CB Fry

Absolutely - he's been a great signing. But the kind of signing made by a club with tons of cash and even more intent. A bit like when Leeds signed Robbie Fowler, or Newcastle Asprilla, or Man United Berbatov. Great additions to the squad but not really needed at point of purchase if you see what I mean. Don't get me wrong I am not complaining about signing Barnard - quite the opposite!

Thanks for the patronising lecture, but you'll notice I mentioned Pardew before I mentioned the money spent. Thanks for attributing to me a load of cheap arguments I haven't even mentioned. Manager plus cash is what I said, and in that order. Not "cash = definitely win every single game ever" which is how you lamely decided to read it. And sorry, we are "really throwing money at getting ourselves back in the Premiership". In January we signed a player from a division above, for £1.75m who is clearly far too good for this division. And, having already one of the top five strikers in the league on our books we splashed out (wages primarily) on another top five striker who frankly we didn't really need, and he is on our bench most of the time. Pretty sure he'd stroll into any other top six team, including Leeds who wanted to buy him. Half of our bench would stroll into any bottom half CCC team, FFS. One of our reserves spent half the season in the CCC. We are chucking money around like it's going out of fashion.

You seem to be avoiding the fact that we have had instant success this season and it's down to > Pardew being perfectly capable of delivering success within 18 months, like all successful modern managers from Wenger to Moyes down to Phil Brown, Owen Coyle and Paul Lambert. > And the fact we have chucked money at the issue. Chucked money left right and centre at the best players in the division and at players better than this division. Sorry, it's not 1981 anymore. Successful managers deliver instantly. Money helps massively, especially in a division like League One. Fact, and fact. Pardew has done a brilliant job, we are top two challengers +10 points. But that achievement is not somehow divorced from the money we have chucked at the issue. It's a direct link. It winds me up when people desperately pretend that isn't the case and still make out that "money doesn't make any difference" when it is making a difference in front of our very eyes.

Quite. I've been slated all season for being a Pardew out person despite never, ever, once, ever saying anything even resembling anthing remotely close to "pardew out". Not once. Ever. All I've ever said was with the resources he has had we should expect a level of performance and results to reflect that. Standard targets you would expect anywhere, and at any football club. It's the "stick with the manager regardless" types that infect football clubs with the stench of complancey, laziness and blame-someone-else culture. Thankfully, Pardew and Cortese agree with me and not the "don't worry about winning, you've got a job for life" brigade.

A couple of posters who aren't exactly regulars posting in the heat of the moment on a post match thread. It's like the Branfoot campaign all over again There is no campaign to get Pardew out, it's just made up by people to give themselves the comfort blanket of "I told you so" superiority against some mythical uprising. But Pardew's success this season is not about "sticking with the manager" because he hasn't been here long enough to claim to have been stuck with. Nine odd months is not "sticking with the manager". Pardew has delivered instant success, the phrase that you and SOG and lots of other bores hate and pretend doesn't happen and doesn't exist. Well it does exist, at every single club that has had success in the last twenty years from Arsenal and Everton to Hull, Norwich, Forest, Leeds, Exeter and whoever else you want to name. And it's happened, this season with Pardew and Saints. Just as I said it would*. You get success in your first eighteen months or you don't get success at all. The sweet, sweet smell of instant success.

The only thing Roy Keane proves is your utter hypocrisy. If Keane was Saints manager and he had performed like that for us this season you'd be on here boring the arse off everyone about how brilliant he is doing and do you know that Lawrie Mac took blah blah blah blah blah and he must be given five more years blah blah Mourinho coulnd't do any better blah blah blah..kids today these days blah blah blah. But he's someone else's manager so you slag him off left right and centre. Much like your hypocrisy when you were using Chelsea as an example that money doens't buy success. Chelsea. Stretching the definition "no success" to absolute breaking point. But hey, just make any lame-ass contradictory argument to make the same of guff points you always do.

Only? That's as many as watch Eastenders or Coronation Street. Pretty astounding viewing figures by any measure, especially as it was pretty dull and very long.

I think you are over egging this massively - Churchill was a very old, alcoholic depressive but did okay when we needed him most. Charles Kennedy is no Churchill but there have been leaders and prime ministers with these kind of problems down the years. And were there a Leaders debate five years ago, Kennedy would have ****ed it against Howard and Blair. And I don't remember Kennedy saying he wanted out but was held in position against his will for Vince Cable's "electoral benefit". And I don't say this as a Lib Dem supporter, to make clear.

