saintbob40

Cortese's goals per game record was shocking. Bring back Mayuka from his loan spell immediately. Really though-NC was just a bloke in a suit who spent someone else's money and often not very wisely. Don't underestimate the efforts of the squad of players we have had in the last 4 years and the work of Pardew and Adkins before MoPo came along. But at the end of the day its the financial backing of the Liebherrs that has been instrumental in all this despite NCs best media efforts to claim most of the credit for himself.

Prima donna-real men just quit they don't fanny around talking about it every time they get their hands slapped. My guess is he will have overplayed his hand this time and will be on his way.

I remember being at West Ham in our promotion season and watched on as many if not all of West Ham's players drove their Bentleys/Mercedes/Porsches etc,etc out of an enclosed car park without stopping for their fans who were waiting patiently in the cold for autographs, pictures etc,etc. Thankfully not like that at Saints though...... (...the stopping and taking time bit not so much the expensive car bit(!).....)

Take off JWP for Clyne to operate down our left side in front of Shaw. Other than that I would leave it for now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_fracture Same thing I think but I am no doctor. The danger for VW is that he ends up like Lee Cattermole who usually gets booked whilst putting his boots on in the dressing room before the game!

Holding mid as quarterback or pitbull.....no right or wrong answer really-it should depend on the situation,the opposition and your own footballing taste. Where Potch has slipped up is by not rotating and making this a binary discussion in most people's eyes-same now with Lambert and Osvaldo. Wanyama has a stress fracture which tells its own story on training methods and selection policy.

A statement of a satisfaction of a charge ( in full) means that a charge has been paid off and it is cleared from the charge register at companies house. Task is to marry up the registartion of charge entries v the corresponding satisfaction of charges entries and then see what's left. What's left is what's current...

So long as no one passes the ball to Wanyama we should do just fine.......if somebody does well its not all bad as we can all pop out for a pie and a pint and get back to our seats before he moves the ball along.

He can foul though! Technically inept and a ****ing liability.

We are effectively playing with three centre backs in any event with VW in place as he doesn't tend to move across to cover the flanks much ( e.g Norwich goal -which JWP and Chambers took the rap for).

MP has clearly got the formation wrong, they look static and disorganised......

Dealing in facts alone, the Morgan/Cork partnership was pivotal in the following results during the 12/13 season: 16th January 2013, (the then reigning European Champions)Chelsea 2 Southampton 2 Boruc ,Clyne ,Yoshida ,Hooiveld ,Shaw , Schneiderlin ,S Davis ,Cork , Guly , Puncheon ,Rodriguez 9th February 2013, Southampton 3 Man City 1 (the then reigning Premier League champions) Boruc ,Clyne ,Yoshida ,Hooiveld ,Fox ,Schneiderlin ,S Davis ,Cork ,Puncheon ,Lambert ,Rodriguez 16th March 2013 Southampton 3 Liverpool 1 Boruc , Clyne ,Yoshida ,Hooiveld, Shaw ,Schneiderlin ,Ramirez ,Cork ,Lallana ,Lambert ,Rodriguez 30th March 2013 Southampton 2 Chelsea 1 Boruc, Clyne ,Yoshida ,Hooiveld ,Shaw ,Schneiderlin ,S Davis ,Cork ,Puncheon, Lambert ,Rodriguez Honourable mention for Man U away where we made them look like a pub team in the second half ( …sorry yes that is an opinion). Looking at the notable games we lost e.g. QPR and West Brom at home and Newcastle away these teams deployed a long ball strategy whereby the Southampton midfield was bypassed entirely and the left channel of Saints defence in particular was attacked. This now looks fixed through the purchase of Lovren and with Shaw fit. I can’t remember any time when the opposition continually "waltzed" through our midfield. In fact quite the opposite-with little or no time being given to the opposite numbers by Cork and Morgan who pressed very effectively and got their foot in. In summary, why break up a partnership which is young and developing which is able to play a large part in producing results (and performances) of that quality? It is no wonder people are hopping up and down..... (p.s. interesting also to see the relative lack of Lallana involvement in the above results and the heavier involvement of Steve Davis and Puncheon-perhaps MP was onto something which he now seems to have lost sight of)

Four games ( + pre season games) is long enough to judge a footballer's technical ability. Wanyama's is low although he may make a decent anti-footballer who stops other teams playing. That in itself takes some degree of football intelligence and experience though as positional play and judgment then come into it. The most worrying aspect is that we are having to play more and more long balls to overcome our inability to play from the back. We don't seem to press any more as well. In other words we are adapting our system ,which worked well last year, to accomodate one player. I think he causes more problems then he solves. Couple this with Lambert and Osvaldo upfront tripping over each other and the team looks a bit of a mess and our pattern of play has been completely disrupted.

