stthrobber

I've just listened to the interview and he does make some good and relevant points. He did say "at the end of the day" more times than anyone I can remember during an interview. I think the key point is that as he says, he's not at the club any more, and most of the people that were there when he was have also gone, so all he can offer is opinion from a distance.

Well Lloyd Isgrove is Welsh and has links in Cardiff, but I'm firmly in the Steve Grant camp of "this is ********". He might have reported in in good faith, but since no-one else has corroborated it in the media, I will dismiss it as **** stirring

I wouldn't wash my hands of Saints, but like Duncan, I wash my hands of football in general, and in particular, the Premier League. I feared when Cortese was splashing out large sums of cash on players like Osvaldo, Lovren and Wanyama etc that we were turning into Pompey. It's quite clear that once he left, and KL looked at the books, that spending had reached unsustainable proportions. Unfortunately, that has a knock on effect, and failure to reach the Champions League (pipedream!) meant that we were probably getting deep into debt again. Was it Hans Hofstetter that talked about sustainability being the future of the club? The thing that bothers me is that last season they talked about team spirit etc and the players loved it at Southampton, and now they can't wait to leave. Something is seriously wrong for this to happen. I expected a couple of players to go, nobody foresaw the number of players that have gone so far, with more to follow by the looks. I don't necessarily think that players won't want to sign for us, after all, they are primarily motivated by greed, so we can pay more than many clubs can offer, but we do seem to be heading back to the days of struggle, as Koeman now has 2 weeks or so to mould a first team. No player's ambition will be to remain at Saints when they can't achieve anything, so what has happened this year will keep happening as the top clubs realise that our academy players are ripe for cherry picking, and naturally, the players will be attracted by 70k crowds etc, Champions League football and higher wages. We can't win, and that's why the PL is so unfair. I was much happier when we were in the Championship with all the other clubs of our size. Sadly, in terms of highlights and live football, it was a bit ****e, but at least we could compete

I would have thought that you need to do quite the opposite and show your support. Fill the ground for the Leverkusen game so that the players know they have support, the manager knows he has support and equally importantly, Katharina knows that the club has support. It's easy for people on the outside to criticise the club, but if I was a Saints player with ambition and a top 4 club came a calling, I wouldn't turn it down. Boycotting and protest is something for the future, perhaps if the season starts and we haven't signed any replacements

Good post, but football isn't going to change because the clubs in the top 4 get the big money and the rest of us just make up the numbers. Not only that, but there are not enough clubs like ours, bringing through and developing young British talent to take through to the England squad (and other home countries). The way the PL is set up at the moment means that the status quo for both clubs and the national side will be maintained. The PL was always set up to benefit the top clubs as they get the bulk of the TV money, and of course, that is increased by Champions League qualification. Until our clubs invest more in youth and less on buying in cheaper foreign imports, then nothing will change, but in terms of Saints, we can only aspire to break into the top 7 and qualify for Europe, and there's not much money in the Europa League. How the hell can you demand the likes of Man Utd or Arsenal spread the cash around to make things more fair? You can't, and the FA and PL haven't got the balls to try and change things

Well, if reports are to be believed, he apparently told the club he would never play for them again, so after all the plaudits he got at the end of last season, from his own team mates, and the fans, he got all stroppy and decided he would force the club's hand without actually putting in a transfer request. I don't mind if he wants to go to Liverpool or another club that can offer him Champions League football, it was the way he went about it that irks. Southampton FC has nurtured this player and turned him into an England international. However, that England international should realise that he wasn't first choice for the World Cup, he was a substitute for the likes of Welbeck in an England team that really wasn't very good. Mark Clattenburg was right about him, his head grew out of all proportion once he got amongst Stevie G and his mates. So why should fans not vent their anger at the behaviour of someone who appeared little more than a spoilt brat throwing his toys out of the pram and not acting in a professional manner? I think the club and fans deserved a little more loyalty and respect than he gave

The problem here is that in order to win things, those players need to develop, and by the time they mature as players, they are long gone. Arguably Walcott and the Ox improved once they left, and Bale certainly did. They had setbacks along the way, but in the days before TV money was king was probably our best chance to win something, now the set up only seems to allow for the rich clubs to get richer

