tajjuk

First off that's not really true, Basingstoke is north east hampshire for example is still closer to Southampton than say Chelsea. Secondly you have missed the point completely. The 1.7 million was just to illustrate that there are a lot of people around the South Coast, yeh some might be closer to Reading (which is just about on par with us club size), some might be a bit closer to London but like I said name me a smaller club like us that has access to so many fans without a bigger club close to them? The distance between The Reebok Stadium and Old Trafford is just 17 miles. The distance between Wolves and Villa is about 15 miles, the distance between St James Park and The Stadium of Light is just 10 miles. We are 80 miles from the likes of Chelsea and Arsenal, 50 miles from Reading, even 20 miles from Pompey. If you look at the current premiership clubs, there aren't many that don't have another premiership club within 50 miles, Stoke maybe, Norwich, Swansea. http://www.sportmapworld.com/map/soccer/england/fa-premier-league/ I think that map illustrates my point well. Lots of potential population to tap into if we grow as a club and about the best you are get in the UK. Far better opportunity to grow compared to similar size clubs like Wigan or West Brom or Fulham.

I'll agree it wasn't his greatest day but then his passing pass completion was down around 69% whereas most of this season it has been up around the mid 80's. His shooting has never been a great aspect of his game, I thought he had turned the corner with it last year but he hasn't scored this year, but then it's a whole new level. He will get some goals though but most likely will contribute more to assists and build up.

Whilst I agree with most of this I disagree on the catchment area. I think as a club we are in one the best situations catchment wise and don't think we are competing with the London clubs. Hampshire alone has £1.7 million people, the nearest football club and the only real alternative in Hampshire is Portsmouth. They are currently nowhere near us and I suspect (if they survive) they are at least 5 years away from competing with us on a similar level (even if we go backwards). Even if we go down this year, Portsmouth aren't coming up and they are more likely to get relegated (especially if Appleton has some sense and goes to Bolton) You then have at least an hour to the likes of Brighton, Reading, Bristol. There is no competing club in the west country. In the crowded British Isles that's about as big as unchallenged catchment area you are going to get. Look at London, the Midlands, the North West etc. You have 4 or 5 premiership or championship clubs in competing in an area smaller than we have where there are only two clubs. Yes you will always get Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manc fans round here but they will never go to games anyway, not regularly. They are not the fans we are competing for. I have no doubts that with a successful football club the area could support a 40-50k stadium. We are not however a successful football club, we need to be premiership established and be show casing top players. We are on our way to this and the club's ambitions match it but there is no point doing it now. I would also say that having an improved and stable economy would also help, we are probably 5+ years away from that.

Liked that a lot cheers. it's spot on although he gave the ball away a little too much on Sunday, however his ability to receive the ball and do something with it in tight spaces is very special

I bought it from Amazon, there are selected retailers where you get the beta access and that is one of them. They have already told me I will be getting it on release day which is good, prices seem to vary from about £25 to £30 on various sites.

I have seen this comment and numerous other similar about Ramirez and how the money should have been spent on two defenders. However each person seems to have missed some massive points about this:- 1. We does everyone assume that we had £ X million to spend and spent £12 million of it on Ramirez. Around the time of the window closing there were a lot of rumours linking us with lots of defenders, which was after we had completed the Ramirez signing. There seems to be an assumption that we were out of money, when activity, or at least rumoured activity seemed to be saying we put £6 million bids in for several defenders. I suppose we won't completely find out until January. 2. Value for Money, see this statement - "he looks to be a great player I still think he might be just that - and I'm not sure at all that he will make the difference enough to keep us up. Whereas 3 quality defenders might well have done." is very odd, how can he look like a great player but then not make a difference? And where are these quality defenders for £4 million? Buttner went for £4 million granted but then he went to Man Utd, plus we don't know the 'other' fees involved. Bassong went to Norwich for £5.5 million, he's already been dropped by Norwich and they are as bad as us defensively. I think Mbia to QPR was around the £6 million mark and again QPR have been all over the place defensively. Mariappa who to me is very much a championship defender and no better than what we have went to Reading for £3 million. The only one who I can think of is Collins who cost West Ham £2.5 million and I still think he's a pretty average defender. Who are we supposed to have signed? £6 million wasn't enough for Scott Dann and he's not doing well by all accounts in the Championship. Also remember that Matt Jarvis cost West Ham £12 million, Adam Johnson cost £10 million plus add on plus he's probably on a £100k a week. Both are in their mid twenties, Gaston is 21, rated as one of the best prospects in Europe, is already a full international and in my opinion is already better than both Johnson and Jarvis.