I thought it was pretty clear that my references to the three clubs and then the sentence about their league positions suggests that I was talking about their current league position and performance on the pitch. How on earth could you conclude that by "doing a Fulham" I was suggesting we move to a old ground smaller than St Mary's? And I don't agree that by "investing in the team" we are suddenly going to pull in enough regulars to justify a 45,000 seater stadium and the gigantic costs that would entail. Without investment in the team we finished eighth and got to the cup final and regardless of Cortese's ambition I don't think we can expect much better under this regime. Let's not kid ourselves we're destined for top four. We're not. Like it or not year three or four in the Prem will see crowds settle at 30,000 week in week out. If we are selling out with a waiting list then lets look at a stadium. We got good gates previously in the Prem, but we didn't have a ST waiting list and that's the kind of demand we'd need to justify moving away from a stadium which is still essentially brand new. But it is not as simple as more money > more success > more fans when we're back in the Premier League.

We'll be a Birmingham or Fulham at best, a Sheff Utd at worst. In five years time we will be somewhere between 8th in the Prem down to 12th in the CCC. We may have had a season in the Prem. I sincerely hope we won't be building a brand new stadium because five years will not be enough time to create the business case for building one. A 40-45,000 seater stadium (probably about £80m worth of mortgage) would require us selling c26,000 season tickets a season with a waiting list. For at least three seasons. Then we might start thinking about it. So 2020 maybe.

I don't think the chairman is allowed to say anything apart from barking out their names. He's not allowed to rephrase questions or pick them up on points or anything. The rules they have all agreed have conspired to make this rather drab and I think no one except the anoraks (bores like me) will watch the one on Sky next week. This isn't going to "re-energise interest in politics" I fear. And it must be costing ITV a fortune to have no ads for 90 mins of primetime.

Pardew delivered instant success. You said it couldn't be done. Pardew did it because of the fantastic investment into the team. You said money doesn't make any difference. Wrong, wrong, wrong. No one is calling for Pardew's head yet. You've been making out they've been calling for his head in your dopey dreamworld since about August. The key word is No-one.

Hope the national grid is ready for a mass switch over to Have I Got News For You at nine o'clock.

Pretty sure they drew lots. There are about 70 rules around the debates so rest assured its all been covered and agreed. Tis a bit dull in the opening exchanges, it has to be said.

If you read that thread - that "when" was the point of the discussion, but none of it was "now", which is how you read it and have been boring people about it ever since. What you're sore about is Pardew is delivering in the kind of timeframe people like me said was perfectly possible and you pompously said was unrealistic and impatient. Pardew delivered instant success and you can't stand it because it blows your arse-aching guff about needing three years clean out of the water.

Hopefully a bit of clever politicking by Pardew to keep Cortese on his toes. Let's hope Pardew doesn't end up with his bluff being called.

I've never forgotten that thread. Mainly because not one person on it wanted Pardew sacked, and neither does Alpine. And neither does anyone on here. But doesn't suit your little routine does it, so you carry on living in your dreamworld.

Eh? Pardew is delivering the success I said he could deliver and was possible from August onwards. When people on here sneer and talk down to you for believing the play offs were possible in August then yes I will come on here and crow at people like SOG who decided what I thought was "unrealistic" and I "needed a reality check" and was "impatient". Well I was right because I said the play offs were realistic back in August. So don't come on here and tell me this season is a success. I f ucking well knew it would be. Talk to the mongs like SOG who were talking about "just staying up" in August.

Not sure what you're being smug about. Pardew is proving you wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. You say there's no such thing as instant success. Wrong. You say no manager can achieve anything until they've had three years. Wrong. You say money makes no difference. Wrong. You said in August anyone who thought we'd be challenging for the play offs this season was impatient and unrealistic. Wrong and wrong. Well some us believed. In instant success. In money delivering that success. In fighting for the playoffs this season. And some of us are right. And it aint you. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Has the penny dropped yet?

Win the next two, and they are extremely winnable, and you're right. And, at that point, we then start really fu cking with the heads of Uddersfield and Colchester. Two points off with a shi te hot goal difference with a couple of games to go might see our competitors crumble.

