Super_Uwe

Agree 100% I am prepared to give AP time because he has proven his transfer credentials with us in the time he's been here; he has bought very well in my opinion. However I like you will not going on blindly supporting him if he's clearly getting it wrong. At the moment though he deserves our trust and I see nothing wrong with that at all. We've got just under a week to go before the window shuts and to be honest I'll be very surprised indeed if we don't get anyone further in. That said, if there aren't any deals to be made that are going to benefit the team now then I'd rather we invest in January. Despite what some say we have got more than enough talent to be doing much better in my opinion, I really do believe that. And if we are also honest, if we're that far off the pace by Christmas/January then the chances are AP won't be about anyway, so there would be money for a new boss.

This signing is a real surprise but it is nevertheless a bold move by the club. AP's record in the transfer market is absolutely top-notch for us, when you compare him to other managers in our recent past he's bought really well over the past year or so and I'm sure he's seen enough of this guy to suggest that he'll do well for us. Only time will tell as to whether he is any good but I have faith! It is a risk but sometimes it's not such a bad thing to have someone in the ranks who the other teams are not going to know much about. Hopefully we can get him settled in quickly and up to speed in terms of fitness.

I think the whole issue of football agents is something that will rear its head again before too long as it is clear that the kind of increases seen in the Football League will cause concern for some. I have a reasonably open mind with respect to the whole business; it's certainly easy to bash all football agents as being money-grabbers, but at the end of the day if an agent can persuade a good player to join a club, and that player adds real value to the club, then I have no problem with it. However, during my old job working in commercial debt collection, I was actually fortunate enough to be involved in a case involving a Championship club and a foreign agent who'd not been paid. It all started with a fax (christ, a fax these days!) asking the agent if he could help them find a striker, to which he replied "Yep, here he is - that'll be (five/six figure sum) over two years please", and the subsequent faxed reply from the club saying "OK we agree". I found that absolutely astonishing in terms of the primacy of the whole process, and the phrase "money for old rope" did seem fairly appropriate...! :@)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-10914863 You gotta love the fact that someone's drawn the action in cartoon format. Maybe it's just me but I find this whole thing somewhat amusing. For the first time in years football ACTUALLY has a sense of humour!

Food served at football grounds is generally of poor quality and overpriced. There are some exceptions but not many. Why people want to pay over 3 quid for a slab o' street meat is anyone's guess. You'd be better off with a sandy sandwich if you ask me.

It was a very frustrating game yesterday, and my Argyle supporting in-laws were kind enough not to give me too much grief. It was a real smash-and-grab performance from Plymouth yesterday and to be honest we have got to deal with similar gritty performances from the away teams at St. Mary's. Their goal seemed to knock the stuffing out of us and that simply cannot happen on a regular basis if we are to get promoted this year. The left-wing partnership between Harding and Dickson was very promising for the first 45mins, but unfortunately just like the rest of the team it fell away in the second half.

IMO the squad is strong enough - look at our resources compared to other League One clubs. To bemoan our lack of strength-in-depth at a time when there are clubs like Southend and Pompey who can barely find enough players to make even a starting eleven shows a certain lack of perspective (yes I'll admit neither club are likely to challenge for promotion in their respective divisions, but it's a point to be considered nevertheless). It is extremely unlikely that our starting eleven v Plymouth is going to have any major "square pegs in round holes"; we might not necessarily be able to field our strongest team due to injuries but it's unlikely we'll be playing midfielders as emergency full-backs etc. The problem that we can all rightly be at least a little concerned about is whether the players struggle to live up to the pressure of being favourites to win the title. However, as I've stated before, the core players that we have now have know how to win a game of football in a red-and-white shirt (or sash this season of course!). This latter point shouldn't be underestimated given our recent history. They've earned the right over the past 9 months to be given this chance - and let's not beat about the bush, this is a GOLDEN chance - to take the club back to the Championship. But they will know all too well that football has a nasty habit of surprising you when you least expect it, and that IMHO is AP's biggest test at the moment - can the players hold their nerve over the season? I do understand the posts where people are looking for signings to be made, but I genuinely believe we have more than enough talent on our books to do the business this year.

Fair dos - well I saw them both at the Olympiastadion for a Hertha Berlin game and also at the Fritz-Walter-Stadion for Kaiserslautern. Maybe I was just lucky, they were just normal cheap seats albeit not in the standing zones (which is another argument as well!) Anyway the other point was that you could have a beer in your seat if you wanted to (and even if you had to go and get it yourself!). Agree with your second point; the matchday experience over there is different in some respects but I'd agree the range of food on offer is fairly good (or at least it was when I was there). It'd be great to see a wider range at St. Mary's but I won't lose too much sleep over it I suppose...