I was watching the game and that simply didn't happen, it happened ONCE and he was working bloody hard to get back. I love how people flat out make things up to put their agenda across Also he can't spend the whole game babysitting Fox, at some point Fox as a defender has to actually do some DEFENDING, just standing in the position doesn't count. Unless you want our most creative player to just sit in front of Fox and never make runs forward? They can tell you a lot, they are also facts as opposed to the glassy eyes that people use when watching games, you can ask two people watching the same game about a player and they will tell you completely different things, Eye witness accounts are incredibly unreliable, emotions, distractions, their own perception of things, bias all come into to play when people tell you 'what they saw'. You only have to take different fans accounts of penalty incidents to no that. Fact is if he isn't doing enough defensively then statistically other players in the team are doing far far worse. See my point about 'observations', when a football fan tells you what he saw and then his opinion it's 'pinch of salt' time. His job is not to 'mark' the right full back, not in general play. He is supposed to track the full backs forward runs not sit on him all game, but this isn't always possible unless he literally doesn't ever make forward runs. At some he is going to run forward and get caught out, that's why he's an attacking midfielder. Like I said above at some point Fox actually has to do some defending. The statistics prove that Lallana is doing a lot for the team both offensively and defensively. I'm also amazed that people are criticising Lallana for not tracking runners when Puncheon has been absolutely awful for it all season, the Arsenal game being a prime example where he left Clyne exposed time and again through nothing but laziness. He did play well on Sunday, statistically no one did more attacking wise. He also made lots of interceptions and tackles, much more than most people in the team. He has been doing it all season but people choose not see it because they like to have a go at players for no particular reason. If you take the captaincy off him it will destroy his confidence and as he is our most creative outlet at the moment this wouldn't be good. Also not all captains need to be constantly shouting, Lallana works incredibly hard for the team and sets an example. I think he will stay captain but I think Morgan would be a better captain.

Lol, not seen so much bitterness. Jealousy is a cruel mistress, they will probably beat us with their terrible football but and they will probably stay up this yeark but in the long run they will go back down, too much debt and hoofball doesn't get you up the league. Would laugh though if we went up there and just passed it around them and that lump Carroll missed a few sitters, interesting to see what excuses they would come up with. They also seem to be very convinced that they are going to finish comfortably mid table despite their easy start to the season, I watched them against Norwich and they looked very average, they essentially rely on the diagonals and set pieces. hope their players start thinking like that they will be comfortably mid table. Lets see how they are doing by xmas and see if they are still so cocky, after us they have Wigan but then in November and December they have Man City (H), Newcastle (A), Stoke (H), Spurs (A), Man Utd (A), Chelsea (H), Liverpool (H), West Brom (A), Everton (H) and Arsenal (A).

Might have been the Champions League factor. Maybe celtic wanted a lot more for Hooper than Burnley want for Jay Rod, who knows.

You have to time the 'shoot' button press to get it as close to the middle of that bar, in the green section. That's how cleanly you strike the ball, the longer you hold shoot the more powerful the shot. As soon as the press the shoot button you need to move the stick in the direction you want to hit it, the longer you hold this direction the more in the corner it will go but if you hold it too long you will miss. It's very complicated and I can only presume it is how England players in real life have been taking penalties.

Looking forward to this, especially the new 'classic', played a load of champ man and then fm over the year but each year it just gets a bit more complicated and time consuming that I struggle to get into a game when it takes you literally a season to do a season!

He was injured? Is he going to play in Puncheons position anyone reckon?

There is nothing wrong with questions, however there are many posters who start with a clear negative agenda and then turn those questions into statements about how the club is f*cking up or Nigel is sh*t. You only have to look at the training ground work being stopped thread and the loan thread to see how people take a tiny snippet of unconfirmed information and then use for their own agenda and spew a load of essentially tosh. Same goes with the comments about the substitutions and the signing of players, just because a player gets subbed and we loose doesn't mean the two things are linked, same with recruitment in the summer, loads of posts I have seen seem to completely ignore that we actually signed 2 defenders and GK in the summer, or ignore that we chased Buttner for ages, but apparently spent too long on buying Ramirez. I see loads of posts criticising the signing of Jay Rod, yet no one has pointed out what the hell we would do if Lambert got injured. Loads of people criticised Adkins substitutions against Utd and Fulham but conveniently forget his excellent changes against Villa and Man City. Double standards, making 2+2=5, ignoring elements that conflict with your view, overly exaggerating issues is not intelligent discussion it's clearly a negative agenda and those posts are rightly attacked. When I see some "intelligent discussion" I'll let you know.

