CHAPEL END CHARLIE

Looks pretty average on the whole - talk of playing of Arsenal etc is just pie in the sky at the moment .

Good fun but I hope you lot realise the odds for accurately predicting this many football results must be astronomical - we should come back to this in May and see if anybody was even close to getting it right .

http://new.edp24.co.uk/content/sport/commentary/NeilDoncaster.aspx?brand=EDPOnline&category=NeilDoncaster&tBrand=EDPOnline&tCategory=NeilDoncaster&itemid=NOED05%20Mar%202009%2000%3A32%3A26%3A380 In total SFC has paid around £1.75m to football agents over the last 3 years , most of it in 2006 when Skacel , Davis , Viafara . Rasiak ...etc signed . 2006 - £1.1m 2007 - £350k 2008 - £300k That's the price of doing business in the the modern game I suppose but I can't help thinking that £1.7m could have got us a pretty good player or made a sizeable dent in the overdraft .

Perfectly correct . Saganowski signed a 3 year contract in July 2007 , which would see him here until the end of the 2009/10 season . http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/news/?page_id=8652 Skacel signed a 4 year contract in July 2006 , which would also see him out of contract at the end of the 2009/10 season . http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/news/?page_id=7240

At the moment I wouldn't swap Wotte for any of the other possibles , but hindsight's a wonderful thing isn't it and I'd have given you a different answer a few weeks ago . When Nigel Pearson first arrived at SFC I wasn't very impressed to be honest but he won me round in time and I now hold him in the highest possible regard . Mark Wotte will certainly find a similar place in the affections of Saints fans if he keeps us playing like we are at the moment - as ever time will tell .

The Saints winning football games is like waiting to catch a bus - nothing happens for ages and then 3 come along at the same time . I'd like to point out that however good he gets I shall continue to refer to Jason Euell as 'The Mule' , although I now claim I mean it in the affectionate sense obviously .

Although it's a matter of academic interest only I thought DMG's pen was eminately saveable , he struck it well enough but the ball was nowhere near the corner of the goal - had the keeper guessed correctly and dived to his left he'd had easily got it .

Although it's a matter of academic interest only I thought DMG's pen was eminately saveable , he struck it well enough but the ball was nowhere near the corner of the goal - had the keeper guessed correctly and dived to his left he'd had easily got it .

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7921906.stm We don't really know the full facts but young soldiers returning home from war zones often do suffer psychologically from their experiences , all we can do is wish him well and hope he makes as full a recovery as possible .

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7921906.stm We don't really know the full facts but young soldiers returning home from war zones often do suffer psychologically from their experiences , all we can do is wish him well and hope he makes as full a recovery as possible .

We've all made sacrifices for the club but surely this is going too far : http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/article2287165.ece Even Glenn Hoddle didn't go that far

Still in limbo I see : http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/b/bournemouth/7919505.stm

I'm all in favour of a interesting piece of revisionist history every now and then but there are limits . Let's just get this crystal clear right now - if (big 'IF') we do stay up this season it will IN SPITE OF rather than because of the abysmal decision making emanating from the Boardroom . Rupert Lowe football genius ? - I think not .

Absolutly , I had him down as man of the match - and I don't even like him !

This strikes me as a correct appraisal of what happened last summer . To summarise the Youth/Reserve team is seen as more important than the 1st team - hence the more senior coach (Wotte) gets to work with academy players while the junior coach (Poortvleit) runs the less important 1st team Anyone with 5 minutes experience of the game or indeed a shred of common sense should comprehend that in the highly competitive world of English football the success of the 1st team is all important to the survival of the club , long term planning is all well and good but in the long term we're all dead - or in this case the football equivalent of death - relegated . We were in a survival fight from day one this season , trying to reinvent the English game rather than concentrating on the next match may still cost us dearly , the blame for this lies in the Boardroom . If you can't understand that the 1st team gets first call on all the available talent , money & resources at the clubs disposal then you really shouldn't be in charge of a pub side let alone a grand old football club such as SFC .

I saw the incident , a group of Cardiff fans were courageously ganging up on one foolishly gobby saints fan near that pub just up the road - the old bill got between them and 'advised' in no uncertain terms the Saints fan to leave the area immediately . No harm done as far as I could see but it could have turned nasty without the boys in blue .

The way all the teams at the bottom are picking up points I reckon that 45 point total of yours may not be quite enough .

I was right behind it and it was as good a save as I've seen in years , for a big man (not in the first flush of youth either) the speed of his reactions are extraordinary .