Haha! I remember that as well, although to be fair there's a million things I ought to remember and don't! I think we also had some random Finnish guy on trial as well with a name that wasn't a million miles away from Pavlova - and so there were some terrible puns had at the time. I can't believe we haven't had an Italian play in the first team though...

I wish we were allowed to have the German "Ghostbusters" as I remember them so well from my time over there....the chaps with the beer backpacks dishing out beer and bratwurst AT YOUR SEAT! Sadly we are all too immature for that and need to be herded up and told to drink our mass-produced fizzy beer-water downstairs where Mummy and Daddy can see us. Lol on us eh?

I'll bring this back on topic. Last season I think AP achieved a B+ for his efforts - the way the season panned out was certainly not what anyone really would have expected, and I'm certainly grateful for his efforts. Our start last season was poor and ultimately killed us, but the way in which AP shaped a squad (admittedly with vast resources for a League 1 club) and got us to average approx 2 points a game for the final three quarters of the season was great. Winning a trophy - yes, some actual silverware for once - was a great feeling. This season is a completely different kettle of fish as we are rightly hot favourites to go up. Pre-season results have been disappointing so far but I am willing to give everyone the benefit of the doubt as they proved for the vast majority of last season that they were a class above the majority of this league. AP will have his work cut out this year in keeping everything in check; both he and the players know they have the ability to win this league, but it's a question of whether they can remain consistent and not be complacent. I believe that they won't be complacent, but obviously time will tell. I hope that this thread may now remain on topic and not be dominated by the usual "exchanges" from the same old people. Thanking you all muchly.

Ah yes, the Wally with the Brolly who's just won the Dutch title and is now basking in the glory of being one of Europe's most in-demand club managers and is about to have a crack at the Bundesliga as well... It's a funny old game.

I think we have as good a chance as we've had for a very long time to win a title - the core of players that we've got now are USED to winning games in a Saints shirt. That is simply something that has been unheard at our club for the best part of two generations. We need to make sure that we have a solid start so that there's enough momentum to get us over the finishing line. A brilliant Charlton-esque start would be nice but it is not the be-all-and-end-all. I am sure however that all of the players and management staff know that last season's start, coupled with the -10 deduction, was an absolute killer in terms of promotion and they will be doing everything to make sure it doesn't happen. Will also be interesting to see how the team copes with the pressure this year - as long as we don't take any tips off of Team England, we'll be fine. :@)

IMO I think a lot of the teams have not done enough homework on the ball itself. We all know how long the Germans have been using the ball for, but to be honest I cannot believe that the other teams have not had enough time to get used to it. That said, I've nevertheless been appalled at some of the control on display by professionals who really should be doing better. Maybe they'd have been alright playing with a 1950's style leather ball that soaked up the rain! It does appear that Adidas have gone a bit too far this time and perhaps the next World Cup ball will be received better by all parties.

Agree with that. For whatever reason the England team seemed to be completely lacking any sort of team spirit. Not one of the players looked like they wanted to be there, and that is just criminal. Why that may have been the case is anyone's guess, but there was something fundamentally wrong within the England camp. We can talk all day long about the players playing too much football - well, perhaps it did have an effect - but it should also be remembered that most of the other European leagues finished AFTER the Premier League did. As much as I will never forget his pathetic efforts with Saints, I do think Redknapp would be a decent contender as his man-management skills are proven enough. If nothing else he would have the media on his side which should not be underestimated. Whether he would want to keep fighting if the going got tough and there weren't enough players about...well that's another matter. As is the £m+ compensation package for Fabio!

The sad thing - yet again - is that we've gone into a tournament with more than enough players to do well. I think there will be some serious fallout in the next few weeks. There just seemed to be zero team spirit and unfortunately that is something you need even with good players. I am not sure what the management team were doing to foster team spirit and banter, but mentally we looked shot to pieces. You can talk about formations all day long but if you are not prepared mentally to get on the pitch and perform then it doesn't matter who you've got - you're basically screwed. Also - Philipp Lahm's comments were spot on; we didn't give Germany enough respect, just like we didn't give enough respect to the Americans, the Algerians or the Slovenians. The simple fact of the matter is that most nations have just got better and better over the past 20-30 years, and we just aren't light years ahead of them. Yet we as a nation seem to think it's our given right to p*** all over these teams and when we don't it comes as a massive shock. It really shouldn't! Unfortunately we are stuck in our own little world with the shining light of "The World's Greatest League" as some sort of justification why we should win tournaments. And to a certain extent, I expect a lot of the players think we're the best as well as they've never had the balls to go and ply their trade abroad, learn a different culture/language/way of playing etc. Our lack of footballing intelligence is frightening to be honest. The "golden generation" tag has possibly been one of the least appropriate tags you could wish to have though!