Basically the article is saying we have a better chance of staying up than Reading because we always carry a goal threat and will score goals, but our poor defence will keep us near the relegation zone. Reading however are defending as badly as us and aren't scoring any goals. If we can stop the rot at the back even by a little bit without sacrificing our attacking instincts we will be fine. Have to agree about Reading, just look at the Swansea game, whilst they got a credible 2-2 away draw, their Keeper played an absolute blinder and they were over ran by a Swansea side that had been struggling to score. They also got a bit lucky with both goals, first was a howler from Vorm and the second was a lucky deflection into the path of Hunt. They hardly created anything apart from that and Swansea had 25 shots in total and I would say 6 or 7 clear cut chances.

I think we have a better shot away from home. At SMS they will park the bus lump balls into the channel and probably nick it with a set piece, at home they have to be a bot more positive and I think they will give space to the likes of Lallana and Lambert. Their defence isn't great but it hasn't been tested that much, they were shocking against Swansea, beaten comfortably by Arsenal at home, and also lost 4-1 in the league cup to Wigan at home. If we play our game and get at them we will score goals, just have to do the 'dirty' stuff well, get to the second balls, clear those crosses and subdue Carroll.

Who knows, entirely possible, Gazzinga has looked assured for a young man. I also think the whole team were better defensively on Sunday, Morgan and in particular Davis protected the back four a lot better. Lallana and Puncheon were also tracking back better. Combination of things probably. The defensive problems are well documented, manager and players are aware of it and they have stated they have been working very hard on it. Maybe we are seeing the first signs of it working. I think had we not had the injury to Richardson we were on for a clean sheet.

He was in Bologna, we knew exactly where he was. Also 2 months? jog on. We also spent an undisclosed amount on a promising full back who is also now injured, surprisingly football players like all top athletes in any sport get injured. You can't predict it and it has no relevance. His understudy also got injured in the game, how many right backs do you expect us to have? As Dig Dig points out Man Utd have 5 first team centre backs yet still started the season with a Midfielder playing there. Doesn't matter how much squad depth you have, injuries will still hurt your team. Man City have international footballers coming out of their ears yet looked very vulnerable last season when the likes of Kompany or Yaya Toure were missing. We have signed 8 players this summer, 5 are full internationals, 2 are England U21s. 2 GKs, 2 Defenders, 2 Midfielders, 2 Forwards. We attempted transfers on an unknown number of other players including pursuing a left back for a lot longer than we spent pursuing Ramirez.

I agree to some aspects as our core is the same from our first league 1 season, however who have we signed that has overly failed? It's too early to write off any of this season's signings. Since April 2010 we have signed Permanently De Ridder, Frazer Richardson, Hooiveld, Chaplow, Butterfield, Jack Cork, Danny Fox, Ryan Dickson, Tadanari Lee, Billy Sharp. and some youth players. None of those players have been massive failures, pretty much all but Dickson and Lee (injury) played key roles for the club last season. Trouble is they were good in the championship and not all are good enough for the premiership but then how many Championship clubs sign players that do well in the premiership unless they are young prospects?. Only time will tell if our new signings are good enough, they are exciting young talents though which fits the clubs ethos. That stuff about Gerard maybe just shows he's not a good man manager, he has no real management record and his one brief dip at Charlton went badly. However he has held some of the highest coaching and development roles available, you can't really argue his CV doesn't his current role. The Bishop's Stortford thing was a favour to a mate. ?????? You have written Yoshida off already after 4 games? You say this "It was clear to most of us we did not have the quality defense for the prem I would have been happier with 2 6 million centre backs rather than Ramirez" and then say this "I still also feel we need a quality midfield playmaker a goal keeper & an injection of pace out wide." eh? We have signed all those things, Ramirez, Boruc and Mayuka. Also who are your £6 million centre backs? pretty sure Blackburn wanted more than £6 million for Scott Dann and he's looking poor in the championship for them. Middlesbrough fans were saying £12 million for Rhys Williams, £12 million for Ramirez looks like a bargain compared to £12 million for Rhys Williams.

