Graffito

Recall he was asked about England in an interview recently and said no I am French.

Didn't notice it live but saw it on Motd where someone said he might get into trouble for that one (wiping his @rse).

He's been great recently. Talking to a Polish football fan recently who said he'd lost it, not ability but in his head. Well somebody has sorted his head out if that's the case. A real bonus for Saints.

Well played Danny, especially as he didn't always have the best of cover in front of him.

He was cr@p and his linesmen kept giving offsides against Saints that weren't.

Think you've fallen out of context. You need to be in p1sstake mode.

Did Lineacre say we were 16 points above the relegation zone? What more evidence do you need that they're taking the p1ss.

Fair play to you for coming on and admitting it and you are not the only one that didn't rate him, like to hear from Derry for example, but Morgan's quality has been evident from day one.

England beckons. Motm closely followed by Morgan ans Rickie.

Here's a well informed article by Alan Smith writing in the Independent. Manchester City face tough task as Mauricio Pochettino has Southampton players marching to his tune You cannot say it has been a bad start for Southampton’s new manager, Mauricio Pochettino. Two draws, against Everton and Wigan Athletic, flank an impressive performance in narrowly losing at Manchester United. Sir Alex Ferguson, in fact, went so far as to say that in the second half the visitors were “the best team we’ve seen here this season”. Instant impact: Mauricio Pochettino has impressed since taking over from Nigel Adkins at Southampton Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES By Alan Smith11:00PM GMT 08 Feb 2013Comment High praise indeed for a side battling against relegation, a side coming to terms with Pochettino’s methods following the harsh sacking of Nigel Adkins. When things like that happen, people talk about players being upset and maybe going to the owner to protest at the decision. In reality, they tend to just get on with it. These things happen in football and, to put it bluntly, it is every man for himself, as it is in many walks of life. The players have got to look after themselves. They have got to be single-minded by forgetting about Adkins and concentrating instead on the new man’s demands, otherwise their own prospects will take a hit. As it happens, the Southampton lads seem to have taken to Pochettino pretty well. The Argentine might not speak much English but, judging by recent displays, he appears to have got his message across without any problem. As a result, confidence should be fairly high going into the home match against Manchester City on Saturday evening. One obvious change is the new man’s preference for pressing opponents high up the pitch. He did it against United and again at Wigan in a match Southampton really should have won. By pinning them back, Pochettino wants to stop the other team from passing the ball under no pressure, even though it is in areas regarded as harmless. But those areas are not harmless if you win back possession. You can quickly strike at the heart of a team having committed men forward in decent numbers. It is certainly a brave policy and also a risky one should the opposition be good enough to bypass that press. You can easily end up with several players out of the game. Yet the tactic worked well against United, so may be used again when City come to town. With Jay Rodriguez pushing on to Pablo Zabaleta, Jason Puncheon doing the same to Gaël Clichy and Gastón Ramírez helping Rickie Lambert to close down City’s centre-halves, Southampton will hope to stop the visitors building from the back. Under these circumstances, Jack Cork and the ever-improving Morgan Schneiderlin become very important because, as the team’s central midfielders, they are responsible for holding the fort, for keeping an eye on the movement of Yaya Touré, David Silva and James Milner when City do work the ball past the initial press. On top of that, Pochettino will be hoping that his side can defend corners much better than of late. Wigan scored both their goals from this avenue when Maya Yoshida and Jos Hooiveld got caught underneath the ball to lose the header. In addition, there seems to be a bit of uncertainty as to whether someone guards a post. Goalkeeper Artur Boruc did not have either covered for Wigan’s first goal when Gary Caldwell found the gap at the front post. That is Boruc’s prerogative. It is the keeper’s decision. In response, though, it looked like Boruc changed his mind afterwards, because for Wigan’s very late equaliser Luke Shaw stood on the near post. Unfortunately for Southampton, the youngster was slow to push out when everyone else did after the initial header, playing goalscorer Shaun Maloney onside. Listening to Pochettino this week, it sounds as if they will have worked on their organisation at corners in readiness for the champions, a very threatening team in the air when Vincent Kompany and Yaya Touré are around. On a more positive note, Saints do have several players in form. Boruc, for one, is pulling off some excellent saves to make the position his own after the previous chopping and changing, while Lambert continues to prove what an intelligent striker he is, not just through his goals but with his overall game. It was Lambert, in fact, who came off the bench to equalise for Southampton in their opening day defeat at the Etihad. An awful lot has happened since then, including the appointment of a new manager. And if they keep playing like this, Pochettino’s first win cannot be far away.

Quite witty for you.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/saint-or-sinner-nicola-cortese-drives-southampton-on-8488069.html Evidently he's upped his PR game.

He is engaged in a bitter dispute with Southampton’s greatest footballer, embroiled in litigation with another former player, has fired two popular managers, banned the local paper, sacked long-serving programme-sellers and increased ticket prices. So, what was the result when Southampton fans were polled for their opinion on executive chairman Nicola Cortese? Ninety per cent backed him. Full article: http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/saint-or-sinner-nicola-cortese-drives-southampton-on-8488069.html

Ok, well perhaps Morph will clear that up and if so there have been private shareholders with whom we have been in safer hands but I would point to the fact that the reverse takeover was allowed to happen. The point is, even in the best of times for the vast majority of us it hasn't been our club.

