captainchris

Whether Alpine has been to the ground or not his comments are without doubt exactly true. His location on the planet is totally irrelevant !!!

noooooooooooooooooooo thanks

Oh dear......................

Are you actually serious or just a generally bitter person. Hoddle was doing well with us and got noticed by a bigger club who he had supported as a lad. He took the rational decision to have a go at managing them. If you were that person and the same thing happened to you and were offered to manage Saints you would do it every time! Also, he said something that he has sorely regretted ever since - no doubt you have never said a word out of place - well you're lucky, most of us have put our size nines right in it on more than one occasion in life. Put aside your burden of bitterness and look at the guy for his tactical skills which were in evidence when he managed here. Good, measured, thought out passing football. Funny I haven't seen one poster on here slag him off for being a bad football manager - only for apparently making a few people bitter. If you guys are so pure then why not practice some forgiveness in your life - you will be surprised how much better you feel inside......

I don't give a flying ant what the moral at the training ground is like. Every thing is there for one purpose only and one purpose only to win first team football matches. Moral at Staplewood is a complete red herring. If crap moral drives success for AP then I'm all for it - or was !

Very well constructed summary..

Hoddle please, superb tactician/organiser - all the things AP wasn't.

You have no idea of the reasons for AP sacking so your conjecture about jokes is your own ill informed emotion and nothing more!

Look it happens dozens of times every game and you think it's nothing to do with Pardew????? Or IF he has just recognised it he so slow and inept at realising how his team is operating that he needs to go right now. Either scenario is scary!

That would be when we had Antinio and Papa I take it?

100% correct. Why isn't anyone else spotting this massive thing happening on the pitch every game. Every set play we are stood in a huddle 3feet from each other with no outlet to pass to IF the ball happens to drop to one of our players. It is totally moronic!

Probably the worst player ever to play for us and not joking...

Totally irrelevant !

How can that possibly be a good thing - not worked that one out at all............a win please.....

Was disliked by Newcastle fans last year - over the hill!! Fact

BUT to quote one in situ manager, you need the team together pre season - that's apparently why we started slowly last year - evidently this year is different??? Come on AP this present situation just ain't going to get us anywhere we are not even clear ahead of the dross in this league yet so that isn't going to get us where we need to be. You have to be much braver and far more organised - you're leaving everything to chance - including tactics and team selection - same old, same old - we are predictable and so are you becoming..... Considering all the coaching and back room staff changes I don't see any noticeable difference to the way we play or our fitness - change for change sake?

What does 'practically got us promoted' mean exactly ? Does it mean more of the same hoofing it this year will be fine and dandy - Christ, even the less than mighty Orient had more possession than us on our own patch! This one of the major problems and why we struggle in many games - our tactics, or lack of them are to kick the kick the ball in the air and hope for a lucky bounce - this will not do. This 'tactic' relies on luck there is not enough strategy which leaves AP out thought and out manouvered far too often! AP needs to show he is far cuter than he has so far. If he was in charge of Exeter or Oldham fine but he's not, he's in charge of a rich, well resourced club with all the facilities and back up of a premiership club. Good individual players bail out AP time after time ala ALs goal against Bournemouth. Our game strategy is just pants - all the time! It really does concern me what goes on all week in training. As soon as a team gets the ball down and plays against us we are absolutely lost. Orient 51% possession - Saints 49% that's a poor statistic and damning of the time we spend without the ball - at home..

AP says pre season about fitness and playing very low standard teams in preparation for winning promotion. Like saying good preparation for the olympics would running against local joggers - it's kids stuff - rank poor preparation every year and poor management!

I cannot understand why Christmas is such an iconic time point? IF AP is not good enough he should be replaced much sooner than Christmas - by then it is too late anyway this season so might as well not bother changing. After all, according to AP you need all of pre season to stand a chance of going up with a team so taking over at Christmas is a total waste of time ?????? And he knows his stuff ????

They didn't keep faith with him actually - he was about to be sacked when he started to get it right.....just in time.....

This 'short career' guff is total rubbish and wildly out of date. Nobody has a life long job any more! Most people in most jobs are not immune from critisism so why should very well paid footballers enjoy the privilege of guaranteed praise despite poor performances? They should perform or face the consequences like any one else or actually more than anyone else as they're paid more on average...

Wouldn't have had him even in his so called prime........

If 'The Mersysiders' think it's such a good idea why aren't they doing it themselves - because it's it's NOT a good idea of course!

An excellent summary!

Well this sounds sensible to me. It is with some trepidation that I watch some Saints fans euphoric rhetoric gathering behind Cortese. Saints fans have often had need of the press in their hour of need to remove certain managers or chairman as the case may be. Whilst you may not always agree with the press they guard against minority radicals by publicising their often less than friendly ways. I really cannot see what banning the local paper and all the nationals from taking pictures at the ground can achieve? If anyone did pay for pictures - eventually the income generated would be tiny. Where as the anti Saints feeling generated by this escapade is palpable - how on earth is this a good thing? It's not just the Sun which has condemned this unilateral action, it's all the press - the Sun are just more vociferous in their condemnation that's all. Personally I am proud to pick up a paper whether national or local and read good things about Saints and they do represent our city after all. Bad publicity like this is undoubtedly also bad for the city too. Locally the Echo will often say things that I don't agree with about the club and very often about a game too. I have often scratched my head at the player ratings in fact all the time but again it's my news piece that doesn't belong to the club and is so important. I feel some fans are so in ore of the new money in the club they think that we should have no opinions which don't clammer to the undoubted ego's and poor decisions of the paymasters. Recent actions by the ChaiRman/CEO have taken something away from me which I and many others treasure. It wasn't costing him anything and it won't enhance the team in any way so why would you do it? My worry and the unpleasant reality might just be - he did it because he could and that is not in the fans best interest, along of course with a number of other similar style actions which have taken place..... The running of the club is increasingly looking like a dictatorship and dictators sensor papers!