The9

I voted for Holmes, he was immense in the short time he was on the pitch, and I suspect all the votes for Chaplow were skewed by his goal (same for Fonte), good team performance though, with only Dickson (all over the shop with position and passing for the first 20 mins) and maybe Kelv, (who didn't hold much and was too slow for their goal) looking below par. Of the players who got a decent amount of game time I'd choose Richardson.

Holloway has a way with reality though - and if nothing else that tells you how poor England's choices are at the moment. we've already established that Austin was at Reading before sliding into non-League - and Morison was at Northampton before he played in non-League. They'd all initially shown league-level promise before getting the boot.

That pretty much sounds like the same thing to me - bearing in mind Cortese appears to have put the kibosh on the original deal for reasons which remain unclear. Better outcome, but same costs, better value for money.

I'm not saying that no-one below where Saints are is worth signing, just that they're unlikely to be successful higher up unless they show significant improvement on what's gone before. Obviously with football being a meritocracy the best performers almost always rise to the top in the end anyway, whether via transfer or their club being successful due to their individual performances, but information and "intelligence" on players is widely known and distributed and there just aren't that many surprises any more. Which is not to say there aren't players in League 2 who are good enough to do well in League One and the Championship, it's just whether the timing and circumstances are suitable and the risk is worth taking. If we bought a League Two player now who had, say, "top of League One ability" there aren't many who would expect him to go straight into the side and the assimilation might not be worth the effort if we ended up being promoted and he can't then step up to the Championship.

Cheers, didn't know that. Supports the argument nicely.

I dunno what's worse, "steel" or "your". You all deserve bannings, from using the English language so painfully.

Every time Bale stepped up to take a free kick I thought it would be a goal - and he at least hit the woodwork with almost all of his first 2 months' worth of free-kicks. As the season wore on he lost that consistency and started missing the target more, but he was still an incredible free-kick taker when he first got into the side. His performances were consistent, but the difference in the second half of the season was that we'd played everyone and they all had a plan to deal with him running from left back, whether it was to double-up on him or just restrict his receipt of the ball in the first place. Skacel's injury troubles also made his attacking less potent as sides didn't have to cover both of their significant threats. FWIW, I think the reason Lallana's not as successful with free-kicks is because he favours a floating, curling ball into the corner, which is fine when unexpected and in open play but not as effective when the keeper has time to position himself. Of course this is all hypothetical, as Lambert takes them all, so I don't think I've ever seen Lallana take one.

But that was in an era before every club in the country signed up all available talent to an academy almost before the conception. The long and short of it means that any player coming through at a non-League club is likely to be flawed in a way that was identified when they were young - which tends to rule them out of playing at a high standard .Talent level is identified fairly accurately and a player has to show significant improvement on the expectation for a reasonable amount of time to get a look-in higher up, unless "the problem" is something they can eradicate (like attitude, for instance). Thurrock's U-18s had some tiny players who would probably have no chance of getting in the Saints academy due to stature alone. The days of players "slipping through the net" like Ferdinand and Wright are gone, though there has to be something said for Aaron Martin and Charlie Austin to a certain level, I guess.

My missus informs me she thinks they're pretty much all minging. I think I'll use "gopping" actually, it's long been a point of concern to her that we never sign any attractive players. Not that it's relevant.

Long and short of it is I'm not convinced many Saints fans could give a flying one about the club's charitable contributions. At least not until it becomes a massive accountancy scam to circumvent UEFA's new "can't spend more than your turnover" rules.

Not if the money had already been set aside for the development before Markus' death and Cortese's been spending the time since the original announcement renegotiating the contracts to get better value for money... it could be at the same cost for a bigger project. There must be SOME reason why the original plans didn't happen and the delay has occurred. The key here is whether the money was tied up by Markus prior to the original announcement.

And herein lies the reason that Alpine is the type of poster that he is...

Interesting link clearly indicating the stuff about Puncheon's clothing being inappropriate at the memorial service is utter gubbins (that's assuming his black jumper as opposed to everyone else's white shirt and dark jacket wasn't the problem). That won't stop people going on about it forever though, this is one of these facts that we need a section in SaintsWeb to hold, so it can be linked every single time someone perpetuates the same old incorrect argument. Like my personal favourite - the lie about Wilde spending £7m on players, when Rasiak was signed on loan under Lowe in the January with agreement of a permanent deal in the summer and £2m pricetag, all agreed before Lowe left, and therefore nothing to do with Wilde's expenditure at all. Also part of the "bigger picture lie" which claimed we outspent everyone in the CCC that season, when actually we were about 6th in expenditure, and the "they spent nothing" Sunderland and Derby sides who went up actually outspent us, and weren't needing to replace 17 players we'd shipped out in the post-Prem season. But anyway, Puncheon...