I think its just the case that we know what kind of club we are, and once we expose our best young players to the media glare, the big clubs with bigger reputations come calling. We can't compete with them financially, so can't pay their wages etc, so that makes it difficult to keep them. In this day and age our best chance of silverware has to to be the League or FA Cups, and Wigan apart, it seems the big boys always win those too. I don't see us becoming a cup winning club because it's no player's ambition to end up playing for Southampton, it will always be a club with Champions League experience and pedigree and without a formidable amount of investment, I don't see that happening

I think England played some pretty pedestrian football which mirrored the personality of the coach, Hodgson. He took our 3 Saints players and used them extensively in warm up matches, then barely bothered with them in the tournament, giving them cameo roles when it was too late for them to have any effect. It bothers me greatly that our team was littered with players like Jagielka, Baines, Johnson, Wilshere, Welbeck, Henderson and to a certain extent, Sturridge. The latter may yet develop into a very good international level striker, but at the moment, he is still young and quite raw. I think the rest of them are pedestrian at best and I wonder how much difference it would have made if we had the same players under a different coach? Sterling is still developing as is Barkley, who needs to learn to be more creative, ie pass the bleedin' ball occasionally. What worries me is that the best players available to Hodgson last night are simply not good enough at this level, and we should be looking at clubs like Manchester City, Arsenal and Chelsea in particular who seem to buy in and fill their teams with foreign players, but don't seem to bring the best English and British players through enough. OK Arsenal have Walcott and the Ox, and we know where they came from, but I think it was Didi Hamann who said that in Britain, we ignore our British youth players because we automatically assume that the foreign players are better. The Premier League is full of foreign coaches because they are better than our home grown ones, and the foreign players, rather than helping us develop the skills of our youngsters, are keeping them out of their teams and that is ultimately to the detriment of England and Scotland because our "best" players don't get regular football at the top clubs. The only club that seems to buck the trend is us, and when Hodgson had the chance to use our players, he put in Welbeck instead of Lallana, and I've yet to see Welbeck do anything for England that shows me he is good enough

Aren't you being a tad dramatic? Nothing has actually happened as yet, Lovren is with Croatia in Brazil, so he's hardly likely to be pratting around putting in transfer requests. His focus will be on the Croatian campaign. I read last week that you can ignore anything you read in the Echo, Mail and Mirror as they are clueless. So before I go hysterical, I'm just going to wait until something concrete actually happens.

I have read this article several times today and tbh I find it's just full of corporate BS that people come up with when they want to sound great. Nowhere do I see anything about engaging with fans and fans groups, which to be fair to Lowe, was one of the good points of his time at the club. I know times have changed and football has changed, but if you really want to know what my experience is like and how I think it can be improved, er, just ask me

Well our fans still despise Adrian Heath, so I guess these things do matter even 20 or more years after our semi against Everton

Interesting to know why the Hammers fans think our fans are insufferable? Is it the 'we are Southampton we're going to Brazil' chants? Those chants are coming back to haunt us now, what with Rickie Lambert being off to Brazil as a Liverpool player

Well it is full of speculation for starters. Realistically, what do we actually know? That MP has gone, and that Lambert is undergoing a medical tomorrow. We think that Liverpool are also trying to sign Lallana and Lovren but we don't actually know this for a fact. The fact that Lambert is a Liverpool fan made it a certainty that he would go if an offer came in, and good luck to him. He's getting Champions League football at the latter end of his career and we couldn't offer that, and I don't begrudge him one bit. However, Krueger's statement that all deals would be done on our terms doesn't ring true when we hear that Liverpool wanted the deal done before Rickie flew to Miami. So the deal was done on Liverpool's terms. Good bit of business by Ian Ayre there. If Rickie does well, he'll have got him on the cheap. I don't suppose any club has made an offer for Gazza?

One of the things I would criticise MP for was our failure to get in behind defences, and a lack of pace out wide. Against Swansea, Clyne was continually cutting inside, when he clearly has the pace to take defenders on. The one time in the match he did it, it created a fantastic chance that Sam just put over the bar. Against Cardiff, the Southampton Way came up very short as we looked clueless and toothless about how to break them down. Maybe a word that doesn't necessarily go hand in hand with Moyes is 'flair', but I can't see it being him tbh. I think he might be looking for a bigger club than us.

Agreed pure speculation based on the fact that he's out of work and we have no manager.

I certainly took it for granted, although I would perhaps refer to it as frosted or opaque.

I felt he was answering questions as a politician would, by not actually answering the question, but waffling a bit instead

Moyes would keep us up and make us difficult to beat. Looking what he achieved at Preston and Everton I think he would be ideal for us.

