Nordic Saint

And didn't the BBC commentator keep on about it. He mentioned Southampton so many times, it made me think he must be from here too. When he said, "The whole of Southampton must be watching" I thought, probably not at this time. I doubt many people had even heard of Billy Morgan before today. But, it was a remarkable achievement in an event which requires incredible bravery, for a man who learned on the dry slope in Southampton.

Thanks for that link. The first picture that came up was a rug identical to one I bought in Esfahan for £100 many years ago. It's now valued in England at £3,700, and it's not even my best Persian rug. I'm not really a business-oriented person but if you want to make money, it's clealry worth going to Iran and buying rugs.

Carlos Bacca would have been great. But, of the strikers we were linked with this January window, this is the one I was hoping we'd sign: http://readsouthampton.com/2018/01/16/southampton-reportedly-asked-kevin-gameiro/

Another one I'd like to have squeezed in was Rob Renesenbrink. When he played for Anderlecht against us in 1977, he showed the most sublime ball skills and technical mastery that I'd ever seen at the Dell. Up until then, I'd thought Channon was the master of dribbling but Rensenbrink was at another level. He was, however, just a forerunner of things to come because, since the 70s, football skills have advanced a lot. If you could send players like Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi and Aguero back in time, they'd have been viewed as superior to even Best and Pele. But, it's not fair to compare different eras.

How many of those players you see live? It's more fun, more challenging and more interesting if you can only pick a best XI from players you've been to games to see. I might have named Yashin, Pelé, Cruyff, Maradona and Messi but I have only seen them on TV. So, of the players I've seen live, mine would be: Goedon Banks Tarcisio Burgnich John Charles Bobby Moore Paolo Maldini Luis Figo Zinedine Zidane Bobby Charlton George Best Cristiano Ronaldo Mario Kempes Subs: P. Schmeichel, Dani Alves, Sammer, Džajić, De Bruyne, Cantona, Aguero

The main reason is lack of pace. He is nowhere near as fast as Austin. He also lacks the physical and mental toughness - that bit of aggression Austin has- which you need to intimidate Premier League defenders. His ball acontrol and passing ability are not awful, but nothing special. I hope that helps you, Duckhunter.

Romeu said MP "is not the main problem at the club." I wonder who is? Personally, I think it's Reed and if the 3 more years with the same board tweet is correct, it sounds like we're now going to be stuck with him until he's 69 years old at least, which will mean further decline.

He's the same now as he's been his whole career, except he's now playing in a much harder league. A leopard doesn't change its spots. He was never more than a mediocre striker in either the Argentine and French leagues, which is why he was not a regular first teamer, a prolific goal scorer or ever considered good enough for an international cap at any level. When we signed him, we all knew that. He'll do his best but he won't score many goals. He's never going to be a regular goal scorer like Austin, Pelle or Lambert. I predict he will average 4 goals per season at this level, and hopefully a couple of them before the end of this season. The glass half full fans will praise him every time he touches the ball and the glass half empty fans will criticise him for all the times he doesn't, a bit like Clasie when he was here. All those saying the manager's tactics are responsible for him not scoring goals, seem to forget that Charlie Austin had no problem scoring for the same manager with the same tactics in the same team.

Yes, he was out for a long time with a hip injury but he's played in a few Premier League and Champions League games recently including the full 90 minutes in their Champions League game this week.

Smales like teen spirit.

Yes, we'd have sold him as soon as we got an offer for him from another Premier League club, as we would have done if we'd had Vardy or any other goal scorer. The business is the board and owners' sole priority now, not the team. Players are simply viewed as commodities to be sold and the team is only used as a shop window to attract buyers for them. But, that short-term greed and consequent neglect of the team is going to cost the owners money in the long term, as you need a successful team to attract buyers and keep the Premier League money pouring in, not that Kat will be particulary bothered as she is already laughing all the way to the bank, having made quarter of a billion out of us, which is more than just about any owner in history has ever made out of a football club.

So far thi season, Murray has scored 10 and Abraham has scored 7 so, yes, they are better than our strikers, with the exception of Charlie Austin when he's fit. What is your point, by the way?

I misread it and thought that it was £5 to buy the whole football club. Terry Venables only paid £1 for it in 1997.

Lukasz Fabianski, Lewis Dunk, Xherdan Shaqiri, Glenn Murray, Tammy Abraham, Jordan Ayew, Jamaal Lascelles, Alfie Mawson, Ben Mee, Abdoulaye Doucouré, Aaron Mooy, Matt Ritchie, Pascal Groß, Wilfired Zaha etc. With the exception of Charlie Austin when he's fit, I don't think any rival club or even some Championship clubs would want to swap their central defensive and striking options for ours.

Any league is good when you are going well in it and bad when you are doing badly. At the end of the 2015/16 season, every Saints fan was very happy to be in the Premier League and looking forward to the next season. When we were struggling at the bottom of the Championship in 2009 we were miserable. We have spent 41 of the last 50 years in the top flight and it's where you'd expect a club with a fan base as big as ours - among the 12 biggest in the country - to be. There is nothing great about underachieving alongside smaller clubs in a lower league. Ask Sunderland and Hull fans about it. Wishing for it is just defeatism.

