St_Tel49

Wild speculation

Actually, I think that some of the League 1 sides I have seen this year have not been much worse, if worse at all, that many of the sides we met last year. Only the top few championship sides would consistently beat a lot of League 1 sides IMHO.

Ssssh, don't tell anyone on here that - you'll ruin our self esteem ;-)

I absolutely agree. As usual - one (me) should read the entire post before commenting ;-)

You can sell him for £2m if you want to but I don't think that AP or many other Saints fans will right now. You wouldn't replace him for that. EDIT: although reading on I see the point you are making. However, I don't really think that it is in AP's mind to let people go who he thinks can perform for us on a higher stage. I include Lallana, Schneiderlin and his recent acquisitions in this. What AP has done so well has been to take the players who have evident talent such as these and got them to start delivering on that talent. I don't think he is doing that as a money raising exercise.

Well said!

To be fair Phil I don't think that Surman was given any choice. If the takeover had been a couple of weeks earlier I suspect he would still be here.

He was always good mate, its just that some just couldn't see it. Neither he nor Morgan were properly used until AP came along.

Am I allowed to say that I think that we have finally bottomed out. The only way is up :-)

That is merely an opinion - you don't KNOW that it is which is the point of my post.

I would be careful about equating the representativeness of this forum with that of a political poll. The latter is based on very careful sampling techiques designed to ensure representativeness whereas our sample is self selecting. Furthermore there are certain posters on here who post many, many more times that others and hence their opinions are more frequently expressed. This board's opinions MIGHT be representative but there is no real guarantee that they are. The polls are the nearest we get to representativeness of an opinion

I can understand why people might suggest sacking Pardew but I think that they are profoundly wrong. Pardew took over a team that developed throwing away leads into an art form. They lost belief in their ability to win in my opinion. We still have a lot of those players and that mental fragility is still evident - as is the actual physical ability of those players. The latter is the reason why AP believes in them but turning around the psychological weakness is his biggest battle and its one that no incoming manager would be any more likely to fix IMHO bearing in mind thay cannot sign anyone new.

I don't think that NC is a short-termist. If he thinks AP's long term plan is right he will stick with him.

H'mmm - he was out of work and someone waved mega mega bucks in front of him but, as you know SGE, was always one to work for the love of it and the money never entered into it. But, you know, he has Nancy to maintain.

Yep - their players were so sh1t I would have been happy to see half of them in our team.

+ 1

What exactly did Saga contribute?

Yep - he took his goal well but why the hell was he allowed to get the shot off. It was perfectly defendable. Nevertheless, while the final result was gash, there were periods in the game where we had them chasing shadows. I felt that if we had got the third goal they would have collapsed. Instead we conceded and lost our bottle instead. On the balance of play the draw would probably have been fair. But there is a mental fragility in this team that needs to be addressed urgently.

I suspect that managers are contractually obligated to talk to the press. Every week they have to say something whether they want to or not. My guess is that you, I , Alpine, SOG, old uncle Tom Cobley and all would have difficulty in coming up with something new to say every single week. I think WGS was one of the few who could be original in an interview.

Moe: "This thing can flash fry a water buffalo in 45 seconds" saint_Stevo: "Aw! - but I want it now" with apologies to Homer ;-)

From the sound of things we created a lot of chances but squandered them. That suggests that the manager has done his job but he cannot play the game for the players. He didn't miss gilt-edged chances. Perhaps we do need SCW's sports psychologists to help players learn composure in front of goal.

I already thought that NC seemed just right for us. The Solent forum reinforced it but it is nice to have it confirmed from yet another source.

But sadly there are ones who can't

Yes - but are they the kinds of words he ought to have learnt ;-)

Both teams were from Manchester so it was going to go home in small pieces whatever happened ;-)