, quickly.

In your longing for the past you clearly haven't noticed that the modern game is evolving away from wingers who get to the byeline, in favour of players who can cut in and influence play infield with marauding full backs providing more width. Look at Man City from just this Monday night; left footed Adam Johnson playing on the right and right footed James Milner playing on the left. Roy Hodgson is one of the game's most progressive coaches, and last year had left footed Damian Duff playing on the right and right footed Simon Davies on the left. There's countless other examples; Rosicky at Arsenal; Joe Cole previously at Chelsea; Ashley Young at Villa to name just 3. There are still some teams of course that have traditional type wingers (Spurs with Lennon for instance) but it's becoming much more commonplace than you would obviously care to admit that having the out and out traditional winger who gets to the byeline and stands one up for the tall centre forward is becoming a thing of the past.

No.

Apart from the fact that we didn't score, which is a worrying trend, last night's result does not bother me at all. A good, battling and positive display against a Premier League team and a swift exit from a cup which we're never going to win or get too much benefit from. And if we came away from the night with no injuries then all the better. Time for the squad to turn these good displays into a positive win on Saturday.

Anyone else just get a really big delay for the goal? Been running really smoothly so far but had to wait 2 or 3 minutes after the goal went in before it updated itself with a number of posts.

With Russian oil money available to grease the wheels of the FIFA kickback operation, I tend to agree. Allegedly.

Think I saw on the news, they went to Wembley, then Downing Street for a meeting with Nick Clegg followed by a stay at The Dorchester. Then a helicopter trip up to see Newcastle & Sunderland (I'm assuming via more bid city locations), culminating in Manchester.

On that point we'll have to agree to disagree; I think the resources we have at our disposal in Les Reed and his team are more than adequate to make that judgement. Anyway, time will tell in terms of how quickly he settles (it does need to be quickly) and how much impact he has. I still just get the impression that you're demanding the impossible, in terms of a British type Championship CM player, and only that; Danns and Stock wouldn't come, potentially others have also declined which is why we've gone this route. As I said, if we can't get a Championship CM we have to get a top league 1 player, which just gives us another Hammond. So we may as well go this route, as although its a risk it gives us a better chance of actually getting a better player.

It wasn't included in the formal bid.

Not without knowing how much the club previously charged for ad space, and how much it charges now. Which, being as no-one knows, kind of makes it a redundant discussion in terms of revenues.

People do try though; it's just perceived that you sometimes ignore or patronise such attempts at genuine discussion to fend off or indeed further aggravate the vitriol. I've made a constructive argument why this is a good, low risk signing on the previous page (posts 479 and 494, I think), whereby I've accepted this is a higher-risk strategy than it could be but outlined reasons why we may have done the deal. Happy to hear your comments on those.

See post #8 in this thread.

Supposedly on GM's twitter. "Big dude, not very Brazilian, great seasons last yr, level is mid-table Champ IMHO

I'm not sure I prefer the risk, but I can totally understand why it's been taken. We know that AP has said he would like to bring in players from the Championship, or of Championship quality. But out of all our signings, how many have actually done that? Fonte was the flagship signing, Jaidi did it but it's looking unlikely he'd survive in the Champ right now. Butterfield came down but was just a squad player at Palace with decreasing likelihodd of game time, and will likely be the same for us. And Connolly was crocked so maybe not worth the risk to a Champ club. So other than that, we have had to "make do" with buying the best League 1 has to offer, with the likes of Hammond, Lambert, Barnard, Richardson, Dickson, Harding and Puncheon. So, assuming we can't actually attract a Championship quality player on the right terms (Danns has turned us down before, the Stock deal didn't happen for unknown reasons), the next best option is to again try and go for the best that League 1 can offer. So we get a Dean Hammond. But we've already got one of those, so what's the point in spending a good deal of money on someone who doesn't actually make us any better? Gabriel Marcotti describes Guly as Championship standard, so its a fair and unbiased view of his ability. He wants to come here. And he's on loan for the first 5 months, so it's low risk. A risk very, very worth while taking. Particular if your primary targets simply won't take the drop in division.

Given that the deal is an intial 5 month loan with the option to buy in January, I find it unlikely.