My ratings for Saints v Cardiff City - 1-0 home win K Davis 8 - Beyond any criticism today he made 2 top class saves on the half hour , the best keeper in the CCC ? L James 7 - Finding his feet in the 1st team now he's doing all right without being great TBH . JPS 7.5 - As important a reinforcement as Saganowski , the big no nonsense defender every side needs . C Perry 7.5 - He's not quick he's not big , but years of experience and the ability to read the game make him an automatic selection . R Skacel 7.5 - Good player another good game , outstanding stamina may not his strongest asset though . S Gillett 7 - Honest lad gives it everything he's got , not brilliant technically but well worth his place . A Lallana 7 - Classy young player well capable of damaging the opposition when given the space/time to do so . A Surman 7.5 - I wouldn't say he bosses the midfield but he's not a million miles off that standard , another good game . DMG 8 - Has taken to his new midfield role like a duck to water , super performance he ran himself into the ground for the team , brave enough to ask for and score the vital penalty - well done David . M Saganowski 7.5 - No goal today but still easily our most likely scorer - our survival prospects almost certainly rest on his shoulders . J 'The Mule' Euell -8.5 MOTM - I've been one of his harshest critics but today he was magnificent . You'd never know he's nearing the end of his time here or that he's not really a 'target man' like Stern John - loads of experience & total commitment he was just brilliant today . Substitutes : M Schneiderlin 6 - Struggled to make much of a impact as Lallana's replacement . BWP 7 - On for the exhausted DMG he put in a decent effort and looked dangerous at times . Z Liptak - Late sub . Conclusion : The more I see of the game the more convinced I am that at heart football is a simple game , the difficulty is finding people smart enough to realise its inherent simplicity and not to over complicate things . In Mark Wotte we may have found a coach clever enough to get the basics right - play your best players in a straight forward formation , get them to play as a team and surprise surprise you start to look like a decent outfit . Make no mistake we were good value for the 3 points today against a good CCFC side that may well make the play-offs . Wotte's been lucky to have players like Saga and JPS available that his predecessor didn't but I see no good reason to deny him the credit for the teams obvious improvement . Let's hope it's not all too late but at least we have a 'Puncher's Chance' of staying up now - and I never thought I'd be saying that 2 weels ago . Comedy Moments - The Steward who told a fan not to take a photo of the pitch during half time - "because the camera has a lens" + Cardiff's Greek goalkeeper with a name so long it hardly fitted on his shirt !

Well said that man . The game as we know it is a house of cards , the 'Credit Crunch' may well be the wind that blows that house down . The concentration of TV money in the Premier League and the obscene wages being payed to its players is akin to a form of corruption . The game is being destroyed by greed and the ruthless self interest of the strongest clubs - when as a result they finally bury most of the Football League 'Sky Sports' will be named as the cause of death . The case for a wage cap is both obvious and undeniable , but it probably won't happen because Premier League and CCC clubs with a parachute payment would lose a competitive advantage over less fortunate clubs - another sorry example of TV money eroding British football from within . Any Darwin enthusiasts out there will no doubt argue that evolution requires that the strong will survive and the weak must perish , those with of love of the games history may well adopt a differing point of view .

We have a "50/50 chance of entering Administration within a fortnight" according to this : http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/football-league/crunch-time-for-the-havenots-1634176.html Yikes !

Newsflash................... Football Agent caught on camera leaving St Mary's last night .

All those 'free' transfers may not be quite as free as we thought : http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/sport/Pilgrims-paid-144-000-agents-month-period/article-731334-detail/article.html Par for the course I suppose but still a lot of money for a club that had to sack the kit man to save a few quid .

I propose a parliamentary vote of no confidence in the following : Michael Wilde The Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP F***ing Merchant Bankers Fred Dinage The Wheel Bearings on my Nissan Primera My Boss Teenage Dance 'Music' Reality TV :mad: Bradly Bloody Wright Bloody Phillips The M271 Argentina Rupert Lowe - and the horse he rode in on Referees Terry Wogan The chap who designed the undercarriage on the Short Stirling MkI 'Eli' from the movie 'There will be blood' Robbie Williams BMW drivers Michael Howard QC People who didn't watch 'Dexter' last night And anybody else who annoys me today

We don't like them and they really hate us seems to be the best way to summarise the relationship in general - rather like the Scots hold a much bigger grudge against the English than vice versa . I take that as a back-handed compliment as this jealousy exposes a recognition of Southampton's - both club & city - greater level of success in the post war period (SFC's current difficulties not withstanding ) . I can't see it changing much in the foreseeable future which is a shame as although there's nothing wrong with sporting rivalry some people (from both sides) take it wayyyyyy too far .