St Marco

I got a feeling we could get the skates....

Happy to take that bet Svensson and Davies will be our main defence but Svensson will not be playing 2-3 times a week. We will protect him. If he gets injured then again that will keep him out. Davies seems to be a bit injury prone so again i don't expect him to play every game when he returns. Thus leaving Perry,Wotten,Thomas.

I got a feeling they might score 1st early and that will hopefully spark us into life and dish out a mauling. I'm going to go for a 1-4 win

Be interesting to see how Perry and Wotten do together as could be our central defence for many games this year. Basically our 1st team except for Bart,Wotten so hopefully we win this one easily. Im pretty confident we can't lose to two league 2 clubs two years in a row

ah my bad i thought i was told 2 at the weekend, excellent news then

"Lowe is no fool" very debatable I think as others have stated he most likely has a major sell on clause, something in the 50%+ region. The fee itself will probably be broken down into small payments i.e 250k up front, then the rest in add ons. We could of used the money that all the CCC clubs got from the new tv deal (this was 300k?). He is here on a 2 year deal and i think realisticly we will sell him next summer if he has a good season. We would not risk losing him for nothing. The only other option is to sign him to a longer contract and if things go bad this year i am unsure if he would want to stay. A lot of if's/buts but i'd hazard a guess we would need to sell him for 3m to make any profit. Obviously that is just a total guess. I hope we keep him as him and Davies could be the starting building blocks to a better future.

Obviously people won't care about that fact as it is just numbers and means nothing. However anyone who understands buisness and more importantly knows the Japanese gaming market knows that is a massive deal. Western products don't do well in Japan. They prefer their own products. So expect next week news to break that the 360 on the back of Tales of Vesperia sales outsold the PS3. http://news.vgchartz.com/news.php?id=1645

Schneiderlin is a great midfielder. He really reminds me a lot of Gerrard and how he was when he started. He is strong in the tackle, can spray the ball about with total accuracy and has a nasty power shot. In fact he took a shot on saturday which was blocked by a player, that player was almost crippled by it! The great thing is he will get better and better as have to remember that was his 1st first game starting and he has only played 5 competative games in his career. He is only 18! This season is going to be very hard but i am certain he will come out of it as a contender for player of the season.

Or send them to Afghanistan so they have a chance of someone doing it back to them. They would cry for their mamies within 10mins of being there.

