Two lucky SaintsWeb forum members got the chance to attend an exclusive behind-closed-doors training session at Staplewood on Thursday, following a draw among those who had contributed towards the player sponsorship of Graeme Murty and Simon Gillett.

Here are the reports of the day, lifted verbatim from the forum, firstly from Block 5:

We got to Staplewood just after 10am.

The session started with a warm up and then the usual routines that we’ve all seen pre-match a thousand times.

There was a fair bit of banter between the players, Neil ‘Trots’ Trottman was singled out for some stick because he kept running in the wrong direction. It was all good natured and was indicative of a pretty good sense of camaraderie between the players.

I started to take some pictures but was soon told to stop by the security guard who was lurking around, keeping an eye on us. I’m not sure why we couldn’t take pictures of the session; an official club photographer was taking pics and filming.

After 20 minutes or so, the squad split into 2 groups; Wally Downes took the defenders off whilst AP took the attackers off to the main pitch. The sponsors were given a choice and I chose to watch AP.

AP started working on the edge of the box, with players receiving the ball, taking a touch and then shooting. All bog standard stuff. David Connolly looked particularly impressive and was without doubt the most accurate finisher.

AP then moved on to crosses, with Papa & Michail Antonio putting the crosses in from the right and Lee Holmes and Joseph Mills crossing from the left. Morgan and Mellis were receiving as were Lambert and Connolly. Everyone swapped round a bit, Dan Harding was putting balls in too.

Jacob Mellis looked good and had some lovely touches but his shooting was tragic, with just about every ball hit sky high. At one point AP had a pop at Mellis. Antonio looked pretty useful. It was all standard stuff. After 30 minutes the rest of the squad joined us on the main pitch and a game was organised against the youth team.

The first team was KD, Harding, Jaidi, Trots, Lloydie, Wotton sat in front of the back 4 with Morgan and Mellis ahead of him, Connolly was wide left and Papa wide right, with Lambert up front. AP kept blowing the whistle and analysing the play. He was pointing out where he wanted players for each situation.  There was a fair bit of work done with our forwards pressuring defenders, with a lot of focus on Papa getting into their left back and putting him under pressure.

AP was very organised and communicative and knew exactly what he wanted. I was pretty impressed to be honest. He kept calling Ben Reeves ‘Rod Stewart’ which made me chuckle (Reeves has a bit of a dodgy haircut).

Now I have always been a critic of Paul Wotton but I think he has improved a hell of a lot under AP. He was very vocal today, with plenty of words for the players around him. He seems to suit the defensive midfielder role, and looked very comfortable just in front of the centre backs.
Communication was good all round, it’s surprising what you don’t hear at SMS. The noise of the crowd drowns out the players, and I always assumed they were fairly quiet: no way!
Papa still seems to have a language problem. I swear he didn’t understand a word AP said to him. When they needed a message to get through, Jaidi would talk to him in French.

After today I assume that AP will play 4-5-1 on Saturday, with RL up front. Connolly played wide left and didn’t get a look in at all. He looked lost. I would much rather see him play up front in a 4-4-2 with Lambert. Those two will score some goals together. I reckon he will start on the bench on Saturday…….

……But that depends on the injuries. There were two noticeable absentees from training. Adam Lallana and Dean Hammond. Both were there but didn’t train at all. I’m not sure what’s up with Ads, but Hammond has a very slight hamstring, so was being rested. There were no goals in the match.

Afterwards there was some free kick practise for Mills, Holmes, Mellis, Harding and Antonio. Harding was the pick of the bunch.

We then all went to the dome. We saw the players’ lounge. All rather nice. However I would have liked to have seen a 40 inch TV on the wall, a PS3 and a copy of FIFA 10. Instead there was a ping pong table, a 32 inch TV, a cheapo XBOX 360 and a copy of FIFA 07: Gash!

We had sarnies, crisps and coffee in the computer room; this was obviously where AP would discuss match tactics. A large interactive white board and plenty of PCs dotted around.
There was a white board with the following legend written on it: “No one is blamed, we are all accountable”.