I'm not sure those seats are big enough to hold that many scarves.

Clearly reflecting the majority view is the easier path. Of course the pro-Cortese group took a bit of a hammering when he fired Pardew, but then Markus died and lots of people seemed to go a bit soft...

I agree with this entirely. Anyone suggested Butterfield as cover for the right midfield position yet ? Or switching wings for Lallana, which he's already done umpteen times during matches this season, meaning we'd have the option of Dickson on the left ? Puncheon served a role and did reasonably well, picked up a fair bit after a poor start (like the rest of them) and if nothing else, has given me a reason to actually believe leftback's stuff now, which I can't say I did before.

Same for Prutton, who at least we can all agree reached his peak before or at Saints. I'd like to put Agustin Delgado and Kleber Chala in that list too.

It's hardly a complex tactical phenomenon to play 4-5-1 when defending and have the wide midfielders push forward into an attacking 4-3-3 when we have the ball, is it ? Pigeon-holing fluid formations is just oversimplification and the only reason to do it is to construct an artificial (and incorrect) concept with which to criticise the manager.

We did something similar with PES6 on 360 about 4 years ago on here (or a predecessor Forum), it worked really well. It also worked having a "draft" when people got drawn a number and then got to choose their teams based on that. Then if it goes to a second season you can allocate teams in reverse order. You can always limit the available teams if you don't want the likes of Barcelona in it, but it can work as a good handicapping system too. It was good fun when we did it. There are some decent fixtures programmes out there too, but can't recall which we used. We also structured it so you had to play a certain number of matches in a fortnight, or it just takes too long / isn't realistic because some people play all their matches immediately and some spread it out until others are bored. You'll also need to decide the settings, camera etc for matches in advance, or people will kick up. And the quitting policy... I don't have a PS3, but good luck !

I'm glad YOU know whether we're still loaded or skint, because no-one else does... And as far as "too many frees and low fees" go, have you noticed that football contract rules are changing ? There are also rules in the Football League on expenditure as a percentage of turnover and in the Prem, UEFA competition entry regulations will mean that clubs (at least on the balance sheet) can't run at losses, so (in theory) they will have to find different ways of buying players which doesn't put them in enormous debt. The days of massive transfer fees could be over altogether in Europe - athough most likely it'll be the accountants who are the winners, getting paid huge fees to hide expenditure and losses in areas which aren't subject to the rules.

Current Squad 1 Kelvin Davis (G) 2 Frazer Richardson (D) 3 Dan Harding (D) 4 Morgan Schneiderlin (M) 5 Ryan Dickson (M) 6 Jose Fonte (D) 7 Rickie Lambert (F) 9 Lee Barnard (F) 10 Jason Puncheon (M) 11 Guilherme Do Prado (F) 12 Danny Butterfield (D) 14 Dean Hammond (M) 15 Radhi Jaidi (D) 17 Aaron Martin (D) 19 Danny Seaborne (D) 20 Adam Lallana (F) 21 Lee Holmes (M) 22 David Connolly (F) 23 Tommy Forecast (G) 24 Bartosz Bialkowski (G) 26 Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (M) 27 Oscar Gobern (M) 28 Callum McNish (M) 29 Ryan Doble (M) 37 Jack Saville (D) 40 Tony Garrod (F) Harlee Dean Loaned players Anthony Pulis (M) to Stockport Joseph Mills (D) to Doncaster Paul Wotton (D) to Oxford I don't think we'll miss Pulis, I couldn't care less if Forecast leaves either, and we might get a couple of quid for Wotton if he goes in January rather than when his contract expires. Provided we sign Chaplow we wouldn't even lose out on cover for the Jan-July period. Everyone else has a role or potential, and I'm very hopeful we don't end up having to flog Lallana due to impending contract expiry as well.

I can honestly say my life wouldn't be affected one iota if the Saints Foundation didn't exist, and I'm not sure I even care about the work they do, wonderful though I'm sure it is. As for sticking it on the shirt, that just looks like a bit of self-congratulatory back-slapping, who's it actually advertising to and for what purpose ?

http://www.football-league.co.uk/latestnews/20101105/league-clubs-back-poppy-appeal_2245681_2209111 We're run by Swiss money and our Chairman is Italian, I shouldn't think it'll be high on the list of priorities.

Sunk by a now-decommissioned warship berth wasn't it ?

...and Billy Davies for getting his players to kick the shat out of Bale and Jones. On the subject of "embarrassed", can't say I'm remotely bothered by it, especially not Bournemouth's blip, we'll be above them again by the end of the season.