Well it is difficult to sum up this games performance really. There were a lot of positives to be taken and a lot of negatives. First off well done to the travelling supporters was an excellent turn out considering the size of that hole. Also was pleasing to see most of us laughed at the reaction Dyer got and some even joined in the “thieving bastard” chant, was a funny moment! Now down to the football. The first 25mins I felt we were totally in control. The boys looked well up for it and were zipping the ball around amazingly. Schneiderlin is a quality player and has really great passing skills. I will say now he is probably going to be one of our best signings ever and if we can keep him could go on to be a legend here! Cardiff looked really nervous and the football they were showing reminded me of us at the start of last season. Nervous, nobody moving to collect the ball, no communication and rather then go for a short easy pass just lump it up field. Where as we were playing the ball on the ground and taking our time rather then lose possession so easily. Even Davis was making easy passes rather then kick it up field to their goalie as he had done so many times last season. We pushed forward well and had quite a few corners. However in that period we had no clear chances and no real shots at goal which was a bit of a downer. After that Cardiff started to come back into it and started to boss the game. We tried to harass them when they had possession and that was very good to see. They had some good shots and Davis made some cracking saves. But the biggest positive was Killer! If he wasn’t playing we would have lost by quite a bit I think. He used his experience to make so many clearances and get ahead of players to get a touch on the ball that helped ease the pressure on us. Perry made a few mistakes but overall also did ok. I think all of us knew we were starting to be pegged back and for the following 20mins or so we never really went forward with any conviction. Davis made a superb save from Whittingham’s shot but then a few minutes later we just caved in and they scored from like 1cm out. When we kicked off we did a few long balls and I think I started to think “oh no were going to get mauled now”. But Surman made a quality cross for Mcgoldrick to strike and we were back in it! But I have to be honest here we didn’t really deserve that goal as for the previous 20-25mins we had hardly got out of our half let alone created many chances. Second half starts and not much really happens except for Killer almost killing someone, was great to see! We had a shot I think from Morgan and then we started to be pegged back again like just before half time. The next 20mins was all them really with Svensson and Perry defending well. Then we had a nice little spell where we started to come back into it and get forward a bit more but again didn’t really create anything to danger the score. After that the subs happened and I think they didn’t really help us in all honesty. Schneiderlin I felt was playing well so not sure if he was injured? I thought Thomson was doing well but he looked knackered as he ran his socks off as did all of them. By this point I think it was clear we had settled for the draw and we would have been happy with that. A point from this game with so few shots on goal would have been a great result. But with that comes the invitation to get so many people back it is hard to relieve the pressure. Dyer was pretty disappointing in my book; he as always was just brushed off the ball when someone slightly touches him. However he and BWP were our only real source to get ball away from goal. Eventually the pressure counted and after some poor defending and failing to clear Davis scrambled to get to the ball. At the time I thought it was an awful decision and like most was ****ed off that a referee had screwed us again. But on the way home the general census was it was actually over the line by quite a bit and the reason everyone was annoyed was due to the fact they might have taken a throw twice…. After that we had no time to do anything. So on reflection I have to ask myself did we deserve to lose the game. Trying to be non biased I have to say we did. We had very few chances on goal and for majority of the match were defending and doing it well. Our keeper made some good saves where as I can’t recall theirs doing anything. We had a lot of corners but Holmes wasted them. So a lot of people on here last season complained about teams who came to St Mary’s and played for the draw, people complained about the 1-0 style of some teams. We tried to do that today. So to be fair we didn’t really threaten their goal to say we deserved to win. And if it weren’t for Killer and Davis the score would have been very different. Though DMG scored a well taken goal like so many times with our strikers last season he was largely anonymous. Lallana I felt did ok and made some decent runs of which on a different day might have been a bit more lucky with. So I would have to say in comparison to our game their in march I think we played better and created a lot more chances in that game then this game. We looked a better attacking team then in my opinion and that game we didn’t deserve to lose. This one I don’t think we did enough to win it and to draw we were always holding on. But there are positives and a lot of them. The team is a young team who have played only three times before with each other. They put in more effort in that 90mins then a lot of players did for the whole of last season. They tried really hard and ran until the final whistle. Killer is back and was MOTM by far. And in my view the biggest positive of all is these players have now gained some experience. They are learning and they will need time. People have to remember that and not expect the world from them. There is a long way to go but if we can keep Svensson fit and work on that final third so we create chances we will be safe from trouble I feel. However if something keeps Killer and Davies out I do worry that could be a huge problem for us. Also I wonder if leaving out the experienced players is a good idea. Confidence is key and right now I can’t imagine those players are too happy at the way they have been treated. If things go wrong and we have to call on them will they give us the effort we will need? It is a unique situation I feel where there are like 2 teams here. The youngsters and the old guys. I can imagine people will say we didn’t deserve to lose and in a lot of regards they are right. But I think it depends a lot on how you approach a game. I felt we settled for a point too early and that might have been a bad decision. We tried counter attack football and it didn’t really work. So as I said mixed views really, a lot of good and a few bad. I’m sure we will improve. Also it must be worth noting I think Cardiff are just as poor as we are really. I can’t see them being in the top half either.

Or the fact things were different when he came here. He was brought in to save us from the slide Burley started. He did that. Burley was brought here to get promotion with more money they any other manager in the history of this club, he failed. So i do find it funny reading people's comments trying to run damage control etc.. Burley failed, we did not give him next to 12m over 24months to be 14th in the CCC. Plus people are forgetting if you used Pearson's points per game ratio for the whole season we would of been a grand total of......4 points from Burleys and a whopping.....6 places above where we are. These are stories people seem to forget, there was only 4 points between over 6 teams. So if people look at as Pearson was a failure then you have to look at it and say Burley was even more of a failure.

Oh i agree don't get me wrong we need a person able to stick up to the players when the situation needs it! And i think in Jan we have that guy. He seems to me someone who is very focused on what he is doing and what he considers the way we should play. If people don't fit that then they will be out. We don't know if that is the right way just yet but it is a direction nether the less. I did not want the guy here at 1st, i don't believe the spin on the OS. But i think we can be proud someone is bothering to put as much effort into trying to help us turn the tide as he is. Will he still have that enthusiasm if things go wrong? I hope we don't find out!

