jam

Are you sure that's the case? I thought he was more critical of Fry - the way they seemed to get bounced for Pinnacle - rather than Matt himself...

Contract ran out.

That would have required upping the capacity of the West Stand by 6,000. Can't imagine the people in the flats next door going for that.

I want to give NC a big slice of benefit of the doubt here as that quote just seems like it's been trimmed down for effect. I can imagine him mentioning LM and MLT before going on to talk about freebies but would be surprised if he directly insinuated that they had fallen out for purely that reason.

Nice and timely example of quotes being blown out of all proportion... From the BBC: Linking to this article in the Mirror: http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Southampton-are-good-enough-for-the-Champions-League-claims-defender-Jos-Hooiveld-article803372.html

I remember all the moaning...

Has Nick Clegg been cut out of that picture?

Especially as it costs a tenner in petrol to drive from Southampton to Basingrad and back...

I think there are plenty of sensitive souls on our side who took it all too seriously too (like they did with BHA).

Mitchell was trying to win the fans over by having a dig at "Billy big balls Southampton", like he did last year. It's a bit funny how much it backfired on him.

From the Warnock hoo-haa I got the impression that we just weren't that keen on Gorkss for the price. I wonder how much they wanted to charge us for him...

Who's the really good young CB we could have got for £1.8m?

Some links from The Football LEague Show: Match (as the YouTube link above - no Adkins reaction): http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b014sqy5/?t=17m58shttp://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b014sqy5/?t=17m58s Claridge on Lambert: http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b014sqy5/?t=24m43s Apologies if posted and missed..

It would have unravelled if Howe had stayed. I guess if Howe only learned one thing from 'Arry when at Portsmouth it was when to jump.

A purely speculative response... The harm it could do is that we have a policy of signing fairly young players who see moving to Southampton as a step up and know that they will have to earn their place in the first eleven. Signing BT, who has played most of his career at a higher level and was a star here before any of our current players arrived, could potentially upset the whole squad dynamic. Lambert has been exemplary since he arrived. Would BT be happy to sign one the condition that he'd have to wait for his chance to start?

Hope Morgan will be given licence to play a more attacking role.

Sadly I agree. Sadly I also think that while most of us would agree on the symptoms, there would be strong and heated disagreement on the causes.

Your post could start a thread in itself. Genuine question: Is violent crime becoming more commonplace or is more often reported (to the police and in the media) now? Is there just a continual decline of behaviour from the previous generation? (as in, kids go through their teens hearing about rucks and suchlike which were maybe extremely uncommon but believe that they are the norm). Maybe the fact that that from the top to bottom of our society there is a disrespect for authority and a feeling that the law is for other people means that different people break the law in their own different ways.

Agree with that - he didn't do himself any favours by being so defensive and constantly referring to Bournemouth as 'you'. If he can't manage to do that then he'd be better off not doing events like that in the future. A (small) part of me does sympathise with him in terms of departures. It seems (from a distance) like there has been a mass exodus of players following Howe out of the door and Mitchell + Bradbury have been left to take the flak.

Good way to criminalise someone for life too.

True. Then again saying strange / stupid things seems to be a common trait amongst commentators at the mo...

Clive Tyldesley? Joking aside, if he did say that to you then that's pretty sad...

To whom..?

A strategy that worked for Pardew...

I think Pardew deserves some credit for the attitude of the squad as he signed good players with good attitudes. That said, I think Adkins is a very smart manager. Last season he got the team doing enough to win games and then snuff them out. We were also playing some good and clever football. I've not got a season ticket this year but I think we're in for a real treat. Edit; sorry, took ages to post this - s-clarke's got there ahead of me.