Alanh

Guly for me. While Barnard has been more effective away from home but I am always concerned that his effort and running are the best parts of his game an he needs a lot of chances to get a goal, hitting the keeper as often as getting it past him. Guly might be a flash in the pan but he did enough on Saturday to earn the shirt for tomorrow.

For me it's a combination of things. Firstly I think the whole club was shocked and went through a grieving process over Markus's death and the potential uncertainty it generated. Secondly, it's clear to me that Pardew wasn't sacked for footballing reasons after the successes of last season and the 4-0 win at Bristol Rovers. I think his behaviour - whatever the truth is - was upsetting the atmosphere in the squad and they simply didn't want to play for him. Things didn't work for Wilkins because the players knew he was a stop gap. Lastly, the loss of Lallana and Barnard during the Wilkins period hampered our ability to hold onto the ball and create chances. Adkins has obviously made changes and they seem to be working, but I think he's been lucky with the return of Lallana and Barnard and his arrival has helped reassure the club that there is still a positive future after Markus's death.

There is so much to do there that it all kind of blends in. I think you have got to come back saying that you did a bit of gambling and ideally left in profit. You've got to go to a show and trhere are so many different sorts you will find something that suits you. The desert around Vegas is worth a trip - about 3 - 4 hours to Death Valley - is an option, and I believe Red Rocks is also worhtwhile. The hotels vary massivley from incredibly tacky - Excalibur - to incredibly high end - Bellagio. I recommend giving yourself a day to take in the insanity of the place before judging anything.

Great result and we were well worth it. Bournemouth were the worst team I've seen this season, although it helped us that they didn't play with 10 behind the ball like Orient and Rochdale. They gave the ball away more than any team I've seen in Div 1 and am amazed that they are so high up the table. If they keep playing like that they'll fall down the table quickly. As someone said earlier in the thread it was MS and DH who gave us the platform to build the win on. They bossed midfield like they should be able to, perhaps the arrival of Chaplow has made them up their game. Great performance from Barnard, I tho thought that their CB captain would get sent off in the first half the way that he was all over Barnard in the first half. He backed off a bit after his booking though. Thought Puncheon had his best game at home this season and Lallana made a huge difference. I'm sure it will come for Rickie in time but the goals should give him more confidence. 5 points of 3rd place is nothing at this stage of the season. If we can keep this run going we could be in the play off places by the end of the month.

Holmes made a difference on Saturday, particularly with his delivery from corners. He doesn't give us the trickery and unpredictability of Puncheon and over the season I don't think he will score as many, but he did enough to be in with a shout of a start. I would go 4-2-3-1 with Puncheon, Chamberlain and Guly supporting Lambert. If that doesn't work Barnard and Holmes are decent attacking options from the bench that can change the shape of the team.

Sure, I was making reference to more than just the management team. Your suggestion that people should 'accept it and support, or f**k off' implies that supporters have no right to moan regardless of the situation.

Agree that it's a good post, but your last sentence has a whiff of 'pot, kettle, black' about it. You are never slow to come forward with a moan if you aren't happy with something - sometimes with good reason. Surely suggesting that we 'accept it and support, or f**k off' is counter to your own approach to supporting Saints.

To me this is a laughably naive knee jerk reaction to another defeat. You must know (if you have given what you wrote more than a second's thought) that there is no way that we the fans will ever get an official explanation of AP's dismissal. There will be rumours - we've had loads already, and we can be pretty sure that he didn't go for footballing reasons, but there will never be further official explanation. Go ahead with your boycott, you'll miss Saints more than they miss you.

Agree massively with your first paragraph. Personally I thought we played decent football under AP and it could have been a lot worst. I know you think we played too narrow, but I think we had enough variety in our play to cause most defences big problems. the important tjhing now is that NC remains committed ot the club and the search for a new manager is conducted efficiently. there is no way that everyone will behappy with the new appointment but there are enough good managers out there - employed or not - that we can get a good one in. It just bneeds to be soon to ensure that we don't throw away 6 mathes while the search concludes and the new man gets used to the squad.

I can't really see the problem with them so long as the manager has the casting vote and doesn't have players foisted on him. They are essentially a mechanism to bring together the views of a variety of sources of information which is better than having one man run the show and effectively spend the club's money i.e. 'Arry at just about every club he's been at apart from us and Spurs.

I'm pretty sure that all decent sized clubs - Saints size and bigger - will have a committee that decides on transfers. Alex Ferguson even admitted recently that he bought a player on a recommendtion of other people including Quieroz, who isn't even at Man U any more. At Saints the manager is on the committee so he has input, and probably the casting vote, on who he wants. Whether he gets them will depend on the Chairman's ability to negotiate a deal. The strategy of that committee is the important thing and we know that the strategy this summer has been to cut out the deadwood and bring in better players so I don't think you can point too many accusatory fingers at the committee for that.

Nice idea, and it would go someway towards appeasing the unrest that is happening at the moment. In reality though this is unlikely to happen as I am sure there is a confidentiality agreement of some sort, also a statement from Cortese is likely to raise more questions from fans and will never satisfy those fans who supported AP. Think about every other managerial removal - there is rarely full public disclosure of the facts behind the decision.

You are right that if we end up with only 12 points from the first 9 AP will be under big pressure. I think you are being unnecessarily pessimistic in predicting only 11 points from thses 7 matches. I can see us getting 14 or 15 points myself with the predictions above. In fact that is the standard that we need to maintain through the season if we are going to be promoted.

