CB Fry

The end of the day we would never have needed to. There was no chance of us going out of existence like Aldershot and we weren't about to be moved to Milton Keynes. Markus or no Markus we were never going out of existence. Our fanbase is too big, and there is no value in a second hand unused football stadium. It was never, ever, ever going to happen.

You're forgetting that Morgan Schneiderlin will be signing for Arsenal any day now as he really has actually been an Arsenal player all along and is only at Saints on some complicated loan deal and he is definitely definitely an Arsenal player and always has been probably since birth and I know this because my brothers mate's sisters dad is a cab driver who knows Reuben Agboola's mum. That's why Arsene is bigging us up. Spin back eighteen months and there were plenty on this forum swearing blind the truth of the Morgan-is-really-an-Arsenal-player rumour.

Indeed, a cracking job, and he'll take us up this season, no bother. Let's not forget that on his appointment some contributors to this forum were saying he would take two additional seasons after this one to get us promoted. Yes, promoted from league one in 2013. But some people never learn. Delighted that, as I expected, Adkins has been an instant success and he'll take us up this season.

Agreed. This is a quite bizarre thread. What exactly has Andy Townsend done or not done in the last few days to justify this thread? It seems to all spring from something he did or didn't say during his work on the FA Cup tie with the Blue Few. Which was, err, about nine months ago. Maybe he got Smirking Saint's missus up the duff and the DNA tests have just come through.

If it takes three months to "update" a news front page following a manager being sacked, several bouts of news on potential replacements/arguments with other clubs about poaching/the appointment of new manager/signing of a new midfielder then I'm not sure "leave him to it" is appropriate. Just take the news page down. If no one "lands" on that page, then get rid of it alltogether rather than leaving it gathering dust broadcasting ancient history to the Saints universe. I've "given it a go". The "news" page says the latest news is Pardew has just been sacked. How much of a "go" can we "give it" Get rid of the news page all together if no one can be bothered to update it [and frankly, if no one can be bothered, that's fine by me. I can get Saints news elsewhere] But currently, it's an embarrassment.

But the original post was specifically about fanbase/stature/stadium etc and not money - hence the "kick out Fulham and Wigan" stuff. QPR being owned by billionaires doesn't make them big on those terms - QPR are no bigger than Fulham in terms of fanbase and all the other stuff matey was going on about.

We're definitely going up this season. Got the squad, got the manager, deserved favourites on August 1st and we still will do it. Blown the rest of the league out of the water on investment and we we blow them out of the water on the pitch, although we will have to settle for second because I think winning the league is probably beyond us now. We are going up, easy.

Yeah, because QPR are a much bigger club than Wolves, Birmingham and WBA........ And you missed off Derby, who are just as big as Leicester and Forest and much bigger than QPR.

Since when have I said Cortese hasn't set us back by sacking Pardew? I said at the time, and I still think, it was a pretty dopey move and set us back a long way. Pardew delivered the instant success I said he would and you sneered at as impossible because it wasn't how Lawrie Mac and Alex Ferguson did it. The point is Cortese doesn't think we've been set back, and Cortese expects promotion, without fail, this season. People talking about rebuilding this season, let's see how we go, no pressure etc etc are deluding themselves. Cortese expects promotion, without fail, this season. That's what Adkins has been hired to do. Not slowly-slowly, gently-gently, don't worry about achieving anything for three years bo llo cks. It's 2010. The days of Lawrie Mac are gone, gone, gone.

I wouldn't call Nicola Cortese a fool if I were you. Pardew was sacked, and Adkins appointed, to deliver promotion without fail this season. Not another pi s s-about season of rebuilding and "we need a full pre-season" and "time to gel" and all that boll ocks. Adkins has to get this team promoted, without fail, this season. I despair of these bedwetters on the forum with their delusion that every manager needs three years before anyone can expect them to achieve anything. Adkins has to get promoted, this season, without fail. Cortese hasn't "put things back a season", he expects Adkins to get us promoted, this season, without fail. Adkins has to get promoted, this season, without fail.

Not really. I enjoy thinking of creative ways of giving you stick in the same way that you like think anyone people are amused by your hilarious "thing" about Hoddle. You've been proved wrong on every single count but I am not wasting time on your load of old plop-plops.

Fancy that, someone getting something wrong about the future of Portsmouth football club on this thread. Wouldn't catch you doing that would we? After all, you knows peoples in the know and stuff. Spare us the pompousity you plank.

Oh shut up you dopey old slag.

Funny how that "know how" amounted to utter, humiliating and pathetic failure at Spurs, followed up by utter, humiliating and pathetic failure one division down at Wolves. No clue, and no "know how" when it came to people management.