People who have known me over the years know i haven't been Lowe's best supporter but i think he has done the right thing this time. The club was dying on it's ass with so much infighting and changes. We had players who couldn't give a monkies about this club. I remember being at the Weds game and looking at Burley thinking he doesn't give a crap either, i'm sure most people were the same who were there. That stuck with me and was one of the main reasons i knew we would fail with Burley. But if you look at how Jan is right now he is like a little kid on xmas morning. Very excited about what could be in the boxes etc.. To him he is pretty much unknown in terms of football management and wants to succeed, you can see it in the way he acts. Some people will look on Burley's time here as a success and some will look at it as a waste of time. I look at it and think it sums up what happened the year we were relegated and beyond, we paid people who were over-rated too much money and they couldn't be bothered to play for the club. Pearson was only 0.09 points per game off of Burleys record. He didn't spend 12m. He didn't sign any players. He had an injury problem that had the first team defence crocked. He lost possibly our best striker and most creative midfielder. And he had to perform in critical games or we would of been down. Add to all that he didn't even have a clue what was happening board room wise or even if he would have a job! But he didn't whine or complain he just got on with it. When we won he would never accept praise and when we lost he would take the blame. On the other hand Burley was the total opposite, someone who would hide behind his faults and send someone else out to talk to the press. I remember when he sent Hammill out to talk to the TV station when he had only played 2mins in a loss. Now Jan is here i see a lot of the same attributes he has with Pearson. But the main one which the club needs the most is fresh desire to do well. Not wanting to be second best and help the players develop. To be a unit and a team, to work together. That is what i could never see under Burley. So i really hope Jan and Wotte get things right and get this club moving in the right direction once more. I'm tired of seeing us be ripped apart little by little each season board wise and manager wise. The club deserves better and i think with our new direction we are more likely to succeed and return to the PL then we ever were by spending 12m under Burley.

I feel more confident with Jan here then Burley, wonder how many feel the same.

agree, he seems a nice genuine chap who really is putting in a lot of effort for our club, hope he is a success here.

100% agree. We don't really have a choice do we. If anyone no matter who they are is willing to stabalise the club and stop the amount we are losing per month then we should listen to what they have to say. As that old saying goes "beggers can't be choosers" most of the time!

Yeah classic games, loved those and others like Monkey Island,Discworld etc..ah the memories

It was http://www.thesaintsforum.co.uk/predictionleague/index.php?cmd=table but i think it might have died with the old forum

While i appreciate his time in writing that i see little purpose to it. He is saying promotion is our target but we need to be calm if things go bad this season and not un-balance things. By that logic that would mean every club below the Premiership would have the target of promotion wouldn't it. As they would all have promotion as the main goal. And praising Jan and Wotte for helping with his vision, the season has not even started and i can't help looking at that part thinking it is like the person who accepts an award before he has had his name called as the winner. I also can't help feel a little deja vu with what he is saying. When things look ok he is there sending out these little notes, but when it goes wrong he runs and hides. So i think we all should have faith in the youngsters and back the manager 100% but i think it is too early to be claiming our new direction a success before a game has even been played.

Will be there, i think we can finally win a game on the 1st day for a change this year!

He missed a few chances but i felt combined well with DMG. On a scale of 1-10 i'd say he was a solid 7. Which compared to last seasons ratings is pretty good! After the last 2 games i would deffinatly start with those 2.

Was a good match i thought, Pericard's goal was good! If we can do a bit better in defence then we will be alright. Even though we lost i am a bit more confident we can do ok. Thomson was good again. Davis in goal made some great saves too. Bring on saturday!

Think some people cried to the mods about his views and predictions. Ironically 2 of the people who cried the most seemed to have vanished now the server has gone payable...

Been very impressed by Thomson in the games i've watched, he more then anyone in my opinion deserves to start the game on saturday. Hope he signs a new deal and has a really good season for us!

Yeah i sleep with my 360 because that is such a normal thing to do And i can't be bothered to get into a fanboy discussion. I own both, i use my 360 currently for games, my PS3 for Blu-Ray films and my PC for everything else. It makes no difference to me if either are future proof, however i think the future is clearly "On Demand" such is how everything is evolving.