Alanh

That wasn't our best performance of the season at home by a long way. We were much better against Boro and WHU. Leeds was pretty good, but as it was the first game of the season no-one realised it was going to become the norm. Boro looked totally deflated during our 26 pass move that set up our thiird goal against them.

I can't see HR being a success as England manager. He's the epitome of the chequebook manager and on the international scene you can't just buy up another player when you want to. England need a manager who can mould a group of players into an effective team. I would prefer Roy Hodgson at the moment.

Not at a Saints match, but about 25 years ago watching Salisbury play at Victoria Park one 'special' kid near us decided to abuse the Whites by accusing them of 'playing like a bunch of bananas'. No idea what point he was trying to make but it stuck in the memory.

Surely that contradicts your assertion that it was a wasted exercise. If NA learned that he needs stronger back up options surely that's a positive result from the exercise, despite the defeat. Personally I think the points made in SaintBobby's post 110 are more likely to have made NA's famous five positives after the match, thn your suggestion that the whole thing was a waste of time.

Emnes is more of a wide player than a striker for me. I think he could do a job for us in a similar way to SDR.

Anyone else seen the bug where the teams change ends after the first goal is scored?

With Jaidi retiring and Seaborne's future unknown we are likely to buy someone in January and probably again in the summer. Ridgewell could well be a very good addition given his Prem experience.

Unlikely I think. Lambert, Guly, Connoly, Forte and De Ridder can all play up front and can give us enough cover in his continued absence. If we are still top 6 in January I can see up bringing in a new striker to push for promotion.

Wouldn't go so far as to say make or break because there will still be 30+ matches to play. Also, I'm not sure the results will prove anything in terms of final positions. If we lose them all we will still be challenging for play-offs minimum. If we win them all we will still only be a few points ahead of second. I agree with your cautious optimism as we have shown that we can score in every match we play, which means the opposition typically have to score at least twice to beat us. I can see us picking up a few draws this month and probably losing our 100% home record, but I'll be delighted if NA retains his record with Saints of having never lost back to back league matches.

Fair point, getting him mixed up with Kevin Doyle for some reason!

Surely it's obvious. You need one point more than the team in 3rd place to secure 2nd place. It's kind of irrelevant what the teams in 2nd actually got, whether it was one or 10 points more than the team in 3rd. Therefore you should look at what the teams in 3rd finished with in order to understand what target you should be aiming for.

He would get in the first team ahead of Connolly or Barnard IMO and would offer something different to Sir Rickie. Might be worth a shout

Can understand elements of this view but think that there are various aspects to look at it from. From a sportsmans perspective they want to win every competition that they are in. From a business perspect any company has to want to grow if it is to be successful. Fans want to celebrate success and aviod disappointment. Your reply is from the fans perspective and you seem to want to protect yourself from possible dissapointments should we not win as many matches in the Prem as we are at present. To answer the OP, I think that the peak will be determined by how much money our owners are prepared / allowed to invest in the squad. Just about every team in the Prem has third party finance supporting their losses to some degree and we will need more that we are getting at the moment if we are to compete in the Prem. The peak may be top 10 if they invest like Villa / Bolton / Stoke / Fulham. It may be top 6 if they invest like Spurs / Arsenal. I doubt it will be top 4 unless we find that the financial fair play rules change the way that the likes of Man City and Chelsea spend. One thing I am sure of is that NA can get a team playing the sort of football that is required to compete in the top half of the Prem, subject to the quality of players that are available within the budget.

It's not the Spanish FA, all of the clubs in Spain negotiate their own TV deals and as the media there is all obsessed with Barca or Real they get the lion's share of the cash as you describe. In the UK we have collective bargaining so the spread of Sky cash in the Prem is fairer (still not completely equal because the difference in money you get per league position is about £1M so Man U get about £20M more than the bottom club), but much closer than in Spain. This deal will kill the Spanish league sooner or later as Real and Barca steamroller everone else because of their buying power and the public get bored of the one sided games and of waiting for the only competitive matches between the two to happen each year. There was a good article about it in the Guardian last week.

How are the club to know that your mate hasn't given his ST to someone else to use and he's trying to get in for free. Seems like a pointless tantrum to drive home after making the effort to get there rather than admitting to himself that he made a mistake and coughing up the £10.

Got to disagree. KD has obviously been instructed to kick short to our defence or midfield whenever possible. We are looking to retain possession as much as possible and a punt upfield is a 50/50 ball at best. Also, if the opposition come forward to mark our defence that stretches them out a bit and gives us more room to play in midfield. A big hoof is old school football and NA has got this team playing in a modern, fast flowing and creative way. Enjoy it.

Kams Palace is apparently the best for dim sum according to a Chinese relative who knows a good restaurant when he sees one. Pilgrim House used to be good but has apparently gone downill in the last couple of years. Not sure if it's down to a change in management or chef or what.

Was in the US recently and they were talking on ESPN about a new contract that one of the top American Footballers had just signed for just over $100M. That was maximum potential earnings, all bonuses included, over about a six year period. About 40% was guaranteed with the rest dependant on achievements. So that's something like £215K per week maximum. $100M is a big headline number though.

For me striker is the only area that needs addressing in the short term. I'm really happy to see RL and DC as the preferred front two and am happy with Guly as back up forward. I'm concerned about Barnard and Forte's ability at the top end of this league but would obviously be delighted for them to prove me wrong and make a real impact. I'd like to see a striker with something different brough in to offer us alternatives - either a big battering ram to bring off the bench when we are chasing a game, or a speed merchant to scare tired defences. (I guess we might already have the latter player in Forte, subject to ability).

I read the whole thread and it seemed to be dominated by UTS who has a clear anti NC agenda. Looking at the info on Twitter the overall content of the conversations seem plausible, although I am surprised that NC would speak about players salaries as portreyed. Perhaps the numbers came from the author rather than from NC directly. Overall no big surprises and we seem to be consistently heading in the right direction.

Not too worried by that. Players sometimes click with certain clubs and not others. I'm all for giving him a chance to show us if he can be the rock of a centre back that we need when RJ is out.

I wouldn't take him. I don't think he would fit the style of play that we are trying to play. He never had a great first touch and that is obviously importantto NA. Also, we need pace up front and I don't think he's got that anymore.

Fair enough. I think the club's objective for the season is to compete for promotion and achieve a top 10 finish. I reckon we are budgeting to improve the current squad with 4 - 5 players (barring unexpected events like major injuries) through the season and are part way there. I don't expect the club to confirm or deny this in any form for the reasons I have explained above. I think that this is a reasonable target and am confortable with the club not putting out a clear statement of these objectives.

I'm sure from a financial perspective the club have a plan for this season so that they can budget appropriately. Also I'm sure internally they have a points target which translates into a guide for a position in the league. I can't see the benefit to the club in disclosing this info though as it just creates a stick for anyone with a grudge to beat them with. If the club said promotion was the aim then the price of players being bought would rise (if only in terms of promotion related add ons). If the club says anything less than promotion is the aim then the media and fans criticise them for lack of ambition - it's a no win.

In terms of match performance, exactly this. Everyone knows by now that NA's approach is to take it one game at a time and he plans to win every match. Obviously it doesn;t always happen, but that's the plan. I think the 5 year plan statement from NC was one of his poorer decisions. Very few clubs make that type of statement as you are almost certainly setting yourself up for criticism and pressure from fans and media throughout the duration of the 5 years.