CB Fry

Yawn. We were aiming for the play offs at the start of the season, plenty of quotes and interviews at the time which people like you are desperate to pretend didn't happen. We're aiming for the playoffs and I am bemused how that is so offensive to so many Saints fans. Why is it such a bad thing that it has to be denied by shrieking old women like you?

Whoopee. We should be the ones to watch for storming in the play offs this season, just like Leeds did with a 15 point penalty and nothing like the funds we spent. Nothing like it.

Oh, here we go, the "deniers" are back. There has been comments about aiming for the play offs all season, and Cortese said in on the radio not so long ago. We are aiming for the play offs. We are aiming for the play offs. Stop pretending we're not. We. are. aiming. for. the. play. offs. Cortese said owner Markus Liebherr had made a significant investment - with nearly £2m thought to have been spent on players in January alone - and the reason for that was so Saints would make the playoffs. Cortese added that recent league results have "not been satisfactory against that objective".

You're ****ing in the dark with comments like that. Some folks on this forum, regardless of what you say, and the evidence available still make out that we are the hardest done by club in British football and we don't stand a chance against the likes of Swindon because they had a pre season and we didn't. I doubt Swindon fans (or Millwall fans, or Huddersfield fans)would agree that they have more going for them than SFC at the moment. But the deluded on here will always make out the others have it so much easier than us. We barely deserve the money ML has given us, because financually we've blown every club out of the water and still the loons on here talk about "I'm happy just to stay up, it's unrealistic to expect anything more". What was the point, Marcus, what was the point? Should have just played the kids and a few L2 freebies like Swindon. Then people might have something to "woe is us" about.

Now that's a word.

I see bundling unconnected games together is the new "we didn't have any pre season". We're the richest club in the division and we are aiming for the play offs this season (oh yes we are and oh dear, the p i sswipes can't pretend we're not anymore, as Cortese and Pardew have said it. We are. We are.) With that in mind, not beating Wycombe away is not good enough. Every club is going to get dodgy results but we've already had a boat load this season and now was the time for our five wins in a row. But not to be. And the Norwich result was great but was also the first time we'd beaten a top six team all season, so lets not dine out on that too much. It didn't give us a "don't bother with the next game" card. It wasn't worth eight points. But I am sure Wycombe had a knockout pre-season we could have only dreamed of.

At the end of the day, Leeds are top of the table. Put the Leibherr story to one side (and once that has been covered once, it's done) and we are bumming around in mid table. Clue: your "favoured" clubs tend to be the ones challenging for promotion. There isn't a great deal of "newsworthy" stuff happening, especially as it has taken us until now to even beat a top six team. If I was running the programme I'd have us on as much as we've been on. And Steve Claridge is always very good about Saints. And that Lizzie bird is a Saints fan.

I think you're being a bit precious. At the end of the day we're still in league one, and the BBC has an hour or so to cover three divisions of football which it does pretty well. I'm sure you don't want to watch half an hour of in depth coverage of Bristol Rovers v Gillingham at ten past midnight (or even Leicester v Swansea from the league above). Just like people in Bristol don't want half an hour of Saints. The fundemental problem with programmes covering football at this level is no one is interested in anything other than their own team, meaning everyone gets upset and makes out their club is somehow down the pecking order. Saints get plenty of coverage, we got tons when we went into admin, there is no media conspiracy against us. How do I know? Because every football fan of every club in Britain thinks there is a media conspiracy againts them. From Man United to Exeter City.

This would be the same Gareth Southgate who had three complete seasons (yes, the "give them time give them time Lawrie Mac etc etc" longevity never fails theory) with Boro where they got worse and worse and worse and then were relegated. Despite what the "give them time" brigade like to think Southgate didn't look like turning into Alex Ferguson any time soon.

Any news on Riquelme?

Dan sounds like Alan Davies.

Norwich won those three games with no manager or a brand new manager, ie with much less pre season (the most precious commodity in world football*) than we had.

