Toon Saint

Still in the balance according to Peachy: Simon Peach‏@SimonPeach·4m Getting so many contradicting stories on Pochettino's future, even from the most reliable of sources. #SaintsFC need to sort it out quickly.

What? Rocking up for an interview in a polo shirt, jeans, trainers and sunnies, with the kids popping along for a little day out?

I'm still 95% sure that this is boll*cks but given all the woeful coverage of us in the press, could you blame a source at the club leaking the news to a media outlet outside the big-hitters? Even if he is a Pompey fan. T'would be a nice slap in the face to Neil Ashton and company.

Aye, he has benefited the most out of all the upheaval at the club. Could go as far to say that he is the most powerful figure at SMS given his jurisdiction over player recruitment/contracts/coaching staff. Get the sense that he is not as well respected by the players as the board though. Don't think they would keep their jobs that long if they were 'rubbish'. As others have said, sounds like a personality clash with Hunter and not necessarily a reflection on their coaching skills. Shaw and Lambert haven't shied away from criticising the decision, and I'm sure they are better placed than most on here to judge. More worryingly off-message comments from our players.

SRL not too happy: BBC Solent Sport‏@solentsport·3 mins Lambert: "It's disappointing that Doddsy and Willo have been sacked. It's a bit of a shocker really." #saintsfc

I didn't know who Dan Brett was before this story broke. Almost certainly BS.

Poch does have gammy teeth though. Surely Laudrup is the natural successor if we are choosing based on rakish good-looks?

Ordered my first S/T for 10 years, and the first I am actually paying for! I'm a little anxious about what the summer will bring, though still very much looking forward to going to games a lot more regularly than I have been doing while living up North. I've missed it!

Well maybe the uncertainty could have been avoided if the board had been more forthright about a contract offer being on the table. That would have given Poch less room to manoeuvre in his dealings with the press and placed a bit of added pressure for him to make his mind up. The impasse is driving the speculation and the board should take some responsibility for that. What statement in March are you referring to? Ralph has alluded to 'maximising our potential' and gave a speech at SMS that he was in sports 'to win things' but has repeatedly shied away from defining where he'd like us to finish this coming season. Les Reed has tried to reassure fans more recently about false media speculation and wanting to keep hold of our best players, but again, has said little about what the club are striving to achieve beyond that. Most of the rhetoric coming out of the club is quite guarded and on the defensive - all the talk is of attempting to keep the group together and not about building on what we have achieved this season. That is hardly going to inspire the current group of players is it?

I said it would have helped but that his attitude was the main factor in the transfer not working out. Hardly the same as saying it doesn't matter is it? You've completely misquoted me there. A lot of the points made in those January tweets by Adam Blackmore are still relevant now. Just because we didn't sell players immediately, doesn't mean that the uncertainty at board-room level hasn't affected squad morale. Lallana and Morgan have both come out and said they want to be playing CL football in recent weeks - clearly because they don't think it is a realistic possibility at Southampton. I agree that there is no sense in updating fans when nothing has happened. Most people have agreed with that in response to the Professor's posts on the subject. However, some clearly defined and articulated targets for the coming season, and perhaps the next few years, would put a lot of fans and players minds at rest with regard to the future ambitions of the club. That is not hysterical or 'blind panic'.

The last film I watched where I hadn't read a review beforehand was 'Salmon Fishing in the Yemen', recommended by my girlfriend's mother. I'll never get those two hours back.

While brushing off your old corkers

I'm not saying that we should take all journalists/papers word for it. Football journalism in this country isn't some sort of monolithic entity - you can see faults in a lot of aspects of reportage, while accepting that certain journalists, like Blackmore and Peach, might have more insights and info due to their connections at the club. Both have expressed concerns about the communication between the new board and players - Blackmore has even said that this has come directly from the mouths of several players themselves. I don't think it is therefore 'hysterical' to assume that there might be some substance to what has written been about the club. Don't think many have actually said we will be relegated on this forum either. Just find all the inflammatory talk of everyone else being in cloud-cuckoo land a bit hard to reconcile with you previously banging the drum 'over and over' about the summer of 'inactivity' last season. As for Osvaldo, who had already played under Poch at Espanyol in his pressing style, a pre-season might have helped but his failure was more to him being an arrogant mentalist than anything else. He thought he was too good for the club and consequently spent more time fixing his hair than bothering to integrate with the squad.

a) The original thread was about a lack of signings in the striker position, so it is quite disingenuous of you to turn around and say that Osvaldo wasn't the striker we needed as though that was part of the point you were first making. Very easy escape route to take with hindsight. Personally, I was delighted with the signing (as I was already with Lovren and Wanyama) and I still think he has the attributes to succeed, were it not for his mentality letting him down. As it turns out we secured a top 8 spot - which you seriously doubted - largely without him. b) Fair enough for admitting your reaction last summer was over the top, but I'm not sure why that puts you in the best place to ask 'what the actual **** is wrong with you lot?' and telling everyone to 'calm the **** down'. All a bit unnecessary. While there is a lot of crap being written about Saints in the media, there has to be some substance to the perennial rumours about Shaw, Lallana, and Poch leaving. Journalists like Peach and Blackmore wouldn't continually talk about it being a testing summer for Saints, accept the inevitability of Shaw and Lallana moving on, and describe the lack of communication b/w the new board and players, without any inside information. This time last year we had only new signings to look forward to and all of our key players signed up on long-term deals, yet you still got angry. Now it is frenzied rumour and speculation about all of our players and managers leaving, but you get angry with others. Are you a contrarian?