The owners of other clubs spend their own money plus the Premier League prize money on their teams. Brighton's owner, Tony Bloom, has spent around £150 million out of his own pocket. on top of the club's own income, on Brighton's new stadium and players. You'll find that's fairly typical of Premier League club owners. Football clubs have always been, like racehorses, a rich man's palyhting. Traditionally, wealthy local businessmen used to spend money on their local football club as a way of putting something back into their local community. Jack Walker at Blackburn was a classic example. Nowadays, international billionaires compete against each other to see who can build the most successful team but there are still local businessmen like Mike Garlick at Burnley. They wouldn't dream of trying to make even one penny out of their beloved football clubs. Meanwhile, we are reduced to only being able to spend part of the money we get from selling players on their replacements. Coventry is one of the few other clubs where the owners have seen the club entirely as an opportunity to make money. Kat not only pocketed the £210 million she got from Gao but the the club had to pay her back a loan plus interest before the sale took place. She must have made more money out of this club than just about any owner in the history of world football. We got lucky with Markus Liebherr when he bought our club for £12 million but unlucky with his daughter.

Kelvin Davis and Dave Watson as caretaker managers would be the cheapest option and would almost certainly see us relegated. i feel now, the same way as I did when nearly everyone was calling for Puel to be sacked: our current manager is not very good but I think it's highly likely that if he's sacked, the next one will be even worse, simply because I have no faith in Les and Ralph's judgement. I also think that whilst Puel was left without an effective attack after the sale of Mane and Pelle, poor Pellegrino has been left without an effective defence and attack after the sale of Fonte and van Dijk. Koeman had Wanyama, Pelle, Mane, Fonte and van Dijk! I wonder how well Koeman would fare with our current squad and how well Pellegrino would have fared if he'd had the strong squad that Koeman had. The man I hold almost entirely responsible for the club's decline over the last 2 years is Les Reed but now all of the Reedites on here seem to be trying to deflect 100% of the blame onto Pellegrino. In terms of points won, the decline form Koeman to Puel was greater than the one from Puel to Pellegrino but most of that can be explained by the sale of our best players and the poor replacements being brought in. The squad is so much weaker now than it was 2 years ago. Again I expect the Reedites on here to try to deny that.

They cut themselves hopelessly adrift the moment they appointed Pardew. He was certain to take them down.

There is no point sacking him unless Les Reed is sacked first because you know he will find an even worse one. It will simply be a case of out of the frying pan into the fire again. We thought it would be great to get rid of Eric Black, who was a terrible first team coach, but then Reed found an even worse one in Kelvin Davis, one of the worst goalkeepers in Premier League history, with no previous coaching experience. The poll we need again is the Les Reed Out one.

It would be great if the meeting in China was to discuss Les Reed's replacement. Unfortunatley, the ideal replacement, Paul Mitchell has already been taken by Leipzig. I doubt that he or any other former Saints' employee would come back here while Les Reed is still here anyway.

Reed should have retired last year but who is going to sack him now? As long as there are still a few playing assets left to be sold off and the money keeps flowing into Kat's handbag, I guess he can keep on taking his cut. But, one day the Gaos are going to ask why Reed is wasting so much of their money on players like Carrillo and Hoedt.

Kat: "Look at Lemina and Bertrand, Mr Gao. See, I told you there were still players left to sell."

No, they've got the worst manager of any of the bottom teams. Pardew will see them relegated.

He has scored a goal every 2 games for most of his career, including his spell with Saints. http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11683/11244027/watch-sheffield-uniteds-billy-sharp-hits-200-in-style

It is not good to use the 'we can't hope to compete with the top six' excuse for a club's lack of ambition. For a start, the top six is different every year. We were in it a couple of years ago and Leicester were top of it while clubs currently in the top six, like Chelsea, have struggled in the recent past. The Premier League is probably the most competitive top flight league in Europe. Four different clubs have won it in the last 5 years. Most other top leagues are dominated by just 1 or 2 clubs and in the 1980s the old First Division used to be much worse, with Liverpool dominating it virtually unchallenged. Krueger's 'small club' mentality is not acceptable. Our average home gate this cenntury is among the 12 biggest in the country and social media figures indicate our fanbase is one of the ten biggest. What we always have been for a club of our size, however, is an underachieving club. Historically, despite the fact our gates have been limited by small stadium capacities, our all-time average home gate is bigger than Nottingham Forest's, for example, and much bigger than Pompey's, yet look how many trophies we have won in comparision. It's about time we had some really significant overachievment for a change and just finishing in the top 8 is really not very significant for a club as big as ours. Most other clubs with gates as big as ours have won 4 or 5 major trophies at least. Nottingham Forest, a club with fewer fans than Saints, have won 9 major trophies.