CB Fry

How on gods earth is he a "fan on the board" type?

Correct.

No. But we fans might have had a trip to Wembley. It was the "League is best" people that said a higher place finish was a better foundation than a cup run.

Anyone think now we should have possibly gone for it in the cups rather than pursue a "well, the higher up you finish the stronger you are to build for next season" approach? Just a thought.

"delighted to announce", surely?

I have a theory that I have just made up that Reed and the scouts have lined up four or five exciting young stars, and convinced he is the new Arsene Wenger Reed is being all "decisive" and "bold" and wants to make some statement decisions. "This is exactly what Sir Alex used to do" says our Les to poor old Ralph. "Get rid of players just after they pass their prime. And don't worry our team of 17 scouts have lined up 4 mega stars of the future. We'll be far stronger for it". I still refuse to believe it is a fire sale or anything like that, but it might be a case of "the bold, forward thinking revolutionary Southampton way" starting to believe it's own hype. It is a f uck up, no question. After the WC, maybe fine. After the manager appointment, maybe fine. But not fu cking now you fu cking bellend.

What are you on about? We haven't got a "fan on the board".

Okay, so this is a cluster f uck. I'm not "embracing" this "process" now, Ralph.

Sky Sports News suggesting something coming up shortly.....

There was stuff about "the southampton way" back during the Branfoot era (as in "this is not..." ) so it's not a new thing, despite Delldays pretending Nicola Cortese ìnvented it earlier today.

Jesus Christ. I would suggest that what he was trying to say was that the club might make the fact they have a shortlist public, just to indicate that they are close to an appointment. Obviously they aren't going to make the list public like in the old days when fans voted on kit design. Personally I don't really care about a shortlist, as long as we get someone of decent standing in by this time next week, if not earlier. And I think we will.

There is some absolute gold on the forum at present.

We're only about three posts away from someone bringing up the Steven Gerrard thing, aren't we? The Charlton Athletic bulls hit bingo button has already been pressed.

Correct. Garcia would be an appalling appointment after what was said yesterday, his only achievement has been to scrape ahead of our own dear old Nige on the last day of the season. I expect all the media Garcia hype about him coming here or going to Celtic is entirely from a bulls hitting agent. He won't stand a chance of getting either job.

Has Skacel moved into Martin O'Neill's house yet?

Shaw. Doesn't really want to go to Man U and Chelsea won't pay £27m for a left back this summer. So he will sit it out. For Lallana, he's done his time and this is his big chance.

That's the spirit.

The Tommy Widdrington stuff comes out every time we need a new manager. It's almost gone through the comedy pain barrier of being funny through constant repetition but not quite.

Alpine has confidently told us our next manager will be "another Steve Wigley" and/or "Billy Davies stature". So give up now. Everything is terrible these days, not like the wonderful good old days of the last five years when Alpine moaned about everything all the time.

European qualification always a perfectly realistic ambition. Not sure anyone on here has ever said it wasn't. Bring on the League Cup, mother f uck as.

Brilliant. A Con - Lab coalition government with her majesty's opposition consisting of twelve Lib Dem MPs, three Democratic Unionists, two SNPs, whatsername from the Green Party and Dennis Skinner. At least they'd have a lot of room on the benches on that side.

Cortese's transparency? All I can remember is the Cult of Cortese hero worshippers whipping themselves into rapture about "how we do our business in private" and "why should we tell anyone anything" when our leader refused to speak. Cortese was about as transparent as a Sherman Tank. The only time he actually spoke out was to spread his pie-in-the-sky "vision" stuff, which was the opposite of transparency, it was misleading.

Fixed for you, so Olallana can understand.

Alpine's just dished up a load of hysterical nonsense that in a few months time (even a few weeks time) someone will dredge up and take the pi ss. And, as he does every single time, he'll make some comment about how it's easy to say that "in hindsight", conveniently forgetting all the people who told him he was wrong in foresight. Well he's wrong. "Just like the Lowe days" and we're going to appoint a manager who is "another Steve Wigley" or "Billy Davies stature". Let's see, shall we. Hindsight starts now.

No. Passing craze.