How the hell was our minimum objective in the Championship automatic promotion? The resources available to us, compared to premiership clubs that came down like West Ham that's a joke statement right there. How many clubs have had two successive promotions to the premier league in the last 20 years? Us, Norwich and City. The minimum objective in the championship was to comfortably avoid going back to league 1, optimistically play offs, did anyone at the start of last season really think we would get promoted? "but his lack of tactical nous has lost us points against them and Fulham." Elaborate please, I don't see what exactly he could have done tactically to have stopped Hooiveld slicing a shot going wide into his own net. Tactics are well and good but go out the window when your players f*ck up, especially when they are sitting deep contrary to your instructions. "quite a few of you are having doubts". Poll says otherwise. How many of those managers had got 2 successive promotions? or had managed other clubs to promotions? Redknapp is the only name there that had experience and well he shouldn't have been here in the first place, the others were all completely inexperienced and unproven compared to Adkins, stupid comparison. Again elaborate on what is clearly a throwaway statement, I have seen nothing from my own observations, nor from comments from 'expert' pundits that indicates we have tactically been a 'joke'. We have conceded too many goals and virtually all of them are the result of individual player errors.

I imagine he criticised the defence because they aren't obeying him for whatever reason. They sat too deep in the second half, clearly contrary to what he had told them to. The TEAM's shape on Sunday was very good, on the whole the TEAM defended very well and ADKINS had clearly set them up shape wise very well. Gary Neville even commented after the Arsenal game that the TEAM's shape was fine, it was individual errors by players that led to the goals. There is only so much ADKINS can do, he can't legislate for individual errors just set the team up in the right shape and give each player instructions, whether they follow it it is down to each PLAYER. What exactly can ADKINS do when the whole team is too deep when he has told them to push up and his centre back is wildly slashing at shots that are going wide?

Some sense at last. It's funny but as far as I can tell the consensus it that from the team that got us promoted we have precisely 3 players who are of 'premiership quality' - Morgan, Lallana, Lambert. Even Lallana is taking a lot of stick. From that it would indicate that we needed a whole new team. What we got was 2 Gks, 2 Defenders, 2 Midfielders, 2 Strikers. which including a 'star' signing that some football pundits said would not happen (looking at you Lawrenson) Fact is we needed to strengthen all areas, we strengthened all areas. We could have spent I don't know £15 million on Scott Dann and Martin Ollson (yeh get the defence of a relegated team that will help) instead we got quality young players who have the potential to improve and grow with the team, rather than washed up premiership rejects. So to answer the thread's questions Yes and Probably not, but only the likes of Ferguson these days get's exact choices on player purchases.

If you look at the the other long ball thread - http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?40425-Long-Ball-Does-it-work-Who-does-it-the-most those numbers are still low compared to the rest of the legaue. The most we have played (58 ) compares to the average amount Man Utd play and is the 6th lowest, and that's the highest. it's also to do with how much of the ball we have, the Manchesters and Arsenal would have had a lot more of the ball so we played less passes generally which means less long balls.

Administration to Premier League in 3 seasons is Fantasy Football, only Man City and Norwich have come close to what Saints have done and they weren't going out of business. All those managers you listed have got promotions from the Championship to the Premiership, they got established Championship teams promoted, a good achievement yes, but nothing close to taking a newly promoted team to successive promotions. It's also 7 games in, it's plain stupid to discuss sacking him as is this statement "If adkins continues to get defeats or facing to beat such poor teams at home soon... He will be gone in the next 3-5 games".

Thing is with any injury like this the swelling basically prevents them from seeing how much damage is there, probably take a week or so for it to go down. Whilst it sounds bad it is essentially an impact injury and I would much prefer our player's to suffer those sort of injuries rather than ligament related ones.

Great Post and I think QPR is a great example and I couldn't have put this better "everything I'd hate in my club". Tired old stadium, no investment in youth, tired old premiership players and a poor manager, but hey they have "premiership experience", something people on here having been crowing on about. What Nigel Adkins and Cortese have done with Saints is pure fantasy football, it's the dream, it's how you would want your perfect Football Manager game to go - successive promotions, invest in training and youth academy, attractive modern football, young hungry players coming though, get to the premiership and sign wonderkids to complement your homegrown wonderkids. Yet after all that, after a mere 7 games, where we have played some great football against some of the best teams in the land people aren't happy, it's sickening. Let the team grow, let them learn and see where we are at the end of the season then comment. Something special is brewing at our club, people laugh about our Chairman seeking European football, yet I'm sure there were a few giggles about getting the premiership in 5 years when we were on -10pts in league 1. However to realise those ambitions we need to be patient, it won't happen overnight and we have seen purely at this club that changing managers doesn't help, we need stability.