CB Fry

You talk about people being "bothered". The poll results suggest a more than reasonable degree of folk being "bothered" by our current kit. I would suggest if this seasons kit was red/white stripes, any poll on it would have shown that, in general, people being"not bothered", with a handful of perfectionists/nutters bothering to hate it or love it. If you want to maximise people not being "bothered" by our kit, just churn out a red and white striped kit. Your mistake is interpreting "not bothered about stripes" as "lots of fans want exciting, different kit designs". They don't. They aint bothered. It's just a kit.

Poll on this forum. Poll on the Echo. Do you like the kit. Huge majority, huge, on both saying no. Other than that, no proof. Sorry about that.

That shoulders one was terrible. Agree about the other two. My all time favourite is easily the Hummel Denmark one, which was barely stripes of course. None of those make our current kit good. Its sh it.

Jesus. Whatever. Have it your way. The gigantic majority that didn't like this seasons kit were objecting primarily to the stitching, or the detail on the collar or the lengths of the sleeves or something.

Pretty sure the poll was "do you like the kit". And results were overwhelming. As was a similar poll on the Echo site. Being that it is a football kit then no one is ever going to be that "fussed". Still means the vast majority would like us in something resembling red and white stripes. Nice try.

Absolutely reeks of Harry's agent/press chums seeding bullsh it to put the wind up QPR and get their man a few more quid.

Stoke going for a massive change of style (Martinez trying to get them to tip-tap it about) would just be suicide. Carnage. Mark Hughes sounds like a decent bet for them. He's had about one bad half season in the top flight with a very good record of mid table/upper mid table. I'd put Stoke 10-12th under Hughes.

Taking the p*ss out of pointless stat bullsh it is harmless fun.

And its a league - so if it's a draw, then it's a draw. Just stupid.

Coming from the man who, very unlazily, predicted our immediate relegation from the Premier League when a) we already had more than enough points to stay up anyway b) we were about five minutes away from scoring the goal that would secure our already inevitable safety. Exceptionally not-lazy.

Pretty obvious this was staged by the government, and all the participants are actors. Pap is busy at the moment so thought I'd start the ball (t)rolling.

You clearly haven't been a Saints fan for thirty years. I haven't either but I can remember... Chris Nicholl's 424 ZDS Cup Final Alan Ball's reign Everything MLT ever did Several great escapes Dellhurst park Ekelund, Berkovic, Pahars, Beattie Twelfth under Dave Jones Beating Man U three seasons in a row Moving to SMS Eighth under Strachan FA Cup final Comprehensive one match European tour Play off semi heartbreak Great escape (Championship edition) Walcott, Bale, Alex O-C, Bridge etc and on to the Liebherr era. Others might mention the fact we used to challenge for the frigging league title. How tedious.

"I want to be back in the Champions League with Southampton and I believe it is not unreal." Why do people get tetchy when the papers report our top four ambitions, when "shoot for the moon"-based horsesh it is on this forum seven days a week?

That's your new material, is it? Oh, my aching sides.

But they didn't. Not sure we were ever above them all season. And five points adrift is plenty. As many as we were to Wigan.

....and led Bolton to eighth, sixth, eighth, seventh in four straight seasons. Phenomenal. Can you imagine the response if MP did that? Even two seasons at eighth would have half this forum pulling down the Bates statue and replacing it with a solid gold Cortese. Big Sam gets results. He left us for dust this year, anyway.

I would suggest we have already outspent WBA and Swansea in one season back up. I honestly don't get where they have needed "investment" that we couldn't match. In theory Saints could finish mid table and be sustainable. Lowe (calm down everyone) achieved it for several seasons, even turning a small profit, and that was in an era of lower TV money. It can be done. Probably won't get you top four, but you could compete.

Both bigger than we are, so stands to reason they would be on TV more.

So we've "progressed" and "adapted" from scoring goals and letting in loads to tightening up, but scoring hardly any goals. Neither route resulted in a successful start or finish to the season.

Pretty despicable to issue those kind of veiled threats through the press. Isn't it, everyone?

Wayne Rooney said he wanted to leave Man U because he wasn't playing and not scoring as many goals/helping the team to success. So not just self interest either. Just like Nicola.

Errr - you do realise the entire "Cortese to quit" story was based on Nicola briefing selected members of the press with "snippets" of "info"? None of us needed to know the "ins and outs" of that situation. We found out because Cortese spoke to the press "behind the back of" the owners. "Sacking on the spot" offence is it? Really?

No, it isn't. What Nicola did was not great PR, it was tactical briefing of the media for his own (and the clubs) ends. Several days of fan uncertainty is not great PR. It's sh it PR to acheive another end result. Really don't agree about the unity in the fanbase thing. I don't remember any disunity anyway - fans already chant his name every match. He's used the press very well but he hasn't played the PR card well. Unless you want all future player contract negotiations played out in public ( "I will go as the club don't match my ambitions" etc etc) then if I were you I wouldn't wish for much more "great PR" like this.

In my monochrome world, our chairman uses tactical press briefing to seed a story to strenghten his position and secure long term support (and we presume financial backing) from the clubs owners. Everyone's a winner. In your multicoloured world our chairman is a bumbling oaf allowing himself to be misquoted, letting a false story run unchallenged for few days, upsetting a lot of fans who don't want him to go. And allowing his own staff to perpetuate this pack of lies with on the record quotes, further panicking some fans. Even at the end this bumbling oaf of a chairman doesn't ask for an apology or attempt to rubbish the story. I think I'll stick to monochrome. Nicola's played an effing blinder. Shame you can't see it.

This is like a Disney production meeting. Welcome to fairytale land. If any of that was remotely true why on earth did MP need to speak out about him going if NC went? If it was made up by a journo, then NC would have told MP just that and no comments would be required. And what we have seen in NC's "tenure" is plenty of put downs to journalists when they have been wrong, and proven wrong. If anything it's a hallmark of how NC works. No such response this time round. I wonder why?