And it is also not all about employing nutritionists and playing style either. Man management comes into it and 99% of professionals say that Hoddle had absolutely no aptitude in this area whatsoever. The general argument I am making is against the few on this thread making out that Hoddle was some seismic revolution at the club and everyone subsequent manager was lucky that the Hoddle revolution came first. Well, ball-c o cks. Hoddle was just as lucky to take on a team packed with solid pros signed and developed by Dave Jones. Players that then flourished even more under Gordon Strachan. I'd say the Jones legacy was far more important to Strachan than the five minutes that Hoddle was here. Also, it's funny that we're being asked on this thread to reassess Strachan's time at St Mary's in the light of his current failure at Middlesboro, when the hero of the thread, G Hoddle, was an utterly pathetic failure at Spurs and Wolves. What does that count for?

I certainly don't slate him as a manager for us - he did great and clearly made players like Deano far better. But I do slate him as a person because he is, undoubtedly, a ****************.

Calm down. I disagree with your premise that Hoddle somehow laid the foundations for some glorious future - he was here barely a year, and signed not one player of longevity - the great players of our Strachan glory days that were here under Hoddle were Dave Jones signings. For one - If Hoddle had stayed, Beattie would have been flogged to Crystal Palace. Maybe we'd have built the team around Mark Draper football genius. Stuart Gray signed more significant players for us than Hoddle did. Hello Anders. Hoddle did very well for us, but when he left it was perfectly possible that it was a single good season in the same way that Dave Jone's first and Alan Ball's full seasons were. In fact, of course, he didn't actually complete a season for us. He did well. He is gone. Strachan was better.

I had heard that Pardew had been sacked - it's the lead story on the front page of this very forum. http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/ Glad things have all be sorted now. I look forward to seeing news of his replacement on the Saintsweb news page any day now. Any have any suggestions on who it could be?

I don't particularly like Hoddle and did not want him back but he did very well for us when here. But in terms of whose team was more "boring" between him and WGS, I'd say Hoddle.

I know you're just trolling, but anyway: Strachan won the title three times in a row, only the third Celtic manager ever to acheive that - MO'N didn't do it. And he did better in Europe than M O'N, getting through the CL group stages is all a Scottish team can ever do these days and he did it. Twice. He did brilliantly at Celtic and brilliantly at Saints. He did pretty well at Cov until the constant player sales defeated him and he ran out of steam. He's a good manager with a good record.

Most managers waffle to be fair - there is only so many ways you can say no that much in different ways. That said, Adkins does have his fair share of verbal tics. "Simple as that" and "win a game of football" are already mentioned, but he also does that "at this football club" line a lot, which always seems to bug me. Dave Jones and Tony Pulis do it as well, Jones especially. "at this football club" repeated about five times in every interview, just in case any of were under the impression that Dave Jones was managing a greengrocers.

MLT's best days were behind him before the summer of 1997, there isn't any season post Lowe's arrival that was a "MLT saved us from relegation" season. He scored the goals at Dellhurst, but it was by no means a vintage MLT season. A certain Latvian sealed the deal on the last day of the season, and scored another crucial goal in the Blackburn 3-3. Staying in the Prem for the seasons at the Dell post-MLT's prime was certainly an achievement that Lowe can take some credit for, not least in the appointment of Jones, Hoddle and Strachan.

For the self appointed forum smart arse, sometimes you're not that smart. There are plenty of things he could have said, or indeed not said, that would have the supported the "not about football" angle. Think about how Sturrock framed his departure. Pardew framed his departure as management losing faith in his ability to deliver. He could have framed it in countless other ways, and he could have said even less than he did on the matter. I know it's jolly exciting to ping about text messages about ****ging players wives and far be it from me to take that joy away from you. Lots of your posts on here are quite funny, I like them but this time you've been a teensy bit lame.

Pardew's words here don't quite play into the hands of the Cortese lapdogs on here desperate to make out that his sacking "wasn't about football". Oh well. All history now though.

No, but the ruse was still a ruse when Lowe tried it on, and it was a hamfisted attempt to swerve the rules. And the holding company thing was itself a ruse those seven years ago to get around another rule, which is was that football clubs themselves couldn't be PLCs (or something, can't quite remember the precise rule). Spurs started it, and we (and others) followed in creating shadow PLCs wholly owning clubs. SLH was SFC. SLH had no other reason to exist than SFC and SLH went into admin because of debts related to the football club. Not quite the same as West Ham's situation. Liverpool I'm not so sure about.