CB Fry

All of the good ITKs don't post here any more, and you can see why.

I wish we were Aston Villa.

The club plan for every eventuality. Mainly they do this by making sure that in every transfer window the eventualities are exactly the same as the eventualities we experienced in all the previous transfer windows.

Please can you stay on topic.

Some people have never quite recovered from Wayne Bridge never coming back.

No it's Lee Hendrie.

The Athletic globally is one big loss leader mate. Don't kid yourself that it is making profit in the USA to plough into the UK. It isn't. It's just hoovering up investor cash in the hope it will eventually get big enough to be sold on to someone else. Nice bit of hype, it's a decent product but absolutely no evidence that it can be sustained in the long term. Anyway, completely off topic sorry.

Not in the UK they haven't squire. Their target for the UK is 100k which doesn't feel like a lot when you consider the top level journalists they have signed up - David Ornstein, Oliver Kay, Daniel Taylor and co must be on six figure salaries. Their only income is subs as they are a site with no ads, so if they have too many paying £1 a month I can't see how they are going to be sustainable long term. The Guardian have a lot more paying subsribers than that, paying more than that plus can supplement income through ads etc. And they are skint. They have splashed a lot of cash at writers and good luck to them, and maybe in a post-print world they will do okay. But i still suspect they will get swallowed by a bigger player sooner rather than later. Like lots of digital start ups, lots of reports of attracting investors, but not so much about making actual money. We'll see.

I would definitely say I do not have enough interest in multiple sports for me to have a sustained benefit from the Athletic. It's nice they try and find new Saints content 3/4 days a week. Even if it is a bit dull. But for £1 a month I'm all in. Not sure how they are making money on that though.

I signed up on this deal as well - £1 a month is leass than I spend on Newspapers so worth it. That said, I think it is only okay. Some of the articles are just over written and overlong. The recent Saints content- an absolutely shameless bit of club propaganda on our groundbreaking transfer strategy and a interminably long piece on the B team - I could easily live without. It's worth a pound a month but that's about it. It reminds me of World Scoccer magazine from the 90s - drab and worthy but not particularly engaging.

Hahahahahahaha. Jesus wept.

Not sure if anyone has read the puff-piece in The Athletic this week. Presented as a good news story on how the recruitment problems are now over, and we won't be making those mistakes again (ie Carillo) but really reading it through the piece is like a UK Gold repeat of a Les Reed interview. Unique black box, planning years ahead for every eventuality (ie Ings replacement), 4 or 5 candidates for every position,we analyse their personality as well as their football skills. On and on and on. The same old Southampton Way "we're so special and different" delusion. Meanwhile, Kevin Danso. Meanwhile, what has Djenepo delivered yet? Salisu, we'll see. On paper could be Hoedt, could be Van Dijk. Meanwhile, we have 5 players for every possible eventuality but today we have a bench of kids and no central midfielder to replace our captain who we all knew was definitely going sometime in March. The same problems remain - the primary objective is public relations and spin. And spending the barest of bare minimums to scrape buy. Cut the crap lads.

We're going to lose but that's the best team he can put out.

But he's not talking about next year. He's talking about now. I remain incredibly comfortable in my belief that this season Ings will do fine but not enough to make him remotely interesting to the likes of Spurs next year anyway.

Personally looking forward to the mental gymnastics some on here will go through in a couple of months time to pretend that Ralph saying "we will do something. We have to. The market is still open" actually meant that he was delighted with the squad and any incoming would be a lovely bonus.

I actually think the opposite. He'll get a decent pay rise/extension off the back of this and then proceed to score 12-14 goals a season for the next three years.

£794 up tonight apparently.

You'd have to be absolutely mad to think this lot could finish in the top half.

I'm hearing that talk of us signing Loftus-Cheek are wide of the mark.

Shane Long is coming on so that means goals goals goals.

We are never ever ever ever going to score.

You've handled a small line up change on a TV football chat show with slightly less dignity than a 14 year old girl sobbing over Robbie leaving Take That. Absolutely pathetic. Man up you blubbering ponce.

Corbyn was a frequent contributor to RT, as was Milne and others in the Corbyn orbit. Milne was a Putin fan-girl, and host of fawning interviews with the great dictator. When Salisbury happened the Cretin could not bring himself to condemn the Russian state for hostile act on a British soil. Yes, the is plenty of dodgy Russian money in the country and the Conservatives are as culpable as any. But Corbyn, mainly because of his pitifully dim "anti-imperialism" sixth former worldview, is a perpetual facilitator and apologist for the Russian state.

I just hope he has the dreams and ambitions we require to take us to our rightful place in the Champions League.

There is some point to friendlies but these weren't friendlies. Ooh, I've come over all MLG.