CB Fry

Chelsea do have Frank Arnesen though who scours the world for talent to develop for the first team, taking the pressure of the manager, especially when it comes to paperwork and managing all the difficulties that can arise in those delicate situations with young players. I believe that is working incredibly well at the moment.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/n/northampton_town/8243498.stm I was hoping Coppell would take us up to the nice round five ex-lower league managers on the staff at St Mary's. But as that isn't happening, there must be room at SMS for the man who broke (and holds) our transfer record outlay, surely? Any memories along the lines of "I remember where I was the day we appointed Mick Wadsworth" please add them below.

I get annoyed with tosh like this. Norwich got relegated from the Prem the same season as us, have got through an armful of managers and false dawns and also went down with us to L1 last season. And their new manager had less of a pre season than Pardew and managed to win a couple. And Charlton have had a faster and harder fall than we've had as they came down to the CCC a season after us. We're not that special, we're not super hard done by. We haven't got "a virus" any more than any other club. We're currently rubbish on the pitch and in the league. That's all.

So Pardew is going to be manager for the next twenty years is he? Is he balls. Not sure if you noticed by every other club on earth does a good job of changing managers every eighteen months as well, it wasn't some exclusive thing only Saints did. Pardew will leave/resign/get sacked/retire/move upstairs or something at some point in the next five years, probably sometime in the next two. It's a fair point that we do have plenty of able caretakers at the club, and one more if Coppell pitches up.

How much "time and money" do you think the Mirror "invest" into stories about League One Southampton Football Club? (Clue: none) This story will be based on a couple of phone calls from one, maximum two, sources. Hacks in the Mirror aren't piecing together extravagent stories about Southampton Football Club over weeks and months you know. The story might be true, it might not be true, but it hasn't cost anyone "time and money"

You cheeky scamp! Funnily enough I was thinking of dusting that old one down for this season this morning, but no-one ever gets what I'm on about, which is most of the fun of course. My "we need to win eight in a row" thing was just about how far behind the trendline to promotion we are and viewing the challenge by ignoring the other teams in the league who actually are irrelevent until the final weeks. But no-one ever gets it, probably because barely any of us in our lifetime has seen Saints win promotion from any league* and win the volume of games required. We win two and draw four and we think we're on the greatest run of our lives. Anyway, the answer to your question is 42.

It's worth also pointing out that Parkinson was Pardew's assistant so had the "Wotte factor" of knowing the players, club, fans etc. Meaning he had an even longer head start. All is far from lost and I still think come the end of the season we will be challenging for the play offs (apparently, this is a "negative" viewpoint). I said it at the start of the season, and I stand by it now in the face of a load of supposedly "super positive" fans saying how delighted they will be if we achieve the super human effort of fourth from bottom in a league with Exeter, Yeovil, Gillingham and Oldham.

If you have me on ignore, then how do you know I am running the club down? You'll never find a single post from me running the club down. You see success as finishing fourth from bottom. I see it as challenging for the play offs this season. Alan Pardew agrees with me, not you. If anyone is running the club down, it's you.

Yawn. I don't want Pardew sacked. My point is in agreement with Pardew - he wants promotion this season, he said it and I think that is absolutley what we should be aiming for. The only people I am having a go at are the fans making out we should be only be hopeful for, and eternally grateful for, scraping last day survival. That would be utterly unacceptable, for me, for Pardew and for any sensible fans. People working themselves up to make this some kind of stupendous acheivement when we are the biggest spending team in the league is utterly ridiculous. Err - that was my point in the first place. It is the Le God Third Coming and others on here who would be Man United fans saying "wouldn't it be brilliant if we finished fourth from bottom, that's all we can reasonably expect". Can you see any Man U fans saying that? Because that is officially the "positive" viewpoint on this forum. It's bloody laughable. I'm sick to death reading people pretending to be "the positive fans" by saying all we should hope for is fourth from bottom and no one is allowed to complain if that is all we achieve this season. Well Alan Pardew doesn't agree with that sentiment, so I am not sure why it is given such credence on this forum and used as a stick to beat so-called "negative" posters who want precisely what Alan Pardew wants. A hell of a lot better than where we are now.

Yes, but that was when we were relatively poor side amongst gigantic clubs in the biggest league in global football. We're now the biggest spending team, with the best paid manager, one of the best stadiums and best crowds in a tiny division. We are Man United. We are Liverpool. This idea that "wouldnt it be just super, simply wonderful if we could scrape survival in this division" is just lunacy. Ohh how dare we expect anything else against the likes of Oldham and Swindon. And anyway, our current manager told us he was going for promotion this season, so why don't we judge him by those standards, as opposed to the standards of a manager from five years and two divisions ago?

Who is running down the manager, the owner or the chairman? Who, and on what threads (apparently "every thread", but I haven't read anything of the sort). I think the only trolling going on is from you, making things up and then getting upset about them. As for running the team down, well zero wins in six league one games, I think they deserve it. And as for running down other fans, being that the likes of you are just making stuff up and then moaning about it, why not? You're clearly bonkers.

