CB Fry

Lordswood - are you saying Cortese, not Adkins, told Sharp he was going. And Adkins told Sharp he wanted him to stay? Just want to check we're reading this right?

No I don't want MLT running the club and during the time Pinnacle was happening I talked on here a lot on why I didn't want MLT amywhere near running the club beyond a figurehead do-nothing Hon. President type. He couldn't run a nightclub. MLT is a good pundit too, though, and great to have him on the nation's biggest football broadcaster. Cortese is a businessman running the club. He's doing a good job in the main. But he has deminstrated contrary petty behaviour (none of which has contributed to our success on-pitch - banning the Echo does not help us get promoted). One day that behaviour may harm us. MLT however is a Saints legend and nothing this Swiss bloke can do will stop that. He might try and push the Echo away but he cannot extinguish a true legend. Let's see how many "Cortese-Unbelievable" DVDs the club shop can sell. Unfortunately from the loons on here, quite a few.

You seem overly paranoid about "negative exposure". People take the mick out of a CEO of a football business? So what, who cares? Well it seems that some people do care, like you. Others talk about this "disrupting" the club. Does it? Does it eff. People who think others ripping into a football CEO as disrupting the club are far too dazzled by said CEO that the pi sstaking feels damaging. It isn't. He's not the messiah and people taking the pi ss is not damaging. Thanks for the mantlepiece reference, like it.

Absolutely. And a role in driving the sport in a key growth territory. A genuinely interesting challenge. A chance be part of something still new and growing. A new life in a new land. Far more interesting than being AN Other big name player at the arse end of a big league. Southampton is not centre of the universe. Some people just don't get it.

So what. He know a million times more about Sth American football than you.

I think you're a bit paranoid. I was in the pub for the game and it cut out the pundits but I've seen and heard plenty of other coverage about our performance and manager. And nothing, at all, on BBC TV and Radio and on Talksport or in any papers I've seen about whatever you are on about. The perception is entirely yours I think. The rest of the non Cortese worshipping world goes on undisrupted.

We won the JPT final didn't we.... dispite the earth shattering disruption Matt Le Tissier seemingly caused. And Mike Osman is disrupted our charge to the Premier League did he? Mike Osman. I dread to think who the next big gun Matt is going to wheel out in his heavy duty disruption campaign.... Richard Digence? Gary Wilmot? How is taking the **** out of some Swiss bloke disrupting the club? How?

I think Cortese is doing a good job and is taking the club forward. He makes a boatload of mistakes though, from the pis spoor new kit to ticketing process to petty feuds witj the local press. Me just saying that will get the Cult of Cortese nutjobs out with their sentiment that Cortese is the club and any criticism is an attack on the club and will somehow "destabilise" us.

I bet he doesn't write the picture captions though. Tim Vickery is a renowned South American football expert, and he lives out there too. He's got spadefuls of credibility.

Matt's not really being disruptive though is he? He's having a dig at our chairman. On, err Twitter.That won't stop us winning football matches will it? Nicola Cortese is not Southampton Football Club made flesh. He's a Swiss Banker no one had ever heard of three years ago who just happens to be CEO at this moment in time. If a different ex-player comes out and takes the pi ss out of him every single day for the rest of the year then that won't affect the team on the pitch on jot. And it would be hilarious to that happen, if only to see the po-faced Cult of Cortese nutjobs on here go into meltdown because someone has dared question their godhead. MLT worth a thousand Nicola Corteses.

That Strachan point is bang on. Our best season in recent memory was not built on twelve million quid south Americans but it was built on supreme fitness, conditioning and performance. We can't afford to be tired three games in.

Less spectacular than that. Just some random strain that keeps him out for a month. Doesn't play a minute then makes miracle recovery to play in both WC qualifiers in S America in October. Before pulling something again. Finally makes Saints debut in November in pi ssing down rain in Stoke or something.

Golden threads.

So what? Log off if you don't like it.

Didn't you write off TeamGB on here about three days into the Olympics?

Other people could see it happening. Guess what? They weren't deluded. You could have said "I don't see it happening". You didn't. You called others deluded instead. Guess what? They weren't deluded. And since the signing you have done nothing but moan. But here comes the backtrack. Lets see how long it lasts. And, err, worrying about it "slipping out the window" is all about, well, time. As in "waste of time". You know, time. Or are you working in a different dimension from the rest of us?

Not really. I don't claim to be Mr Subtletly do I? I'm not the one backtracking here. And I said he'd sign when you'd written it off and slated those that disagreed. But anyway, first class back tracking on a player you've spent a fortnight grizzling about what a waste of time it all is, how any thinking we would sign him was "deluded to pompey proportions" and, then, in seconds of him signing start grizzle-arsing about "I wish we'd kept so and so instead". We all know you'll be on Gaston's back if he doesn't score a hattrick in game one anyway, so this backtracking routine is utterly futile anyway.

Yes. That's what you're famous for on here. Delicate subtlety. Utterly full of it.

So the Alpine backtrack has started then. You'd rather we'd kept Sharp, remember?

Slightly unnessessary over analysis of our marking for their winner though. Leave it out lads.

Is Jay-Rod?

Ramirez I don't think should start yet. Can't see him being ready just yet. Yoshida, on the other hand...well lets make him captain because he needs to deliver now. I think we're going to get a pasting if I'm honest. We won't be able to stifle them, not our style and sure as hell we can't out-Arsenal them. Five nil I'm sorry to say.

Always worth pointing this out as being really not true. Without Markus we might not be in the Prem now and spending gazillions on Uruguayans that Alpine doesn't like...but there was never any danger of us going out of existence. We would still be going no problem. We'd probably be somewhere in NPC or League One but we'd be there.

If we do sign him, poor old (young) J-Rod will be looking up to the sky and thinking...what the frig have I done to my career.....?

Don't worry Alpine. We'll remember this advice next time you go batsh it crazy about nothing much.