The Kraken

The fact that, even on here, fans were effectively having the thumbscrews put on for not wanting to contribute to the collections was for me the most distasteful thing of this whole shameful episode.

Thank God, another thread to tell us there's no news yet...

My F5 button is close to being worn out.

4. Left the club and never came back. *prays*

Its what the law should be, but sadly isn't. Its all too easy for directors to run the company into the ground leaving a trail of debts, shut down the company and buy it back at reduced price minus all the debts (and staff), and carry on trading as before. Regulations against this just aren't, IMO, tough enough to prevent this.

So you want the council to bail us out by providing a huge cash windfall to buy the stadium, and then forego any possibility of financial return from any extra events so that Saints can earn some extra income instead?? Yep, I can see Southampton City Council voting for that......

Barnsley 1 up. Great.

Did it last year, found it pretty dull. Aside from the historic dockyards, Pompey is a featureless sh1thole to have to run through. Poor weather didn't help either.

Of course not, the article is written by Charles Sale.

Cork, pictured, explained: “I always had my options open over what was going to happen in January and I was stuck between whether to stay at Southampton or come to Watford. “But Watford seemed a lot keener than Southampton were on keeping me. “Southampton said they wanted to keep me and I made some good friends there, so it was a hard choice because everyone at Southampton was good to me. “But it came down to how much Watford wanted me.” I may be completely wrong, but this reads as if Watford were able to offer a better financial package to him. With it being a loan I don't know if that's possible, but doesn't seem to add up that we say we want to re-sign him, then he decides we don't want him enough. Maybe Watford just offered to blow up more balloons and hang some fancy bunting for his arrival there.

Today seemed typical of everything I've seen of Saints this season. We showed a few nice touches early on, had a fair bit of the play and a few good moves without really creating any clear cut opportunities. We then concede a goal, and completely implode. The first goal, while offside, was easily preventable, it was just atrocious defending. The red card was probably fair enough in itself for the challenge, but was from a completely needless tackle. And while I don't think it was a penalty for McGoldrick's "handball", it again was unnecessary for him to jump with his arm in the air and give Riley the excuse to give his heroes a penalty. We need to cut out the stupid errors before we'll progress.

Gordon Arms, Portswood. (It helps that its my local....)

Yep, pretty much agree with that. James was a deer in the headlights last night, obviously has some talent but isn't ready for the step up yet. In the first half he seemed to be nowhere near their winger, then in the second half every pass he hit seemed to go straight back to them. Surman; I thought he looked excellent going forwards, but not great defensively. he's a big miss in midfield, playing Dyer there just doesn't work. My biggest worry is Jan's non-stop persistence with the 4-2-1-2-1 formation, which is essentially just a 4-5-1. Away from home, when we're trying to keep it tight, I think it'll work quite well and lets us hit at pace on the break. But at home, last night I thought Stern John (as poor as he was) was crying out to have a strike partner up with him to get in behind the defence. We play some nice stuff, but just don't look threatening or direct enough, our pretty play is in the wrong areas and really doesn't get us anywhere. I'd really like to either see two up front, or Lallana playing in a much more advanced role just off the striker. Last night he got lost in the central midfield battle.

Our centre-backs are: Svensson - very experienced, though obviously a massive injury worry Perry - 35, very experienced. Thomas - 29, experienced old head. Cork - youngster but made a significant number of appearances at this level. Not many teams will have more than 4 recognised centre-halves they can call on, and that's ignoring the fact that Wotton started his career as a centre-back, and the younger kids who are available. Even if you discount Svensson, Perry and Thomas would surely be counted as experienced in position. I'm not sure I understand exactly how many of these players you think we need.

The optimistic choice is f) wait for it to become clear to them that their performances have been sub-standard and therefore put their chances of a move onwards out of the question, and hope they double their effort on the pitch to put themselves in the shop window. Sadly, I think the realistic choice is b)

A very realistic, if slightly disappointing, view on things. Totally agree.

I think that while it is a revelation to see us playing such good football, we shouldn't forget that our team can also mix it up a bit and get stuck in. It was good to see Gillett especially harrassing anyone in sight, and getting fully stuck into Lee Carsley on occasion. Holmes and Lallana also seemed more than happy to put a foot in on occasions last night. You can see that Carsley really makes Brum tick and all of our midfield were excellent in shutting him down to give him no time on the ball.

He definitely can't play against us. My mate works for Watford and put the deal together and has confirmed it.

Aside from outside investment, what other choice do we have? Costs have to be cut enormously, that's the reality of the situation. Success this season means staying in business and avoiding relegation; its a sh!te situation to be in, but its the reality of 2 years of overspending.

What a waste of my 3 posts for today! And this time, actually with the link. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A23301299

This is the article...

Most people last year selected Hull to struggle; this article on bbc 606 had them down to be relegated. Remind where Hull are this year..... Predictions at this time of year are completely to be taken with a pinch of salt. According to most media outlets we were supposed to mount a promotion push last season.

Sorry, but I couldn't disagree more with this. Of course there will be a contingency to open up the corners, its not a huge logistical effort at all, just a case of providing more staff on matchday. There's no way Rupert or SFC will want to be in a position of turning away fee paying customers, so I just can't believe this will not have been considered.