The9

Any new manager is going to want to make his own decision on that anyway, as mentioned in the initial post. Interesting to note that Guan is implying ONE new striker - a bit of a disappointment given that we've already lost one and another one should be going in Osvaldo, so there's £15-£20m+ to spend for a start.

Yeah, the introductory meeting PowerPoint should be fairly inspirational. Glad he's met at least one of the players, anyway.

It didn't only refer to playing career, anyone saying "who" in response to his appointment can't have any knowledge of anything Pochettino had done. If they were already aware of his management career they wouldn't have said "who?". I was trying to be more contemporary, but yes, I considered those two as well before settling on my examples.

The "you" in the quote doesn't refer to "you" specifically, but "one" doesn't sound right in this context. Assume "is revelling in their...", then. As for your latter point, I already addressed it. I have no problem with people who don't know about someone Googling, that adds to the discussion. Already knowing stuff gives context, but yes, some information is more useful than others.

Funnily enough I've never thought of him as anything other than posting on the level, unlike Turkish, who you can pretty much guarantee is posturing from a false position. I guess that's because I haven't really taken much notice of the former's "tendencies". This one usually comes down to who you know IRL.

It would be, had I said that. But I actually said nothing of the sort.

Absolutely, which is all the more reason to ignore those who post rubbish like "who?", not only are they ignorant, but also not prepared to actually find out. The Bear aside, of course. He is most well informed on all subjects.

No, I'm saying "if you don't know anything about someone, what value does your opinion of them have?". I am also not saying "people SHOULD have known about Pochettino", I am saying the opinion of someone who does not know anything about someone is not of any value when considering an appointment. Not to mention that going onto a message board saying "who?" is revelling in your own ignorance anyway, but that's a different point. Neither Koeman nor Pochettino's playing record are indicative of their managerial abilities, but knowing Pochettino was the one who fouled Owen does at least hint at a likelihood of some longer-standing knowledge of football generally.

Nice stuff, makes me feel a bit more positive about the appointment. Suspicious about Pelle as a signing, have now heard a couple of "he's another nutter" type comments and a 7 match suspension?!! Would also query the validity of Valencia being "a mistake made at a smaller club". Certainly happier with the system flexibility hinted at, remains to be seen if we have (now and after pre-season) the players to take that on board.

It's amazing how many times you need to state the bleeding obvious to get some people to understand your point on here. I'm fine with the Koeman appointment, but no matter how much some people claim "no one is getting excited because he was a good player", there's clearly a correlation when other posters are saying "at least no-one is saying "who?" this time" despite very few people having much of an idea about his management career before we were linked with him.

We should definitely differentiate between the two. I don't see Maradona or Mourinho's management careers making much of a case for a correlation. I'll decide for myself whose opinions I'll consider anyway, but actually my statement covers only people who were not aware of EITHER Pochettino's playing or management career. What do they have to offer if they don't know who he is and haven't even bothered finding out before commenting?

I didn't once say Lambert was cr^p, I did however say that we'd have been better off with a more mobile striker capable of taking the ball past people if we wanted to progress into a top side ourselves, and had the one we signed not turned out to be a nutcase I'm pretty sure we'd have found that out already. The fact we'd been offering Lambert to clubs for a year (West Ham at Xmas) suggests I wasn't the only one thinking that too. Anyway, that argument is long over. I didn't think any of the candidates listed were particularly inspiring - either not well enough known for me to make a judgement on or with significant amounts of negative media baggage (Moyes and McClaren). The little I did know about Yakin suggested he was of the same style as Pochettino and might have been a decent fit, but we'd have still had the same "stepping stone" problem whoever it was - apart from maybe Moyes, who would have probably wanted a less acclaimed playing style. My original impression when I heard Koeman was in the equation was he'd be ok, most likely that won't change until I see our first few games.

So did I. Wasn't expecting it to be mid-month though, FFS.

Hilariously for me it's next to a Newport rugby kit, and not even people in Newport are particularly bothered about them any more since regional rugbish.

I'm on page 2453 already, so this could get quite tedious for me in the next few months.