I dont think that parallel between the players can be anything more than them both coming in from Italy. None of us know anything about Guly so we can't compare him as a player with Papa and we can't yet make any assumption about how regularly he'll feature. He might end up becoming the sort of imapact sub that Papa excelled at, or he might be the first name on the teamsheet - who knows?

Hell no. We would be relegation certainties with our current squad. IMO we will need at least 10 new players to build a squad that could hold it's own in the Prem. The only players that might be able to cut it over a whole Prem season are Davis, Fonte, Lallana and Schneiderlin.

Didn't go last night but have been to the two league matches and it didn't look like a confidence thing at either of them. Barnard in particular looked full of confidence. If anything it looked like we were trying too hard. I think that we do tend to panic a bit and revert to pumping long balls forward in the last 20 minutes if we are not in the lead and we would benefit if we were able to keep calm, up the passing tempo and stretch the opposition defence. Bringing a bit of pace off the bench would help us achieve that so Alex O-C is going to be important in these situations this season.

I can't see AP dropping Hammond. He made him captain and has picked him for every match to date. I think it's more likely that Guly will come into the starting line up in an attacking centre mid position in a 4-2-3-1 formation when AP decides that is the right formation for a given match. Connolly and Barnard will get their chances when we start with 4-4-2 or switch to two up front during a match. Like everyone else I hope he's as good as he seems and manages to adapt to L1 footbal quickly.

Appeal rejected CVA can proceed - Twiitter

The key thing for me is that we have demonstrated that we have priorities and a strategy in the transfer market. We knew that we needed RB cover after releasing Otsemabor, Thomas and James, and we addressed that situation promptly. We have bought in one of the best players in this league from last year in Dickson to give competition at LB and LM. He brings pace and great delivery according to my Brentford supporting friend so replaces some of the attributes that we last from Waigo and Antonio. Any new players coming in for CM and on the flanks are unlikely to be first choice at the moment so if it takes us a bit longer to get the right person at the right price then for me it's not a major issue.

I don't recall the Norwich situation, but that has got to be the exception rather than the rule. In the vast majority of cases transfers take a while and given our situation they are likely to take longer if the selling club is trying to extract more money from us that the market value of a player just because we are considered wealthy. The key point I was making related to whether we should be panicking yet. IMO we shouldn't because there is evidence of intent to get players in from AP's interviews and evidence of action from the three signings so far and from Carter's trial Your questions on the transfer policy / scouting system are speculative at best and I can't add any opinion one way or the other without guessing. No-one is disputing that we need players in. AP has said he wants players in and I believe that we will get them. Based on our track record over the last year we (the fans) won't know much about the background workings of those transfers until they happen - we need to learn to live with that situation. The point about if AOC gets crocked could apply to any important player in any team. It's impossible to buy in ready made replacements to cover every eventuality.

Most of us realise that buying the right player is not like flicking a switch - usually negotiations are protracted and depend on the selling club finding a replacement before selling. We also know that Saints are working away behind the scenes on transfers- Carter's trial is evidence that they are looking for the high quality CM that you have been calling for and that AP himself has been quoted numerous times as wanting. We have a strong 18 for the first matches of the season - Davis, Butterfield, Fonte, Jaiidi, Harding, Puncheon, Schneiderlin, Hammond, Dickson, Lambert, Barnard, Bart (IMO he will sign before Saturday), Seabourne, Martin, Connolly, Wotton, AOC, Mills. IMO that is as strong as the last month of last season - especially in defence. You can start panicking if you want but I think your argument will be disputed by the majority and not just because of your track record on here.

I ran an U13 team last season with a lot of help from a well qualified coach. Best tips are to encourage the kids constantly. Stick to simple instructions. Vary the training as much as you can and keep them all involved all the time. That bit isn't always easy when you want to focus on a particular discipline, but it's much worse to construct a training activity that excludes some of the kids. With U8's you probably won't be doing any tactical stuff, just getting them to pass the ball will be enough of a challenge. Lastly - let them play a match iin every training session - it's pretty much what my lot want to do for the entire session, but I have to try to get in some techniquie training as well.

I'm curious to know what you think would constitute a struggle. How many points from the first six games? Does not winning against Plymouth constitute a poor start on it's own? Is it about performances as well as results? Personally I think 10 points from the first 6 games is the watershed - below that and it's a poor start. Above that and we are approaching league winning form straight away.

Disagree, we are talking about loans here similar to the deals we did for Mellis, Cork, Guthrie and Chaplow.The loan window is open until about November so there is plenty of time.

I was there and the match was a typical pre season affair. Sutton looked up for it from the off and had a couple of players with abit of pace who chased everything. Sainrts looked awkward. AOC and MS shone throughout but the others looked sluggish - a bit like playing at Sutton was beneath them. The defence was fairly tight apart from the goal and one shot in the second half didn't really give Sutton a chance. With the exception of MS our midfield looked unbalanced and did not boss the game. We really suffered not having Puncheon and Lallana in terms of balance and having an outlet. Hammond is not an attacking CM and Dickson was injured too soon to be able to make an impression. Lee Holmes huffed and puffed but to little effect - I would sell him as we can do better. We bossed the second half in terms of possession and territory and their keeper stopped at least three certain goals with decent saves.