Says the guy who brought you the 'who is to blame for the summer of transfer inactivity?' thread AFTER spending £20m last summer. Possibly the most 'hysterical' thread I can remember on here. If you'd have waited you would have been delivered the striker you were looking for. You've still not given a reason why only you are allowed to be worried about the clubs transfer policy and others are slated for doing so. Bit of a strange one as nearly all press rumours this summer are negative about the club, whereas we had the lovely epithet 'ambitious' affixed to the club in most reports last summer.

Quite impressed by that Josh Debayo whenever I've seen him play. He's an elegant player and really good at playing the ball out from defence. Reminds me a bit of a young Rio Ferdinand. Whether he'll reach that level, who knows? CB is one of the trickiest positions to break through into first-team - we've still got Turnbull and Stephens waiting in the wings, too.

What is more hysterical? Starting a thread bemoaning a 'summer of transfer inactivity' after we'd already signed Lovren and paid a club-record fee for Wanyama, and trying to heap the 'blame' onto Cortese? Or people expressing genuine concern about ubiquitious press rumours of a player exodus, the direction and ambition of the club at board-room level, and whether or not our manager will be here next season?

A fantastic purchase on FM10. His career has sadly nosedived, so no thanks.

After spending £20m last summer: http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?46027-Who-is-to-blame-for-the-Summer-of-inactivity

I think 'maximising our potential' and 'I'm in sports to win things' is about the closest RK has got to defining our targets/ambitions. The problem is that gap between the CL ambitions spouted by Cortese and the cold reality of the situation inherited by the board, in terms of transfer debt and the bill for training ground. Those dreams simply weren't sustainable with the level of investment KL wanted to provide. It's very hard for the club to come out and say 'we are going to balance the books this transfer window, sell a couple of key players, and then look to rebuild next summer once the infrastructure is in place.' Anything less than saying we are wanting to be competing for Europe is going to sound like failure in the eyes of the fans - thus, why RK resorts to all these non-committal vagueisms. He is a master of those, and therein lies his value to Katharina.

Yes I would have felt more confident of keeping our best players if Cortese was still at the helm. Despite his many foibles, he was fantastic at his job and clearly very skilled at uniting our young players and more experienced ones behind a shared vision. But if KL was never going to keep pumping the money in to sustain the CL dream then it is all a moot point really. Without additional money NC was already managing the club beyond its means. He might have managed another summer window of spending c. £30m by taking out a few loans, staggering the payments, and securing them against expected future earnings of club. We'd all love that short-term. A few more players, the existing squad united behind NC's dream, perhaps even sustaining a push for the top 4 a bit longer. Like it or not though, KL is the owner, and it's clear that she wasn't prepared to keep on bankrolling the club every summer - or at least not prepared to do so without having any say in how her club was being run. At some point that was always going to come to a head, and despite what looks like being a really tough summer, it is better that it has already happened. You can have the most ambitious chairman in the world who promises the European Cup within 5 years, but little sense in that if you don't have an owner to sustain those ambitions. While NC might seem petulant in resigning because KL wanted a bigger say, he obviously realised that the void between his targets and the financial means to achieve them was too great. Obviously, there is a bit of a lull around the club at the moment after what has been a mostly exhilarating season - a gap between the ambitions raised by NC and the more concrete reality faced by the new board. KL and RK haven't covered themselves in glory. The initial talk of openness and honesty, hasn't really been matched by the vagueness and PR guff of RK - a likeable man, but one who talks a lot without really ever saying anything. I can't help but feel that they should have taken a harder line with Poch and at least put it out there that they had offered him an extension. Even if he were to reject it, at the very least, that would communicate some intent and ambition towards the players.

Luke Shaw also tweeted 'confused' when Adkins left. Let's hope the replacements are equal caliibre to the first team coaching staff. Would be interesting to know which member of staff instigated the changes - KL, RK or LR?

Thanks for the translation. Out of curiosity, is he referring to Southampton as having 'a stable financial situation' or is he seeking a club that has one?

We haven't been talking for weeks, where do her intentions lay? Why is she making covetous glances at that man with the huge cock(erel)? Have I neglected her and not paid her due attention, or does she feel that she has outgrown me? Am I the man I once was?

I feel sick.