Charlton one up against Colchester.

I think the only person who "gets off on failure" on this forum is you. You're the one who decided anyone who thought we could challenge for the play offs this season was "unrealistic" "needed a reality check" and all those other sneering comments you dished out at the start of the season. You also sneered at the idea of Pardew delivering instant success, which he has done this season, because it doens't fit your "everyone must be rubbish for three years because that how Lawrie did it" world view. And you sneer at the idea that buying players equates to a better team and better performance. It's your comments that makes Cortese shake his head and think why bother. Why bother giving Pardew any money for players when the likes of you shrug and sneer and say "it doesn't make any difference". Well screw you and your negativity. Thank you from me Alan Pardew for delivering instant success as I said you could and the likes of SOG sneered at: "What is this so-called instant success, you need a reality check sneer, sneer, wouldn't happen, doesn't happen, never happens, Lawrie said so" Thank you from me Cortese and Markus for spending money on fantastic new players. They've made our team better while the likes of SOG sneered at it: "money doesn't make any difference, doesn't buy success sneer sneer" Thank you for the fans who like me talked of the play offs in August. And not the likes of SOG who sneered at the very idea "get a reality check, grow up, kids today these days sneer, sneer, sneer" There's one person who "gets off on failure" on this forum and it's you.

Why would it be a mistake based on this season? Leeds are third, one point off automatic promotion and I'd stay still very, very likely to be promoted automatically. Leeds aren't eighth and they've been nowhere near eighth. They've been challenging for automatic promotion every single week of the season, including this week. An indisputable fact. As I said in the previous post, if Saints were in that position and people were completely writing off our chances of automatic promotion you'd be going ballistic. Leeds being one point off automatic promotion is another indisputable fact in my opinion. Look at the table. Kenny Jackett was doing a good job at Christmas and he is doing a great job now, again indisputable facts. It's just a myth that Kenny Jackett was being dragged through the streets of Deptford as some monumental failure because Millwall were eighth at Christmas. He was doing a great job and no one wanted him sacked. But if we are eighth at Christmas next season it is categorically not the same as Millwall being eighth at Christmas. It would be more like Chelsea being eighth at Christmas, or Leeds being eighth at Christmas this season. Which, funnily enough, they weren't. Much like Leicester weren't eighth in L1 last season's Christmas. They were in and around the top two. And Forest weren't eighth in L1 the Christmas before. They were in and around the top two. Because that's where clubs trying to get promoted need to be at Christmas. Not plan to be god-awful for half a season then hope to make some late charge. But hey, we don't want to compare ourselves to big, rich, well supported clubs like Forest and Leicester. We're nothing like them. We're teeny tiny pauper underdog Southampton. Just like Millwall.

Must have been a different Kenny Jackett and a different Millwall that finished fifth last season then. And as you accept - no one expected Millwall to finish top two. So why would the Millwall board sack Jackett for being eighth, perfectly well placed for the playoffs? It's an utterly false premise and bears no relation to our club, our expectations and our resources. And Leeds aren't now eighth weren't ever eighth and aren't going to finish eighth and are currently, err, third, one point off automatic but you've written them off for promotion. If someone else on this forum was saying this about Saints you'd be tearing them off a strip. Jackett was not asked to deliver automatic promotion at the beginning of the season. Grayson was and he was never eighth at Christmas and he's third now. That is a comparison suitable to Saints but you're ignoring that and making out that we are actually more similar to Millwall than Saints. Tiny, teeny, plucky underdog Southampton. Scrimping and scraping a team together with coppers and loose change just like Millwall. This is coming from you of all people, Mr spend-lots-of-money-and-success-will-definitely-follow. But now, success, for you, for a billionaire bankrolled multimillionpound team, is eighth. What a triumph that would be.

It feels like you are not destined for a season of struggle to stay in the division in August. That's what it felt like through out the entire 1990's (funnily enough it pretty much coincides with MLT's tenure). It went away (for me) at the start of Hoddle's season when it felt we were well placed for mid table. The feeling came back at the start of Sturrock's when staying up would have been fine. Feeling like a proper prem side feels like you belong there. Bolton, Blackburn, Fulham and Birmingham will go into next season feeling like "proper prem sides".