Thanks for costing me a fiver, Granty will be delighted. He wasn't my preference and I have some concerns that he's not going to be as good as people think he is based on trophies won. He's almost certainly not going to be as good as people think he is based on his playing career. I have no problem with other people liking him, might even like him myself when I see how we play and if it works. People can praise Koeman all they like, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

This is basically my point, if you're asking "who" when we announced the appointment of an ex-Argentinian international who was directly involved in a high-profile penalty incident at a World Cup involving England, you don't have an opinion that's contributing anything to the discussion. Long and short of it is some have chosen to be impressed by a load of cups in countries where cups aren't seen as important, and some titles at clubs who are always expected to win those titles. Now if he'd been a title-winning Celtic manager recently... (sarcasm).

I don't think I'm the only one, I'm pointing out that clearly many people on here can't, there have been plenty of comments about his playing career, which is a long way from the most important factor in the appointment. As for his record, almost everywhere he's actually won things he's taken on a team which has already just won things. AZ and Valencia were disastrous though and grounds for some concern. Also, the closest he's come to building something from a lower base is his recent Feyenoord stint, and irrespective of their previous short term failings, they still had the profile of a top 4 side in the Netherlands in funding and support, and he achieved finishes commensurate with those factors. This is obviously where my expectations differ from those of some others. Of course he's overseen bringing some kids through, which is a definite positive. He might be the best thing that's ever happened to the club, but I'm not getting excited just because I've heard of him, and I think quite a few are. But he's the manager, I want him to do well as Saints manager, and I'll support him until he isn't.

Well, he wasn't my preference, and I have no idea why people can't differentiate between success as a player and as a manager but I'm happy enough supporting Koeman's appointment as a Saints fan and we'll see howwhere it goes. I'm concerned that at previous clubs he's taken on already successful teams and achieved a bare minimum with the resources at his disposal, and failed badly in a couple of other instances, but will be interesting to see how this plays out. The players who've agitated for an exit through the press may well still go - keeping Lallana would probably be a miracle, keeping Shaw would be unexpected, keeping Lovren would be a very big deal (and hopefully appointing an ex-centre back may have some impact), and losing anyone else other than Osvaldo would be disappointing. So I'm not holding Koeman to any great expectations regarding the squad, other than he manages to build a system to get the best out of them. It'll also be interesting to see the standard of player we are bringing in - a repeat of the sums and profile of the targets from last year's Osvaldo and Wanyama spending would be nice - maybe with a bit more success on the spending front, but how much of that is even down to the manager any more anyway? Overall, not getting carried away, slightly apprehensive but that's more down to the uncertainty about Katharina's spending commitment and replacing players likely to leave, and let's see what he can do.

As a noted "plain red" hater, I would like it known that having stripes is not all that matters. I would very much prefer the club to play in stripes (or permanently switch to the sash if they want a unique branding), but having put up with it for 2 years, I have to admit I can probably be bought off with an entertaining and relatively successful team. Of course, the first sign of failure and "not having stripes" will be used as a sign that the owners don't understand the club and a stick to beat them with, but that probably won't be me, either.

I'm hopeful that everyone else knows that's from the Wales v South Africa Rugbish international on Saturday, and if so, whoosh me. But can't tell if trolling or serious on this one.

Nothing wrong with Li-Ning btw, Espanyol 2011/12 and Celta Vigo 2012/13, Sevilla 11/12 , Malaga 10/11 Not seen much from them recently, but looks like a pretty generic set of kit anyway, exactly the sort of "own brand" material.

Where's Arizona when you need him re: Norwegian..? Also, Skyscanner will give you a breakdown of costs and dates per month for two specific airports - hopefully this will show Heathrow to Philly: http://www.skyscanner.net/transport/flights/lhr/phla/cheap-flights-from-london-heathrow-to-philadelphia.html?oym=1408&iym=1408

1. Germany 2. Chile 3. QF. As a general rule, I think Brazil will lose in the semis on pens, Netherlands won't get out of the group, England will lose in the QFs. Belgium will lose in the 2nd Round, Klose will break the all-time World Cup goalscoring record, and Fred will be top scorer. Chile will get to the QFs. Australia will have the worst record of all teams.

Not sure why the club's getting battered here, (again), players with years left on their contracts suddenly all deciding they're too good for the club, club says "no transfers until there's a new manager" and stalls for time to get a load on their values from the World Cup that they're all playing in (except Wanyama), and then uses the new manager to try and persuade them not to leave or get much higher values than they'd get before the tournament. Not much you can do if every time you put out yet another statement of the exact same information, someone in the media leaks another (un)timely piece of bad news, is there?