The interesting thing is no one is stopping Pompey selling ten players today. For example, they could sell David James to Blackburn by lunchtime. The transfer window is about incoming player registrations, so the problem is James obviously couldn't play for BRFC until August. But they could sell him and lots of other players and attempt to get at least provisional agreements for fees to tell the taxman. This FA/FIFA nonsense is just a smokescreen to give the Paulsgrove divs some other external force to blame because it's all the fault of The Premier League/The Meeeeja/The FA/FIFA/everyone else except Peter Storrie who gets the freedom of the city. I hope they don't go into admin (if that is still possible) yet anyway. They are relegated regardless - eight points off is not going to turn around. They need to go into admin and meltdown next season. It's L1 or worse this lot deserve and the sooner that happens the better.

Where have I ever said Saints v Pompey is "friendly banter" then? I'm not denying it is a fierce derby full of hatred. It's just there are plenty of other very fierce and very heated derbies up and down the country with plenty of history behind them. Ours is just one of them. Thinking otherwise is small-town myopia. There is a whole world beyond Basingstoke you know.

You seem so sure that your little derby is so much more important you must know lots more about all the other derbies, otherwise what are you comparing it to? Oh, I see. You're not. It's because you're from Romsey which is obviously the centre of the universe. Well done. Go on then, I give up. People from Blackburn and Burnley fu cking love each other.

As everyone else has said, patent garbage from start to finish. As if anyone would start a collective with the acronym "SCUM" even in the thirties or whenever this story is supposed to have happened. And of course, Southampton is the commercial port and Pompey the naval port. And the military don't go on strike, and if anyone is going to go and break strikes it would be the military much like the army step in when the Firemen flounce off these days. So if this story ever happened at all, it could only be the other way round.

Derby and Nottingham, Swansea and Cardiff, Wolverhampton and West Bromwich, Burnley and Blackburn. Next question?

Simply, no it doesn't.

It's not up there with Celtic v Rangers. You're deluding yourself. It's "up there" with Derby v Forest, Burley v Blackburn, Preston v Blackpool, Wolves v West Brom, Luton v Watford, Cardiff v Swansea, Norwich v Ipswich, Stoke v Port Vale. Of local, not national interest. What your opinion of the Blackburn v Burnley derby is precisely what people in Lancashire think about Saints v Pompey. "Oh, yeah, forgot they don't like each other". I know because I've had that conversation with people all week.

Quite. Someone said that they mentioned it on the TV at the start of the second half? The only people that beleive the strike breaker stories are a few dumb fish fiddlers. Never ever happened and never would have because if anyone would have broken any strikes it would be servicemen from the military port breaking strikes at the commercial port, not the other way round. Sailors aren't allowed to go on strike. Oh, and at derbies up and down the country call each other "scummers". Did Watford workers break a strike in Luton or was it the other way round?

There are some f ucking divs on this forum, aren't there. Yeah, the evil old Echo made it all up. I take it you were absolutely nowhere near Freeborn's garage at about quarter to three then.

From a player's point of view, the east midlands derby seems far more intense than ours was yesterday. Always kicking lumps out of each other. Fan Intensity is about the same though.

He is very highly regarded by everyone at County, including lots of the fans. Has thrown himself into life in the area and did at lot at the club. Fair to say his pitching up at Meadow Lane and the whole "project" was all a bit suspect, but that said, he is an excellent football man with a fantastic track record, better than all but about four, five or six managers currently working in Britain. If Cortese appointed him as Director of Football it would be a masterstroke.

Where have I said sack the manager, then? Nowhere, ever. Not once. The difference between me and you is I stand shoulder to shoulder with Pardew and Cortese - two people who are winners, and want to win and want to acheive something. What I want and what they want are exactly the same. But you don't want that, you sneer at it. Unlike you I'm not piddling around arse-aching about managers from thirty years ago and telling Pardew he won't achieve anything for five years and how no one should even dare imagine we should be capable of finishing above Yeovil.