You say Leon Crouch, I say Michael "COYR" Wilde. Was he a Saints fan? No wish to rake over old ground but the ordinary fans being shareholders means nothing because they control fck all. Most of us own scores of companies in the sense of being shareholders because we have pension plans or we have other investments. We have no effective control over those companies. As for the skates, fair play to them in going for fan ownership.

And the majority of whom were not shareholders taking a dividend from the club. Look, the fans have never owned the club.

When did the fans ever own the club?

Nice that most of the article covers Saints rather than City. He says some nice things about Saints as you'd expect from Kevin Keegan and makes some pertinent points though I'm not sure about this: Nigel has got an impressive CV now and he hasn't done it with lorryloads of cash - the achievement of delivering Premier League football on a relatively low budget will make him an attractive proposition to may chairmen. The article is probably ghostwritten. And what's this about the donkeys of the New Forest?

Why not, you bleat about everything else.

Blog in the Guardian "Pochettino can prove himself against champions" as below. Note; double training sessions for fitness, players convinced by Barca trip that Pochettino is big time. "You don't know what you're doing" is one of the most frequent taunts directed by supporters at referees, managers, directors and anyone else whose decisions meet popular disapproval. Oddly, you never hear crowds follow that up a while later with the admittedly less-catchy chant of: "Actually, sorry about that, it appears you do know what you're doing." Perhaps Southampton fans will be the first? Then again, perhaps not. But what is clear is that three weeks and three matches after the hugely contentious sacking of Nigel Adkins, the club's new manager, Mauricio Pochettino, is winning admirers. Now all he has to do for the decision to hire him to be vindicated is, well, win matches. There are signs that his team will start doing that soon, perhaps even on Saturday against Manchester City. Pochettino's team have already given the other Manchester side a mighty scare. In Pochettino's second match in charge, Southampton outplayed United for long periods, finishing the match with 57% of the possession and twice as many shots as the hosts – but as 2-1 losers. Sir Alex Ferguson said afterwards that Southampton were the best opponents that his team have faced at Old Trafford this season. Wigan Athletic players expressed similar sentiments after scraping a 2-2 draw at the DW Stadium last weekend. So what has he changed? The first part of the answer to that is: not that much, because not all that much needed changing at Southampton. The team had played quite well all season and the defensive problems that undermined their fine, attacking play early on in the campaign were already being eradicated under Adkins as he and the players adapted to the Premier League while retaining the qualities that had helped them achieve two promotions in two season. So there has been no transformation. But there have been tweaks that have made a positive impact. The Argentinian speaks only sketchy English but has had no problem conveying his message, partially because all three of the coaches he brought with him speak English fluently and partially because his message is not that complicated. The main change he has made is to make the team more aggressive without the ball, encouraging them to harass the other team into coughing it up as close to the opposing goal as possible and then, with the opposition ragged, Southampton are to use their forward flair to quickly take advantage. "Our style of play is to win back the ball as soon as possible and then play it," explains the Argentinian. "We moved forward our lines and play more upfield. When we lose the ball we must have the mentality of winning it back as soon as possible." That is how Espanyol played during the three and a half years for which Pochettino kept the club higher than their resources should have permitted, earning the admiration for his tactics from Pep Guardiola among others, before the consequences of continually selling their best players finally caught up with them. Espanyol players nicknamed him "The Sheriff" and used to talk of training sessions that were fiercely "intense" yet "fun". Southampton players have expressed the same view, which is just as well, as Pochettino has treated them to double sessions since his arrival. It is simply fitness work – but, in fact, Pochettino has no quibble with the level of fitness that he found and so far the focus has been on ensuring there is a solid structure to the way the team press. "It may seem like we are running more," he says. "But really we are just running in a more organised way." One player who certainly looks like he runs more is Morgan Schneiderlin. The central midfielder has always been a dynamo and has made more tackles and interceptions this term than any other player, but under Pochettino he, like the full-backs, has also been ordered to attack more, a mission that is, of course, easier to accomplish if Southampton win the ball high up the pitch. His goal against Wigan, when he sprinted 50 yards forward before slamming in Gaston Ramirez's cross from close range, could become a regular feature. "I like midfielders who cover a lot of ground and go into the opposing team areas," says Pochettino. "We ask players to do what they are capable of doing and both Jack [Cork] and Morgan have a great capacity in that respect so we ask them to use it." With Adam Lallana now sufficiently recovered from injury to challenge for a starting position, City are in for a serious test. They are the sort of team that Southampton aspire to beating on a regular basis. Executive chairman Nicolas Cortese is unashamedly demanding with his targets and envisages achieving more than mere survival in the Premier League. To him the dismissal of Adkins is a reasonable form of ruthlessness, since he believes that while Adkins may have kept the team up, Pochettino can take them higher. The new manager helped embed that notion before the United match when he took the squad to work out at Barcelona's training ground for a few days. Premier League players may have more wealth than they can dream of, but using the same facilities as Lionel Messi and Co. is one way they can still be wowed. It is clear from talking to Saints players that the experience helped persuade them that their manager is big time. They need to start winning to convince everyone else that he came at the right time.

Agree but for Gerrard.

It goes badly wrong if you appoint the wrong manager (or sack the right one).

We sing One Harry Redknapp. He turns, he smiles, he waves....he gets 29 thousand w@nker signals.

You can"t not tell us now after that big build up.

England's loss is Saints' gain.