Where do you feel those 3-4 positions are?

I do agree to a certain extent with you, however I think Joe Cole's problem is that his talent was "watered down" to make him fit in better with mainstream football. He's had a bloody good career, don't get me wrong, but his abilities could have gone much, much further if allowed to develop properly. IMHO of course. I've argued before that he has suffered from our demented mentality in the UK to have caged tiger, hard-tackling, no-nonsense s***house midfielders rather than these fancy-dan, "creative" types. He needed time to develop his end product but unfortunately he had to curb his attacking instincts in favour of a more conforming role (and to a certain extent you could argue this fits in with society as a whole although let's steer clear of that, haha! Whilst Walcott's pace would certain be a real asset with 15min to go, JC can play across the midfield + as a support striker. If A Johnson and Lennon go, I suppose we can argue that's the pace we're looking for...

Agree. We still don't know 100% that he's not going but it would appear not. I think it was his performances in these last two friendlies that may just have done it for him. He didn't really do enough to warrant his place, and to be honest we can't just pick players based on one absolutely sensational performance a couple of years. He's still only 21 and could realistically make the next 3 World Cups - hopefully now he can really focus on upping his game and making the most of his undoubted talent.

I'd be interested to know whether the club has a significant debtor book or not with respect to payment plans, i.e. is there a significant proportion of fans who agreed to pay in instalments and then got behind on some payments/defaulted? From that perspective, if it is the case that by offering the payment plans they have had a lot of extra admin/chasing up of fans who aren't paying, then I can kind of understand it. Noone wants to be p****** around chasing small debts like this. However, offering payment plans is an important part of credit management and also a useful sales perk. Surely they could have kept it but instead of offering 0% maybe add a nominal credit charge (perhaps £15-20 accumulated interest over the payment term?). At least that way there is a bit of extra income for the club and fans would have access to credit that is significantly cheaper than bank loans, non-0% credit cards etc. Not an unreasonable suggestion IMO.

A trifle harsh although I do agree with your sentiments to a certain extent. I guess we'll never truly know the extent of his injuries but when you read WGS' autobiography for example, he is full of praise for his talent and sheer ability (if memory serves me correctly he said that Marian was the best finisher by a country mile), but he felt that Pahars wasn't the bravest. One story in there stuck in my memory and it was one where both Marian and Fabrice Fernandes looked less than enthused at having to swim in the sea during one of the notorious training camps in Scotland! Would love to have been there! Still, some of the goals he scored and some of his general play was wonderful - and he was one of my favourite Saints players ever. I still think of him in that light rather than the sicknote we unfortunately saw in the last few years of his time at Saints.

Agree with almost everything there, but I don't totally agree with the comments about Fuller. IMHO he was never properly fit when he joined, but when he did finally get the games under his belt he did very little to endear himself to the fans. Time has shown that he is actually a good player - certainly plenty good enough for the Champ - and it's frustrating that his time with us was so poor. I've seen him play for Stoke quite a few times and watched him really putting a proper shift in - he never did that for us. Again, you could possibly argue he probably didn't want to be here either.

Actually, on a slightly separate note there was an interesting article in 442 where they did a joint piece with Kasper Schmeichel and Gavin Strachan, both of whom have had to cope with constant references to their old man. The general consensus tends to be that footballing sons do get treated differently, but often if they're working with their old man they tend to get jumped on quicker than if they were any of the other players (not wishing to show favouritism etc). With AP I can't believe that TP would genuinely have given him an easy ride - although the appearances/amount of times resigned by his dad don't seem to suggest that he was given much stick either. A tough one to call all round - to be honest it'd be quite nice for him just to do a piece in the press saying about his ambitions, frustrations etc. The fact that we've heard absolute jack all seems to suggest that he isn't all that bothered, which is a shame especially if he does care. As many have mentioned, there haven't been many players to get so much stick for never playing!

Most people have, he's probably forgotten himself to be fair!

Pulis, Forecast, Gasmi, Molyneux....whatever happened to the phrase "we'll only buy someone if they're better than what we've got"? Didn't really work out for any of these chaps did it!