Alanh

Yes, your suggestions are clear and unambiguous, but '...the France captain' isn't wrong, which is what you originally asked.

It could be either. '..the France captain.' refers to him being the captain of France. '...the French captain.' explains that he is French. If using the former the assumption that he is French is implicit in his role as captain of the national team.

Hardly that surprising though. The story is that a youngster from L1 has the potential to command the biggest transfer fee (outside of Man City) in the current transfer window. The media aren't served in developing the story by publishing our intention to keep the player whatever the truth may be. That just kills the story and they have to find something else to write about.

The easiest way to move the Northam fans down to the Chapel is to make the Northam the family stand. The two key challenges that can't be overcome though is the location of the away fans and the desire of some fans to be near them; and secondly the fact that the Northam is the first stand you get to coming over the bridge. I'm sure most fans who arrive from that direction would object to being asked to walk halfway round the ground to get to the Chapel.

Nice idea, but I can't see Swindon being interested in that negotiation. Saints have (according to the info above) shown their hand and would simply say to Saints that they need to up their offer to the player if they want him as much as their fee offer suggests.

SF is great. Alcatraz is well worth it and the audio tour is the best (only) way to get the most out of it. When I visited I spent too much time downtown which is much like any other US city. To get a real idea of the place go to Haight Ashbury, China town and the Italian districts. The place is relatively small so you can walk around but it's probably best to get a city wide travel pass that you can use on the 4 different types of public transport. The sushi in Chinatown was excellent. Baseball is well worth it if you are a general sports fan. Get a seat high up facing the scoreboard - the stadium is amazing. LA is a place where you can do whatever you want. If you are into Hollywood go on the studio tours - Universal is more of a themepark, Warner Bros is a bit more authentic. The minibus tours of the Bel-Air and Beverley Hills is fun but don't expect to see much. Santa Monica is a nice beach resort to visit, as is Malibu if you have time to travel out of the city.

Don't think you can draw that conclusion based purely on team selection. Martin is obviously number 4 in the list of CBs and his games at the start of the season were when we were missing some options. He did well and he will be a good player in the future, hopefully for us, but he has plenty of time to develop and mature. I'm not sure you can play a 19 year old CB regularly in a promotion pushing side and the experience and strength of Fonte and Jaidi should rightly be used as the foundation of the defence. I'm sure he will be pushing for a place later in the season or next season.

I would think all of the Prem clubs are looking at AOC, not just the ones mentioned. if he is appearing in a Sun top 10 list then he's hardly under the radar for anyone. They will all be looking at him as a future prospect that complies with the English player rule and who can be given a season or two's education at the new club before being asked to make an impact in the first team. Liverpool's reported interest in Gervinho is not going to impact on their interest in AOC one little bit as Window Cleaner suggests. FWIW I think he will see out the season here and then move to the Prem in the summer, hopefully with a league winners medal under his belt. At least we are in a position to drive a hard bargain and will be able to reinvest in the squad for the new season. I'd be happy with a £4M fee plus add ons based on achievements.

Was that sarcastic? If not I can't agree. The most important qualities for a manager are getting winning performances from his squad. Without that even the best relationship with a chairman will not save a manager from the chop.

You must be a terminal pessimist if you are comparing decisions to maximise commercial revenues from fans (justified or not depending on your opinion) with transfer policy relating to player value. NC has said repeatedly that we aren't a selling club i.e. we aren't funding new players by selling off higher value players. We may sell players if they agitate for a move, and AOC may be the next example of that, but it won't be a sale specifically designed to generate funds.

If NC's comments are to be believed then we have a very bright future to look forward to. IMO our success or otherwise this season will be determined by the end of Jan. We really need to be in among the top 3 by then if we are going to fight for automatic promotion. I'm prepared to accept that bad performances can happen, the most important thing is to bounce back from each one and put together a run of 5 -6 matches where you pick up 12 - 15 points. I think the comments on player purchases that NC made at the dinner and in the BBC interview was designed to play down our apparent status as a moneybags club. Any statement that boldly claims our ability to buy whoever we want will simply send prices rocketing. Look back to last January and we brought in two highly influential players in Fonte and Barnard. If we match that next month we will be doing OK.

Nice use of the Christmas Tree formation.

Agree that carving up the opp defence is needed but for me that will happen with pace on the flanks and late runs into the box from central midfielders. Still not convinced that Fonte in midfield helps that happen. I think he is essential to the stability of our defence as any partnership with him seems to work and any without him doesn't.

Interesting strategy using Fonte in midfield. Can't say I would go with it myself as I don't think his close control is good enough for that area of the pitch, and also his partnership with any of the other three CBs is essential if our defence is to perform. The main reason we struggled on Saturday was because Jaidi and Seabourne don't work well together. Agree with you on the need to get pace and movement into the side. It's been there before with this group of players, but we are missing the unpredictability of Puncheon, and Waigo. I think that Chamberlain has adequately replaced Antonio in terms of effectiveness on the pitch and goals scored.