I think this attitude is probably the nub of it, to be honest. If you'd have asked me, at the start of the transfer window who I would have said the most important signings would be after filling the right back vacancy, I would have said getting in a new, strong, attacking centre midfielder. Neil Danns would be an ideal candidate for that role. That said, we tried to buy him in January when Palace were totally up the spout financially, and couldn't agree personal terms then. In other words, he either wanted far too much money than we can afford, or he wouldn't drop a division. So it's no good saying "we should sign someone like Danns" without looking at the bigger picture; they may not want to come here. So Pardew has a difficult job of either finding someone else of similar quality who will want to come, or taking a huge gamble and waiting right to the end of the transfer window to see if Danns will actually change his mind. So of course it's more of a risk to go for Guly; Pardew would be a liar if he said it wasn't. However, he clarified that by saying "we think he can handle it". Which means that Pardew and Les Reed's staff have all had a good look at him and decided he can do a very job for us. Only time will tell if he can. But the comparison with Danns is completely unrealistic if the player in question will not drop down a division; we can only obtain players who can actually be enticed to the club.

http://www.football365.com/fun/games/missingmen/0,21276,13272,00.html Saints are the "Missing Men" game on F365 today, for our 1-0 victory at the Reebok in 2001. Basically, name the Saints starting line-up of that game. I completed it in 1min 28sec I'm sure someone can top that though....

Having read the OS it seems Pardew agrees with you. In which case, I think I might get myself down to the ground tonight, I've missed all the games so far as I've been away. Hopefully Guly will get a run out so we'll get to see if he's either the next Anders Svensson or the next Marcelo Sarmiento.

I'll give you the example of Kevin Phillips, and see if you find this "dodgy". In Season 2007-08 Phillips played for West Brom in their promotion campaign to the Premier League. He won the "Championship Player of the Year" award. He also picked up Player-of-the-Year awards from both the West Bromwich Albion Supporters Club and from the club itself, after scoring 24 goals from 30 starts and finishing as the Championship's second top goalscorer. He was also named in the PFA Championship Team of the Year. When his contract with West Bromwich Albion expired at the end of the 2007–08 season, the club offered him a one-year deal, with an additional second year if he made 19 or more league appearances. Phillips rejected the offer and joined Championship club Birmingham City, signing a two-year contract on 9 July 2008. Phillips considered the best bet for hus future was to move to a club on the up, rather than go up with a team who were destined for a quick return to the lower leagues. Nothing dodgy about that, in fact perhaps something to admire.

Its neither tripe nor nonsense, just people expressing a view on a player. Waigo seems to be like marmite on here; you obviously very much like him. I for one thought he was not good enough for the first team, pretty average and frustrating out wide, a good attacking threat when playing off the shoulder of the defenders but absolutely devoid of a footballing brain hence getting caught needlessly offside so, so many times. The fact that we have not replaced him yet is the only reason (to date) I'd even contemplate having him back, and if other quotes are to believed that a new pacy striker is on the way I shan't miss him at all. Just an opinion of course; neither right, wrong, or tripe.

How? The pitchside advertising is predominantly aimed at the supporters who attend the game, plus for televised games. Saints home games are on the BBC Football League programme every other week stilll, which is the media that pitchside advertisers will be hoping to exploit. Pictures of Saints game are very, very rarely used in the national papers at this level and when they are the probability of pitchside advertising appearing in them is not very high. OK, having extensive pictures in the Echo may lose a propensity of possibility of advertising space but not significantly so, again for the low probability of an advertising board actually appearing in print.

As I've said before, I'm perfectly happy with the Cortese link; as long as it continues to utilise the support of Les Reed and his team, and with the input of the manager, prior to the signing. I feel confident that will have been the case here, but I never believed it to be true in the case of Waigo's arrival. I look forward to hearing about more (potentially) new signings coming up.

If Pulis got run out of SFC I'd be a happier man

You see, I just don't understand this thinking that we MUST think he's rubbish if it's only on loan at first. Did we think that when we got Rasiak on loan with an option to purchase? Waigo was also a loan with an option to buy, which we have seemingly passed up, therefore we've obviously benefitted from such an arrangement despite someone at the club clearly believing it was worth the gamble. Loads of other clubs take this option, as it just makes so much more business sense to do so. It doesn't mean that the club has any less confidence that it will be a good signing, simply that they are inserting an insurance method into the deal.

I've said on that post, I don't really care too much how exactly we sign the players; whether its the manager's original spot, the scouts recommendation, Cortese's link, the tea boy making a suggestion, whatever; so long as the manager wants the player and is party to club discussions prior to the signing, its utterly not important in my eyes. Continental clubs have long operated whereby the manager is only part of a team to bring in players. Where that falls down is the Real Madrid approach where the manager seemingly has no say and the President and his mates make the choices; I don't think we have that here. I think we have a decent approach to new signings; and I think AP has been much more involved with this one than he was with Papa.