The players started to trickle in and chat to their sponsors. I had to shoot off and meet the wife at the Mayflower at that point (besides, Gillett wasn’t around for hugs and cuddles).

and zigsdad:

Hi everyone,

I posted a quick account yesterday on the train on the way home (see the prize-winners thread), but crashed out early when I got home. Rearranging everything (including shifting my most important lecture on the MSc Neuroscience course! - sorry students, but I just have to take the day off…) took some doing, but it was well worth it.

I live up in South London (Denmark Hill/Camberwell) and can’t normally make mid-week matches, so explaining to my Dad why I was arriving on a Tuesday evening for no apparent reason was fun…. We’ve been season ticket holders for many years (since moving to the Bench Seats under the West Stand back in about 1980 when I got too old for the family centre), but recently he’s had a run of bad luck with two hip replacements (including one which went wrong) so it was great to be able treat him to something that was so special to both of us.

Block5’s post gives a great account of the day (was that you that came over for a chat?), but I’ll add my thoughts. They’ll be less technical - just in case the MK Dons spies are watching , but will give you a more personal account of the day.

I’d been out to Staplewood a few times to see the Youth team, but turning up and giving our names to the guy on the gate - including a long pause for effect while he found them - was all quite different. We got there early and could watch all the other sponsors turn up, mostly in big fancy cars as you might expect. By about 10.15 a few players began to trot over and we all gathered next to the field that was set out with those silhouettes of players, poles etc (but no cones). Most of the sponsors were standing there with silly grins like it was Christmas morning (I know I was!) - and that was just the adults, with a few kids too. One the players all turned up they went for a quick jog round the field and I got told off for taking pictures - not allowed until we went inside the dome….

For the first set of exercises the players were split into four groups of about 6 and did various routines run by Nick Harvey (fitness coach) in which they dodged between poles and in between each other, mostly without any collisions - the exception being Neil Trotman who fell over at least once. It was great to hear all the banter going on between all the players and they seemed very much ‘together’ with lots of nick names used and pisstakes going on to start with. As the pace of the session got quicker (which it did with several sprints and a lot of quick stepping through squares on the ground) there was obviously less breath to spare, but they all seemed to be having fun at the same time. Players who stood out a) as putting that bit more effort in included Paul Wotton, who seemed deadly serious about it all; or b) Saganovski who seemed to be drifting through the sesssion and not really part of it (just like in a match…?).

While this was going on Dean Wilkins came over to talk to us all and explain what the sessions were about and how the rest of the day would play out. When they split into defensive coaching (with Wally Downs - who is clearly quite a character!) on one of the outer fields - we headed over to the main pitch to watch the forwards. I’d have probably chosen that anyway, but my Dad needed somewhere to sit by then as his hip was giving him grief….

The biggest impression of the forwards training session was that Alan Pardew really is the man in charge. While other tasks were obviously farmed out to different coaches, he clearly is ‘the man’. As described in more detail by Block5, the players ran through various drills - mostly fast balls into the box and finishing past Bart - who it had to be said did a pretty good job of getting in the way of some very hard shots. Connolly’s finishing really stood out, Rickie and Papa also put lots away - with Papa being surprisingly good in the air. Michael Antonio also stood at as being very good. Pards was constantly talking in a voice that boomed out across the pitch, offering advice, praising and telling off players who’d f**ked up badly. There were a couple of very funny apologies for bad language to the sponsors, but again there was a great sense of togetherness and working towards a common goal of winning on Saturday.

Clearly the scouting has improved as there were several specific strategies that were being tried out with many references to how the Dons play and ways to counter them. These included both weakness they might have that could be attacked or particular pattens of play that they use which could be predicted and intercepted. These were then practiced several times when the whole first team got back together to practice against the youth team. Several of the strategies that they’d worked on earlier were tried out, with Pardew frequently using a whistle to stop play so that they could go back and try again.