It's far too early to be thinking about meaningless votes of confidence. As St Marco says, it's what happens now that will determine how much confidence not only we, as fans, can have in the board, but the playing and coaching squad....come to think of it, make that the playing squad since the coaches have by and large disappeared with Poch to Spurs. Of course we can have concerns, the confusion over Doddsy and Paul Williams and the silence surrounding the Poch situation. We don't know whether Les Reed's discussions with Poch led him to believe he was keen to stay or not, but let's be honest, it is no football man's ambition to coach a mid table provincial club like ours, and if the offer was made to any of us to go to a bigger club with a bigger reputation then of course we would be likely to go. It's now up to the board to show their mettle and get someone in of a fine calibre. Moyes would imo undoubtedly keep us up and make us difficult to beat, without necessarily playing free flowing attacking football. I don't know too much about the other suggestions I've seen such as the guy from Basel Murat Yakin

I also live in a multi cultural city, and I work in an extremely multi cultural ward. However, this ward has changed completely over the last 20 years or so. It's always been a fairly deprived area rife with crime and anti social behaviour, but the demographic has changed hugely in recent years. There is now large number of Polish immigrants, mixed in with Czech Roma, Slovakians, other Eastern Europeans and Kurdish. We have several Polish shops in the area too. There would be no problems if most of these people adapted to our laws and lived by our code of ethics etc, but many of them don't. They think what is acceptable in their own countries, should be acceptable here. The Poles in the area, fair play, have set up businesses and work hard. We have a lot of Czech Roma who think it's acceptable to rifle through people's rubbish and leave the contents all over the pavement, and in the gardens of the houses where the rubbish has been left out. I kid you not, there was a whole street recently, where every single garden was full of emptied rubbish bags, and rubbish was also strewn along the pavements. Many of these groups are also rife with organised crime etc. Of course, not all of these people are criminals or scroungers, many of them are decent hard working people who want a better life, but the people I speak to who have lived in the area for many years is that they feel outsiders in their own areas, so much so that many of them will not walk down the main shopping area at night because the atmosphere is so intimidating. I also have an Islamic faith school on my patch, and although I've spoken to one of the elders of the Islamic Cultural Centre it's attached to, who seems friendly, there are no windows on the school, a door on the front which is likewise and the message is clear. You are not welcome. It's no wonder people are making statements such as there should be no faith schools in this country.

I blame the policies that have allowed multiculturalism to flourish. In theory it's a great idea where everyone makes allowances for cultural differences etc, but it's backfired because it means that the majority of people in the UK have to accept and adapt their views, rather than people coming into this country adapting to our ways and our laws. It has meant that there are large amounts of people coming here who don't need to learn English because we provide the cash for interpreters etc and these people then do not integrate into our society, and in many cases, don't contribute to it either. In the case of faith schools, I can understand why muslims would want their children to be educated at schools where they were allowed to follow their accepted codes and practices. I would bet that they are probably more attentive than in a mixed comprehensive school too. There are Roman Catholic schools in this country, so there is no reason why there should not be Islamic faith schools too. I think the fear of radicalism is now having a profound effect on the way we view such schools, which might be perfectly good teaching schools. I do rather fear that in the future, there will be fighting and even rioting because people are beginning to show that they've been pushed too far

I couldn't agree with this more. Krueger has already stated his intentions about working with Poch to let him do things his way. Les Reed has already said that the club will be speaking to players in the next few days, albeit that was 2 weeks ago. Has any of the suicide brigade actually stopped to think that there is nothing to say at the moment, therefore the club has fallen into line with that and said nothing? I'm sure when there is anything major to tell, we will be told. In the meantime, people read the tabloids and see quotes like yesterday's from Morgan and start looking for prospective trees, branches and nooses.

I think we are getting somewhat off topic here, but the fact that the recent statement about the future of the club used the very word 'sustainable' shows that under Cortese our spending was anything but sustainable. What Cortese did in building the club was brilliant, there's no escaping that, but he is not above reproach.

Not at all, it's just that the money has to be repaid and a lot of it has to be repaid soon because NC didn't stagger payments etc. I know there are bigger clubs than us much worse in debt. However the point I was trying to make was that if an offer comes in for a player, the club has to weigh up what is best for club and for the player. If there was no debt they could tell the buyer to get stuffed, but there is, so it must be a consideration.