CB Fry

If you think that is something you can be actually be "condemned" to, then fine. Appalling word choice, I'd say. By the way, I have just had my breakfast and was condemned to having Lemon Curd on my toast as we'd run out of marmalade.

Thought someone would try that. Doesn't fit that definition either does it, especially as the article is a pretty vague argument about the financial fair play rules. Condemn in either use is a pretty definitive verb, and used in isolation as here - "Samuel condemns Saints" - makes the second definition redundant. If the thread was titled "Saints condemned to sell offs by FFP rules" you might have a point. But would still have been an appalling word choice as the article is about maybe we might have to sell or maybe we won't buy John Terry.

Mods, change the thread title, for God's sake. Not a single word of that article "condemns" Saints for anything, with the entire piece positive about Saints. We now seem to have got to a situation where forum dinlows are wailing about how the media hate us on the back of any article about us before they've even read it. And the fact it has happened this season when the media had been fawning over us more than at any time in our history, makes the situation even more mental. For the love of god.

Nice to see this get an airing again. Not sure I've seen Krueger say any like this for a start. And secondly, why on earth are people from Bristol or Swindon or Plymouth going to start supporting Saints? I bet their are plenty of, say, Manchester United and Liverpool fans in all those cities. It's kinda like a vague geographical closeness is pretty irrelevant in deciding which club to support.

So another season like this - finishing top eight two seasons in a row for the first time in 30 odd years - would not be out of the ordinary. Fair enough.

You are setting yourself up for disappointment then. 8th every season for us would be pretty amazing. You seem to be suggesting that eighth every season is now a given for us and it's just a case of whether or not we decide to invest to finish sixth or fourth instead. In the next decade we have a few finishes lower than eighth ahead of us. Seriously, get used to it.

As usual, an interminable ramble missing the point and arguing against things people haven't said anyway. Well done. Of course if everything fell our way, no players left and we unearthed two more gems then we might finish sixth or even fourth, one season, once. But is is spectacularly unlikely. What is tiresome on this forum are the petulant demands for "investment" and countless club statements backing this up; the childish grizzles that link any player leaving being an outrage; and the supreme arrogance that finishing eighth in the Premier League is now somehow beneath us, or boring or not worth dreaming about. The sneering dismissal of eighth place league finishes (achieved all of once in our last twenty odd seasons) by the likes of you is frankly not the wide - eyed innocent dreaming you are making it out to be. That attitude, and the toddler - tantrums that will greet the opening of the transfer window, represents most that is wrong with the Sky Sports era dinlow football fan. I hope to Saints fly again next season. Brilliant young players, a couple of decent additions, and, yes, a departure or two we may need to weather. But we are set fair to have another excellent season - 8th again would be brilliant - and try and get to Wembley too. That's optimism. Try it sometime.

Most of those voting would have never played against him. That said, I can't see him winning, too much non football baggage.

Well wasn't Capello on about six mil? So Roy's agent had plenty to go after with that kind of precedent.

There were plenty of rumours about Adkins. You dismissed them as made up journalist rubbish in your traditional pious way, most memorably on the very morning he was sacked. You know you did. And if you think generic statements from clubs carry more weight than a phone call from an agent to a good journo with a solid gold tip off of an imminent big transfer, then fine. Keep reading the match day magazine for "all the hot news from St Mary ' s", then. Or maybe move to North Korea.

For consecutive top eight finishes, including sixth once. If Poch does anything like that, he'd be a hero. And, Pulis spent millions at Stoke.

Adkins was a shock only to you because you'd spent the last several months (and that very morning) dismissing anything suggesting he was a dead man walking as lies made up by clueless journalists. Clearly not that clueless. And well done you: you think formal statements and official press releases are the most reliable sources of information. You are a government's dream citizen.

So a club saying players won't be sold means players definitely won't be sold? All right then. And how is the Southampton chairman a "more reliable source" on what Chelsea are doing than someone that works at Chelsea? How the eff does that work?

I remember you ranting like this about how newspapers all make stuff up out of thin air about an hour before Atkins sacking was confirmed. You might want to change the record. Whatever they do or don't know, it's more than you.

Maybe we should have spent fifty million or one hundred million on the training ground instead then. Who cares about budgets? I mean, look at Stoke or Sunderland and stuff. Them being in worse debt than us means we can spend loads more and not worry or something. Fantastic logic. Get real.

What's your point, apart from telling us you've just discovered Ben Goldacre. Welcome to 2004. My point is wailing about "why don't the media factor in depreciation" is a pretty futile ask, especially when the point in hand is not depreciation but the fact the budget doubled. And it isn't just media as big business, government all do the same sleight of hand stuff with their own announcements.

Still twice the original budget though. And we pay for players in installments too. And, err, every govt/business/sporting/whatever announcement is handled by the media (and the bodies spending the money in their press releases in exactly the same way). "Asda investing £300m in 100 new stores" "HS2 bill now at £200bn" "Saints unveil £15m training ground plan" So either the media don't get the concept of depreciation, or you don't get the fact that figures are reported like that for everything, all the time, since forever.

Err, your team is.

He probably does know a little about the GBP. I have to say I couldn't give a monkeys about them. But do I like the idea of us being the nation's second favourite team? Yes, I do. Infinitely more sensible angle for us than pie in the sky Champions League bulls h it from the Italian.

Nice read. Plenty for the sneerers, still crying into their petticoats over the departure of the Italian, to get stuck into though. The article mentions the World Economic Forum and the Green Bay Packers so plenty of bonus points for the forum simpletons playing Krueger mockery Bingo. Have fun, ladies.

How weak - minded are you? Can you not accept that people you admire can make mistakes?

What on earth does any of this mean? How would progress in the FA Cup make us Pompey? And why couldn't we "cope" with, say, an FA Cup Semi final appearance? What would happen to us? How would our inability to "cope" manifest itself?

Do your stuff about the club targeting 17th place again. Oh, it's so funny. It really is.

"Mauricio Pochettino has failed this season. Let me tell you why" The first line of the article. The first freaking line.

Don't worry, pretty sure I remember plenty of people saying how brilliant it will be when we knock Man United off 7th place on the last day. That will be ten times better than any cup final could ever be because it's, like, the league and stuff. The city will be rocking more than it did in 1976 when that thing with Man U definitely happens in a few weeks. Can't wait to get hold of the commemorative DVD of the match/bus parade/key to the city for Pochettino ceremony. And just imagine how jealous people in Hull will be.