The whole session was all very focussed and ‘professional’, but there were several funny quips from Wally Downs, including one ‘tres bien, Papa’ which had everyone laughing. All in all a relaxed happy atmosphere, but clearly a lot of concentrated work going on with Saturday in mind. It will be very interesting to see if they remember them or are allowed by the Dons to use them.

So far the day had been a very interesting insight in how the team is being prepared for Saturday, but moving into the dome was the best bit of all when we got to meet the players. Now, I regularly stand up and give invited talks in front of big audiences at scientific conferences, talk to the media (live TV too) etc, BUT getting to meet (and even talk with!) the players took me right back to being a star-struck 10 year-old waiting in the Dell car park to get autographs from the likes of my hero Nick Holmes and Micky Channon… As it turned out though there was no reason to be nervous, with all of them turning out to be surprising ‘normal’ - especially Graeme Murty who is a great guy and very much down to earth, but more of that later…

The outside training session had finished with some of the midfielders practicing shooting from the edge of the ‘D’ with pardew also taking part. The aim of the game was to score more than Bart saved, but it turned out that he won every time. In 3 rounds of shots they even failed to score more than once or twice and AP apologised for the lack of quality!

Wandering inside the dome was very interesting, having read several accounts of what its like had me prepared, but nevertheless it was fun to actually see it all. I managed to lose the rest of the party and sneak a quick peak at the indoor pitch, which is very impressive. The new players all trot out the cliche about Saints ‘premier league facilities’ in the 3rd division, but its undoubtedly true that the set-up at Staplewood is great.

We all went upstairs and walked through the players lounge (nice, but Block5 is right the TV is crap) to reach a smaller room with bunch of (crappy) PC’s down one wall (with a solitary iMac ) and comfy chairs for screening video/DVDs of games. We got some OK sandwiches plus tea/coffee and the chance to mingle for a while with the other sponsors. Despite my earlier misgivings about the flash cars, everyone I talked to was great. Real Saints fans through and through, and mostly all excited to be there with a few kids who had either bunked of school or were already on half term.

Gradually the players started to drift in one-by-one, having been told who their sponsor was by one of the club liaison people. With Graeme Murty obviously not having been involved in the main training session (he was doing some stretching excercises with some of the youth team players, but is mostly on hist strict rehab routine), I wasn’t sure if he would turn up, but like most of the players he did and was very happy to have a long chat of 20+ minutes. Indeed, pretty much the whole squad turned up, with only a very few exceptions (Paul Wotton, Jacob Mellis, and Michall Antonio). I don’t know whether or not their sponsors weren’t there, but they were the only ones I didn’t have a chance to say ‘Hi’ to .

I’d brought a new shirt especially to get it signed and strategically positioned myself by the door to catch the players as they came in. I managed to get over 20 players to sign and have a quick chat with. All of them were dressed very casually (so in my normal scriffy jeans I didn’t feel out of place ), with one exception. Several of his team mates had told Papa that a suit was compulsory and he had duly obliged wearing a very sharp outfit . As with during the training session it was very clear that there’s a great spirit between the players with plenty of piss taking going on. All of them were very happy to chat for a while, Adam to say he would be fine for Saturday, Rickie Lambert to say how much he’s enjoying his time here etc. I had a longer chat with Alan Pardew who comes across exactly as he does in interviews, direct, honest and interested in what you say. He comes from the same area of South London that I live in and knew exactly where I was working (at King’s on Denmark Hill) and he was keen to hear what I’d made of the training session & hoped that the players would remember the tactics for Saturday

Of course, the longest chat was with Graeme Murty who was very happy to talk about his injury (thought it was really bad to start with AND got hit on the head by the gas & air cylinder when he was carried off!) and rehab routine (lots of strengthening exercises and he still had another session in the pool that afternoon), but also about moving clubs (very happy here and didn’t have to move home) and what day-to-day life as a footballer is like. He’s also very interested in the training side of the game too and is doing his badges. He comes across as a real leader (ideal captain material when he’s fit?) and would be a good idea for the club to keep him on in some capacity when he retires.

It’s clear that Morgan, Jaidi and Papa hang out together a lot, and as we drove away the last thing we saw was the three of them talking in the car park next to a giant SUV type wagon, but they did manage to wave us off .

