Topcat

I voted for Adkins to stay. The rationale being that since he has had the formation forced on him, that would also apply to any replacement. Few good Managers would sign up for that limitation. Also the players brought in over the summer and the start of the season were probably not his choices. A Manager that cannot decide the formation is not a true Manager. Wenger decided to pursue the 433 - not have it imposed on himself. Mind you that 433 has hardly been a success for Wenger in the Premiership in the past 5+ years. This just looks like a car crash of a season. One where we know that the inevitable seems to be first Adkins getting fired and then our relegation. Having Les Reed the National coach from the days of hoof ball tactics now dictating a 433 to Adkins is almost surreal. What has Les Reed ever won? What group of world class players winning international trophies did Les Reed create? The answer is none. We have a failure in Les Reed, dictating a 433 onto our promotion winning Manager Adkins. That is why the crash looks inevitable.

A cardinal error is selecting players for positions that are not their speciality. Yoshida a centre back, playing left back cost us the 4th goal. Yoshida committed the basic error of not getting goal side of his opponent. Laughable. The only doubt I have on Adkins is whether or not he has a free rein to pick the team, or whether some players such as Yoshida, Guly and JRod have it in their contracts that they must play. What did Reed and Cortese promise them to get them to join the Club?

tajjuk "from the team that got us promoted we have precisely 3 players who are of 'premiership quality' - Morgan, Lallana, Lambert. " Two were here before Alan Pardew and one, Lambert, he bought. None came from the time after Les Reed got involved. I would add to that list Jose Fonte, who Pardew bought in Jan 2010, before Les Reed joined in April 2010. The question that follows is whether it is Nigel Adkins choices that are failing or the "scouting system" under Les Reed? We seem to have a team that relies on a core that Pardew put together in his first season with Saints, some 2 levels below where we are. We know that Nigel can lead and motivate a team, but what is the record of Les Reed in selecting premier quality players? Steven Gerrard said that he had "no respect" for Les Reed after the way he treated him during England's Euro 2000 campaign. http://tinyurl.com/9f53ymu 15 months before Saints hired Les Reed he was appointed as assistant manager on a voluntary basis at Bishop's Stortford FC in the Conference South!

That is most likely to happen, we all know what Les Reed did at Charlton. Which brings up the question of whether Les Reed is the cause of the problems?

Is there any chance of Cortese pulling the trigger quickly? Lets have a look at past events. 2010 rumblings in the pre-season about the Manager (Pardew) having problems with Cortese/Reed and the transfer activity. A couple of gains in and even after a 4-0 away win, Pardew is sacked without a replacement lined up. 2012 rumblings in the pre-season about the Manager (Adkins) having problems with Cortese/Reed and the transfer activity. A couple of gains in and after 4 defeats .....

On Talksport this morning Richard Keays said that getting someone from Saints to talk to the media was very difficult.

... with the worst records! http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/the-rundown/least-successful-premier-league-managers-113441372.html LEAST SUCCESSFUL PREMIER LEAGUE MANAGERIAL TENURES "Les Reed, in 11th, might be the least successful manager on the list. He was appointed permanent boss of Charlton in November, but lost his job after just seven matches and has never managed since." Steve Wigley 17th in the list. win % = 7%! (Just to take our minds off Saturday)

Those Palace fans should stop running threads such as the one below about those jolly nice, warm and cuddly Brighton supporters. http://www.cpfc.org/forums/showthread.php?threadid=33442

Re-posted what I placed on the Lounge/takeover thread. Just imagine if Saints supporters did the right thing for Portsmouth and decided to raise money for their Club or its rebirth? Gone at a stroke would be the years of bitter animosity. In one single act the prestige of Saints would also jump up. Because they are down is the time for some Saints samaritans. Are we not big enough to do the right thing?

Just imagine if Saints supporters did the right thing for Portsmouth and decided to raise money for their Club or its rebirth? Gone at a stroke would be the years of bitter animosity. In one single act the prestige of Saints would also jump up. Because they are down is the right time for some Saints samaritans.

Under Pardew we acquired some very good players. We then got Les Reed taking up the "Director of Football" role. Pardew left. That maybe relevant to the decline in player acquisition quality and not Cortese. Cortese however hired Reed and appointed him. It is also true that the sudden death of Marcus will have thrown a question mark on all parts of his business empire and we are a small part.

My leaflet does say "restricted to Family Stand only".

Of the teams in the Prem, who would a) Hire an English manager and b) Be bigger than us when we are in the Prem? I would guess that it comes down to 5. Villa, Everton, Spurs, Sunderland & Newcastle. Of these the only possible two I can see this season are Villa and Sunderland. Nigel is quite safe. Of course if SMS was expanded above 40k then with the bigger crowds and higher average earning per punter than the north, Saints could be bigger than all 5 of these until Spuds re-build.

Good point. We have 28.9% of the 90 points probably required, yet have played only 26.7% of the games. So almost 10% better than the target. We now need 1.88 points per game in the remainder whilst our rivals need 2.03 and higher. It needs at least two of that group to do that. Early days, but we are slightly ahead of the requirement.

Soton 234k + Eastleigh Borough 120k + Test Valley 115k + Winchester District 112k+ New Forest 175k = circa 750k Puts Saints in the Leeds scale. Which is why a 50k+ stadium could be viable. Add in the fact that the average gdp in the whole area is greater than Leeds etc! Portsmuffs gdp is a lot lower due to the caravans and prefabs.

Cortese has always had a very weak understanding of PR, Marketing and the Club's history. Of the attendances Saints have been getting, at least 10% are probably due to Mac's period as Manager and a further 10% due to MLT. It is our history in the 70s, 80s and 90s that brought us some of the highest attendances in L1 relative to other Clubs. It is why we get better attendances than many Clubs including some in the Pemiership. It is called heritage. Rupert Lowe also had problems with LMac's heritage and preferred a photo of a train to LMac. Says it all about Lowe and why we need to be careful about Cortese.

Working to a 90 point target (achieved 2nd+ slot in 8 out of 10 past years). 15% of games gone 20% of target achieved. A brilliant start and in no game have we been overwhelmed.

We have to be realistic. A two year contract at Newcastle on only £50k a week basic would set him up for life. Key is to set the fee at something closer to £10m than £5m and have 2 to 3 targets identified and ready to spend most of it on. Why £10m? Because losing Lambo may cost us promotion this year which is a multi million hit.

You should have called the Police first and they would have leaked it to the Echo and got a drink from it.

I expect us to be challenging for a playoff place. We only need 3 good players (Striker, Midfield and Centre back) providing none of our good players leave.

Compare apples with apples. First 3 home Championship games of the season 2008/9 with Lowe back in charge = 49,470 First three home FL1 games without Lowe = 56,342. 2,290 extra per home game increase. Then factor in the much smaller crowds brought by the away team and the "home" component was certainly up by 4,000 in the period you selected. Thereafter it grew.

Lowe was one of the most inept businessmen that has ever been. The moment he left the club, crowds went up by 5,000 even though the team had dropped a division and were starting in a relegation slot. That said we should count our good fortune that we emerged stronger, today, than we were under him and the £30m of debt.

It is difficult for a person like him who lacks experience in customer service to understand the cack handed way he has operated. I would therefore like him to recognise that his approach to supporters has been wrong and he needs to treat them with more care and attention going forward. The same with his attitude to former players and managers. A bit of humility at a time when things are going well, could build him more support in the future.

Brighton travel better up the hershey highway..?

I agree. That is the best judgment on this. Measure Cortese by what he does.