He's just got to keep working at it. All strikers have lean patches - look at Rooney at the moment. i believe he'll come good again, and fortunately for us he does offer more than just goals as he wins headers and sets up others with chances. Brentford wasn't his best game, but the whole team had a mare so I'm not about to write him off after that.

Not sure that MA had much choice. Morgan had to go off earlier in the half to ensure he wasn't sent off. Alex O-C had cramp and needed to come off and the best option off the bench by that stage was butterfield who has played in midfield before (although not for us). I didn't think we were particularly weakened by it as Alex O-C was shackled by two defenders all night and as it was very late didn't really influence the outcome of the match.

I get a sense that this is a moan, but the reality is that its the same at all clubs with a decent academy structure. The vast majority of academy players don;t make it to the first team and loads of them don't make it in professional football at all. We aren't bringing on players for other clubs, we are developing footballers who may or may not play for Saints first team. No-one knows how they will develop so why the cynicism in the clubs actions?

Why? For me because it's a squad game and Schneiderlin and Lambert have both done more than enough this season and last to warrant their place in the Saints squad. They may not be on top form now but I am sure that they will be able to contribute something to the rest of the season, even if it's not as significant as it was last season. Agreed that Chaplow looks more effective at the moment but it's up to the management to get MS to respond to the competition for places and raise his game. All the talk about Lambert is speculation as far as I can see. It seems to me that it's a combination of his fitness, him missing the link with Lallana in the early games, and defences paying him a bit more attention. He's got to find a way round this if he is going to have a decent season and play a part next year becasue at the moment he's not going to offer us enough for a challenge in the Championship. If we are looking to free up spaces in the squad so that Adkins can bring in some new faces I would put Holmes and Wotton ahead of MS and RL.

Is the reason something to do with the segregation of the Northam concourse? If more of the seating towards the Itchen corner were opened up then the segregation between the fans on the concourse below would not work.

I've only seen our home matches this season but JP has been consistenty average. Not woeful and not match winning. He would worry me if her was in the opposition because he always looks like he will make something happen, it's just that too often it doesn't. I would keep on playing him as he provides a threat and having Chamberlain on the bench gives us something different to bring on. Disagree with you on Seabourne. He's well above average for a CB in this league and hasn't, in the last 5 - 6 games, made any mistakes that have threatened the team. He's not Prem stanndard, but that's not a problem and he's young and will improve. Martin looks decent and will play more matches this season, but IMO he's not better that Seabourne at this stage. The FA cup match will be a good time to make changes to the team giving a chance to the likes of Martin, Holmes and Bart.

Yes, we will get promoted. Obviously I have as much power to ensure this happens as 99.9% of the rest of the users of this board (i.e. none), but I like to believe in the power of positivity.

Absolutely. We are short of strikers in scoring form. I still think that we'll score goals though, with Lallana, Guly, Puncheon contributing. Bignall has to be viewed as this season's Antonio so let's give him the same chance that MA had. Also, one has to believe that RL and LB will get their form back at some point soon. They have consistently scored at this level in the past and there is no reason why they should stop completely now.

Nope, I pretty much still disagree with much of your opinion. I think that we didn't sign Papa and / or Antonio for valid reasons. No-one knows exactly the rationale but if we were quoted £1M for Antonio then turning it down when we knew that we had Alex Chamberlain waiting in the wings to fulfil a similar subs role was a good call. January is obviously a reference to the transfer window. I don't believe that we are short of goalscorers, just goalscorers in form. Who was to know that RL couldn't recapture his form from last season immediately this year? Players form bears no direct relationship to the clubs transfer policy. We are 4 points off the top 6 and 7 points off the top 2. No reason why we can't make that up if we can score an average of 2 points per game over the next 10 games or so.

Disagree with just about all of this. There is no evidence that Cortese is preventing signings, loans or otherwise as we have just seen two players arrive following Adkins assessment of the squad. Obviously January is the earliest that money can be spent on permanent transfers so that's hardly a stick to beat anyone with. Why would Cortese, or anyone at the club be less focussed on promotion this season. We have just had a 5 match unbeaten run and lost to a decent top six team. The same thing happened last year and we ended up close to the play-offs. There is every reason to believe that we will achieve promotion this season.

I think that the tactic of playing the ball out through Fonte will be a regular at home as the idea is to get the opposition to try to put pressure on the ball in Saints half of the pitch in an attempt to draw them out of their own defensive mindset. Away from home we should face more attacking teams and so won't need to draw them out of a 'parking the bus' type of formation as frequently.