I then had to get back to London in time for the school and nursery run. My two youngest boys (3 and nearly 7) are also big Saints fans and were very excited to hear about the day and see the signed shirt. Even my long suffering wife (a long term Saints widow) and oldest son (a die hard Stokie boy - he was born there…) feigned interest in what had been a wonderful day before I crashed out early.

I know that it meant a lot to me and my dad and I’d like thank everyone for making it happen. Although I’ve rarely posted, the Saints Web (in all its previous forms) and Saints List have kept me going through the years, especially when I lived over in Munich and then in San Francisco.

I hope that someone else reading this will be as lucky to get picked next year as it really was a wonderful experience. Now I really should get back to work…

Other forum members were also lucky enough to win tickets to the club’s end of season awards dinner, which we will hopefully have reports from at the end of the season.

No, we’re not the mystery second bidder for the club. Many of the SaintsWeb Forum regulars will take to the St Mary’s pitch tonight in a fundraising game.

If you fancy coming along to watch, support or just hurl abuse at us, entry is £5 for adults, £1 for under-16s. The proceeds will either go to the Save Our Saints fund (if the club situation still hasn’t been resolved in the next two weeks), or to a charity nominated by the players tonight.

Kick-off is 6.45pm, the Itchen North turnstiles will be open from 6.00pm.

Saints strikers Bradley Wright-Phillips and David McGoldrick are being investigated by Hampshire police after an incident in London Road in the early hours of Saturday morning.

The incident first came to public light on Saturday when a brief report was posted on a message board (later copied to the SaintsWeb forum), which read:

Young saints lad walking home on his own after a nightout bumps in to Mcgoldrick and Wright phillips . Starts chatting to them about saints says when you boys gonna do the buisness and get us away from the bottom.Then they turn on him telling him how much they earn and what have you ever done.then they start to throw there food at him and start to punch and kick him.The lads got a few bumps and bruises but hes alright.This happened up by the giddy bridge pub,hopefully its all on cctv.DIRTY NO GOOD ****S

The Echo have since reported that the police have received a complaint from the alleged victim and that they are investigating the incident. The 21-year-old man is expected to make a statement to police tomorrow, although it’s expected that any chance of developments in the case will hinge upon the quality of CCTV footage in the area.

Wright-Phillips is no stranger to the Hampshire Constabulary, having been charged with burglary from a Portsmouth bar last year, although the charges against him were eventually dropped due to a lack of evidence. Nathan Dyer - also charged in the same incident - pleaded guilty and was sentenced to community service.

His “previous” will doubtlessly count against him in the eyes of the fans, and many members of the SaintsWeb Forum appear to have already made up their mind on this. However, it should be made clear that no arrests have been made and no charges brought at this stage. It’s also entirely possible that the alleged victim in this incident had a much larger part to play than has been suggested, and that will be up to the police to determine.

If, and it’s a big “if” at this stage, he is charged and convicted, I think that probably signals the end of his career here. He’s taken plenty of stick from fans in the past due to his perceived laziness, and he was booed by a large section of the St Mary’s crowd on his first appearance after the Bar Bluu incident made the front pages of the national press. If he has assaulted a supporter, whether it was provoked or not, that clearly won’t go down well with the crowd. I’d also expect the club to take a tough stance on it. He and Dyer were both suspended internally after their arrest last year, so I would expect at least the same treatment this time around, but as a repeat incident, it’s not inconceivable that the club may just decide they have grounds to cancel Wright-Phillips’ contract.

McGoldrick hasn’t been involved in anything like this before, and I hope it’s the last time we see him linked with this sort of behaviour. I certainly don’t begrudge players a night out, particularly on a weekend when their game has already been postponed, but as role models to young people in the city, they have an added duty to protect their status as a role model. Failure to do so should be looked on very dimly by the powers that be within Southampton Football Club.

Saints will host English and European Champions Manchester United in the third round of the FA Cup.