Wanyama is shockingly bad. He has no idea what to do with the ball until he gets it. When he gets it he takes a few touches and then delivers a very slow pass like he has never passed a ball before. Saints have until now relied on a quick passing game which creates space by moving the opposition around. We need to do this as we are not blessed with pace. The likes of Lallana have struggled due to the pace of our game dropping. Similarly our full backs and Morgan are not being brought into the game and we lack penetration. To compensate we have resorted to longer balls . Very ugly to watch and I fear for us against the better sides. That said he will probably continue to play for the next 5 or 6 games because he cost a fortune however badly he performs and that can't be right.

Ok own up which genius paid £13 million for big unit Victor Wanyama? Worst purchase since the Yanks bought the wrong bridge over the Thames. Sacred cow though it would seem. Morgan will probably get hooked- feel sorry for him!

How about Whankllama,,,,,

****llama!!!!

Nope, just his Vietnamese house boy. We were ok for the first half an hour v ( a poor) WBA and scapped a win, crap against a crapper Sunderland (and scrapped a draw) and lost to a distinctly average Norwich where the team shape and selection was a complete blancmange. We will probably get something from the West Ham game as they have very little up front but the Liverpool away game may prove to be embarrasing unless we buck up.

With Big Victor in the middle of the park not showing for the ball it is no wonder that we have to go aerial as Boruc and the defence has no one to pass to. I said he was a West Ham type player and now the stats seem to be proving it as we morph into West Ham. Victor out Cork back in and we might start playing football again.

..just trying to illustrate a point ( mainly weird selection (...and subsitutions) and not convinced that our recent purchases improve the team....although admittedly early days, we do look very disjointed)......and Punch is still on our books and would for me have been a better option than JWP on the right.

My team: ----------------------Boruc---------------------------- Clyne ---------Fonte-------Lovren------------Shaw ----------------Cork……Morgan………………… Puncheon ……… ...JayRod............……………Lallana ………………...............SRL………………………………. v MoPo team (Norwich) ----------------------Boruc---------------------------- Chambers---------Fonte-------Lovren------------Fox ----------------Wanyama ……Morgan………………… JWP………............ Osvaldo...............……………Lallana ……………….................SRL………………………………. My team would win handsomely don’t you think (3-1 I reckon) ? Sort of makes you wonder doesn't it........

Nobody showing for the ball in midfield? I would be intrigued to see some comparative stats showing Wanyama/Morgan & Cork/Morgan.

…..it wasn't his hamstring but in actual fact his hamster. Apparently the little fella had made himself a miniature equestrian course out of yoghurt pots and matchsticks and had been riding around the kitchen floor on the hamster. Unfortunately, the hamster met a sorry end as it reared up whilst faced by the giant strawberry petit filous fence.

Yes, just one result but the game seen in the wider context has raised a huge amount of questions about the manager, recruitment policy, selection, tactics and playing style. A lot of the criticism has been well grounded and sensible. Some of course not ...and apologies for any VW fans out there but I do not see how he fits within our playing style. Cork is peripheral and Morgan is struggling to work alongside him.....so that's two of our best players from last year, + then Shaw and Clyne on the bench........ Personally I would have let our young team develop and would have added Lovren ( fine signing and needed) someone like Ince, another DM who can receive a ball and pass quickly, and perhaps a good young hungry striker to back up SRL. That would have been enough (..and probably half the spend)and we would have continued to progress in a measured fashion. Unfortunately now the jigsaw puzzle has been thrown in the air hence the multitude of opinions and a fair amount of vitriol. Bottom line is everyone wants the best for the club but we all have different and usually strong views as to how that is to be achieved-mainly because it means a lot to us. p.s just finished the codeword in the Times.....hopefully I am off Jeff's thick list. Now back to my day job I have rockets to build......

http://chroniclesofneef.com/2013/02/05/the-brilliance-of-the-cork-schneiderlin-partnership/ A trip down memory lane- and worth a re read. You wonder why Les Reed, NC or MP would want to dismantle this. Absolutely mental. The problem is how do you admit to (another.....?) a £12 million pound mistake? Strangely though the one game you do need a big muscular lump in the middle is against West Ham which is next up. how many teams now play that way though-even Stoke are trying to play a bit nowadays.