suspect everyone

Rarely post, but felt compelled with this Les Reed debate. Against any performance measure Les Reed’s tenure can only be considered to have been successful. Take his actions and performance outside of the emotive football world and into another industry and he’d have been lauded as a mastermind: - Improved league position in each of the last 6 seasons - Two promotions - European qualification x 2 - Carling Cup final - Promotion of academy players, bucking the trend of our rivals - Three very successful managerial appointments (Adkins, Poch, Koeman) - Identification and purchase of world class footballers, unseen by our rivals (Mane, VVD, Alderweireld, Lovren, Wanyama, Clyne, Lambert) In years to come when the fortunes of Saints ultimately change we will all look back on these last 6 years as the most successful and joyous that the club ever had. However I do understand the frustration from some. Losing our best players every year is demoralising. We haven’t replaced the quality we had last season adequately (though suspect this is a restricton from Katerina). I also feel the years of success have gone to the heads of some in the club (including Les) and some of our decisions smack of us knowing “better than everyone else”. Puel’s appointment being the best example. No other club PL club would have appointed him. Nevertheless, I am happy to cut Les and others some slack given the years of success I have enjoyed under their stewardship. And given I am going to go to a cup final this year (ticket office permitting). And given I went to Milan to watch Saints play this season. And given we’re doing all of this with a lot of young, local academy players. The entitlement of some on this forum is remarkable. Look at where we’ve come from. Look at what we’ve achieved. There is no other example of this journey of success in modern day English football. And Les Reed was at the heart of it.

Agreed, our width comes from our fullbacks and it works well. However we'll need to keep both Shaw and Clyne fit all season, as their deputies (Fox and Chambers) don't have the attributes to perform the same role. Clyne has a good fitness record but Shaw has recently become quite injury prone. Appreciate this sometimes happens with young players, but it is a little concerning. Where does the width come from when they're injured? I dont see anyone in the squad who can provide it. Are we meant to resign ourselves to poor performances the moment either of these two are out of the squad? Confident Pochetinno will come up with something, but performances so far have been a little inflexible.

13/100. Awful. If we were losing towards the end of a match Dave Merrington would always demand we send Big Darren Powell up t'front. Ah the beautiful game.

I thought Bale played on a different level to every player on the pitch when Spurs came to town. He had a few moments of skill and strength that only he could have pulled off.

Keep trying the 01271 number. It took me 5 minutes of redialling but I got through in the end and successfully purchased a ticket.

Same experience here. The one time the page loaded the only quantity of tickets I could select was 0. Great. Must be holding back to get tickets to those outside the stadium.

At the end of the Chelsea match NA did appear to wave to the fans. It was hard to tell whether it was a "thanks for the support" wave or a "i know I'm off and this is me waving goodbye". When I saw him do it I thought it was strange. God I hope it was nothing.

Well last night was a lot of fun. 1st half we passed the ball about well but didn’t have any attacking threat. Their two goals came from our sloppy defending, both could have been cleared in the build up. 2-0 down at half time. We didn’t deserve that as Chelsea themselves had been poor. Adkins started Rickie and Gaston on the bench and you have to say that the gameplan worked. Bringing them on fresh meant they could have more impact against tired defenders. Rickie was immense when he came on and scored within 5 minutes. When Puncheon scored the equaliser we went bananas. What a brilliant finish. I thought we had equalised too early though with 15 minutes to go. Benitez however did us a favour by bringing on Torres. He was terrible and wasted all of their chances towards the end of the game. Clyne, Morgan and Shaw were our best players, Morgan in particular was great. I was worried when Chappers came on but he did quite well. Chelsea fans were very quiet. Not much of an atmosphere and they were quick to turn on their team and the manager when things started going wrong. That was satisfying! There was also a wonderful moment when John Terry came and warmed up near us. Notable chants were "you let your country down", "there's only one Wayne Bridge" and my favourite "racist, racist, racist". A good night out!

Darren Powell

Is he automatic first choice? Or is he an understudy to Richardson?

Back from the game. First 20 mins it looked like we'd stroll it. Millwall were terrible and we were coasting at 1-0. Out of nowhere we,re 2-1 down. Two poor pieces of defending. After that we were terrible, all the way through to the 80th minute. Biggest culprits were Chaplow and Hammond, both completely off the pace and scared to show for the ball. However the whole team looked void of ideas, aimless long balls to Ricky that didn't stick. SDR showed flashes and Sharp worked hard in the second half. Then, when all hope was lost, two pens (both soft) changed everything. So satisfying to rub it in to the Millwall fans, they really are pondlife. An absolute robbery of a result, but it couldn't have happened to a more deserving set of fans in Millwall.

Occasionally ask girlfriend to name Saints players, if only to give myself a cheap laugh. Adam Luvlies instead of Adam Lallana was a good one. She once succcesfully named Stern John, but let herself down slightly by asking why people thought he was stern...as in angry. So with this logic he could be have been called Angry John or Disgruntled John. Brilliant. To her credit she does know some of the words to Ricky Lambert Goal machine, but only because I sing it around the house.

As soon as I heard Kelvin was injured I was nervous about Bart playing. Couldn't believe how bad he actually performed though. It wasn't as if he had a few dodgy moments amongst some reasonable keeping, his every contribution was either nervous or calamitous, all credit to the defenders for minimising his exposure. I think his time has come at Saints. He came to the club as a good young prospect, and is arguably still young enough to pick up his career at a new club. However with Saints he's been number two for too long. He has travelled up and down the country for the last three years warming the bench and has happily sat back and let the seasons drift by. The club is at fault for allowing this but he his also shown a lack of ambition. He's wasted some of the best years of his career not playing and is now too nervous and rusty to play when called upon. We could easily find another number two to come in, and he clearly could benefit from a fresh start.

It's as simple as that!!!!!!!

Thats Jay Bothroyd, I was suggesting we appoint Aidy Boothroyd (ex Watford manager). My comment was dumb but not that dumb!