The game will take place on either Saturday 3rd or Sunday 4th of January. With neighbours Pompey and Bournemouth (if they can overcome Blyth Spartans in a replay next week) also drawn at home, it’s likely that our game may be played on the Sunday.

Looking through the draw, there aren’t that many ties that stand out as likely TV game candidates. Histon - who amusingly beat Leeds United today - will host Swansea City (who of course were eliminated by Havant & Waterlooville last season), while Conference North side Barrow travel to Middlesbrough. The three all-Premier League ties aren’t likely to set any pulses racing, so a repeat of the 1976 final may prove appealing for either ITV or Setanta Sports.

Of course the calibre of the opposition is likely to mean a sell-out crowd at St Mary’s, and the cynics among the Saints fanbase (of which there are clearly many!) will be eager to find out whether those who have claimed to be “boycotting” the club under the current boardroom leadership will make an appearance for this prestige game. I’ve already seen some people suggest that the club should offer season ticket holders and those who have been regularly to home games this season extra tickets before those who could potentially fall into the “boycotters” category.

It’ll also be very interesting to see the club’s pricing policy - do they stick with the current matchday prices to ensure a full house and to make those who have been going regularly this season don’t feel as though they’re being taken for granted, or do they look to maximise the potential revenue from this game under the likelihood that it’ll be the first and last game for us in this cup run?

Either way, it’s hopefully going to be a great occasion for the club. Most of the players won’t have played against United, and I’m sure they’ll all be looking forward to putting themselves to the test against Europe’s best.

Full draw:

Portsmouth v Bristol City
Sheffield Wed v Fulham
Preston v Liverpool
Birmingham v Wolves
West Ham v Barnsley
Middlesbrough v Barrow
Hull City v Newcastle
Hartlepool v Stoke
Chelsea v Southend
Manchester City v Nottingham Forest
Cardiff v Reading
Ipswich v Chesterfield or Droylsden
Charlton v Norwich
West Brom v Peterborough or Tranmere
Torquay v Blackpool
Leyton Orient v Sheffield United
Southampton v Manchester United
Millwall v Carlisle or Crewe
Histon v Swansea
Forest Green Rovers v Derby
QPR v Burnley
Leicester v Crystal Palace
Tottenham v Wigan
Morecambe or Cheltenham v Doncaster
Arsenal v Plymouth
Notts County or Kettering v Eastwood Town
Bournemouth or Blyth Spartans v Blackburn
Macclesfield v Everton
Watford v Scunthorpe
Sunderland v Bolton
Coventry v Kidderminster
Gillingham or Stockport v Aston Villa

The FA have shown an unsurprising lack of a backbone by rejecting Saints’ appeal against the ridiculous red card shown to Jason Euell on Saturday.

The three-match ban imposed for straight red card offences will therefore remain, and Euell will miss the next three games - against Reading, Plymouth and his former club Charlton.

While video evidence seemed to clearly demonstrate that Euell’s challenge was contested equally as fiercely by Wolves’ Richard Stearman and that no Wolves player even appealed for a free-kick - let alone any sort of further punishment which would often be displayed for “straight red card” fouls - the FA have ignored this and upheld the decision.

Anyone with a modicum of common sense could see, particularly with the aid of the television highlights, that it was barely a foul, let alone a red card, but unfortunately common sense isn’t something in plentiful supply at Soho Square.

As I mentioned in my match report from the Wolves game, the FA are more than happy to bang the “Respect the Ref” drum, and yet fail to understand that sheer frustration from pure incompetence is often the reason behind a supposed lack of respect. Players don’t go into games with the intention of giving the referee a hard time - it is as a direct result of absolutely ridiculous decisions going against them that respect is lost, hence both Andrew Surman and Rudi Skacel collecting bookings for dissent on Saturday.

It’s also a sign of the FA’s priorities and ethics that they were very quick and willing to overturn the red card handed out (awarded correctly, in my opinion) to England captain John Terry after he rugby-tackled Manchester City striker Jo to the ground, and yet for a far clearer case of an incorrect decision being made, they throw it out seemingly without actually considering the case on its merits.