Where's this then? I haven't seen one single post from anyone "demanding" (or even asking) for anyone to be sacked. NOT ONE ANYWHERE. Bet you can't find one either. What is on this forum are a million dullard posts like this one ranting on and on at people for not dancing congas of gratitude in the streets for a team that is rock bottom of the league and would be even if we didn't have a points deduction. No wins in six when Yeovil, Exeter, Bristol Rovers and Gillingham have managed to win games in this league. It isn't this incredibly difficult challenge that the management team need six months to work up to. John Barnes can win a game at this level for christ's sake. Stockport County can win games. Walsall, Oldham, Leyton Orient can win games. It's not the holy grail of football and how dare we demand such unreasonable impossible things. It's winning games in League One. People should be complaining. They'd be mad not to. Get over it.

We're doing as badly as John Barnes' Tranmere team, and everyone knew Barnes was going to be an abject failure before a ball was even kicked. And Tranmere haven't spent a million pounds on a midfielder, a million pounds on the best striker in the league last season, and have a million pound keeper and million pound defender already at the club, plus internationals, plus players rated at six figure sums that we can afford to turn down. Oh, and managed by the best paid manager in the division who has had his way with player ins and outs and his hand picked backroom staff and the biggest feel good factor at the club since the cup final. Zero wins in six in those circumstances cannot be patronising compared to Leonardo putting together a masterpiece and the plebs slagging it off. Zero wins in six. Get over yourself.

I personally preferred the suggestion of Waaaaaigo Papa Waaaaaaaaaaaaaigo sung to the tune of Day-O. The banana boat song, or the Trio chocolate bar song, if you're my age. Second line to be something fairly generic like "he play for Saints and he score some goals" Not sure that gets sung at many grounds, so it would be at least original. Failing that a few verses of "there's only one Johnny Hartson" should suffice.

In retrospect. £6m for Jones on the day we did the deal was a fantastic bit of business for Saints. It is immaterial whether he scores 500 goals for Sunderland including a hat-trick in the FA Cup Final for them and they tear down Bob Stokoe and put a twelve foot Kenwynne up in its place. On the day it was excellent business for us. Not least because the mardy t*at was on strike.

This Peter Storrie chap was the chief exec of PFC during all this time, was he not? His quotes make him out to be the valiant hero battling to save the club while skilfully swerving the fact that he signed all the cheques to get them in the plop in the first place. Anyway, Corp and co have been telling us that Pompey have less debt any other club on earth and are the most financially ship shape club in the Premier League, so presumably Storrie is just making this all up.

Arse achingly boring one nil to us. But that's what we need a few of. Winning 4-0 would probably do more harm than good to everyone concerned, fans and players alike.

And we've turned down bids for plenty of players in the past as well Beattie, Pahars and Lundevam being pretty high profile examples but there have been others. Believe you me, a Leibherr owned CCC level Saints would not have stopped Kenwynne Jones leaving. The way some people think you'd think Saints kicked him out the door screaming and bawling his way up the A1 with a saints scarf round his neck.

Now we are only four freak goalkeeping injuries from the most LOLtastic situation since the dawn of the Champion's League era.

Media outlets like the OS overhyped it with a "deadline day update" article. I think we would all have been happy if the three additional players Pardew has been talking about for a week had arrived last Thursday, but they didn't. No one asked Pardew to "wait until Tuesday" in my recollection. Pardew certainly talked about things in terms of the window, he didn't say "all the players I want are currently out of contract so I don't care about the window". If anyone has over hyped anything then the OS and our manager has. PS - no one is blaming the OS for not signing players, just not providing something to explain why what the manager told us was going to happen didn't happen.

Sorry, today nothing happening is something happening. Pardew was quoted at the start of the day (and last week) talking about three signings and at the end of that day (and the transfer window) we have no additional signings. I think a couple of lines from someone at 6pm would have been a courteous thing to do - the club knows there are lots of fans scratching their heads. Disappointing.

Solid mid table at Christmas with a bloody good run at the play offs ending in noble failure. Oh yes, we're going to finish ninth. And all the people berating everyone for having "unrealistic expectations" for "expecting" to finish in the top half will be precisely the same people who in April will berate anyone who says we can't make the play offs when we are bumbling around tenth/eleventh. Precisely the same people. Mark my words and it will happen. There is a little switcheroo that happens on the forum that turns the "realists" (we'll be lucky to finish in the bottom four get a reality check etc etc") into the loony optimists ("if we win the next three and so and so loses two in a row we'll be four points off the play offs etc etc") around about the end of March. Trust me, it happens every season.

Current scoreboard: people who want Pardew out: zero, none, no one. People pompously grandstanding against 'all the people that want Pardew out': about thirty-five. I look forward to these divs coming out when we do win ranting on with the old 'see? SEE? Told you so' routine to a load of people that DO NOT EXIST. People call TDD an attention seeker but he's not arguing obsessively with a non existant view point like some of you lot.

Err - dopey posts like this is precisely why TDD started this thread. Up your own arse lectures railing against 'people who want the manager out'. But there ISN'T anyone who wants him out. You're pompously lecturing figments of your imagination. Shut up. Thanks.

I think the big money approach for Nyron Nosworthy shows a frightening level of intent from the new regime. I can't see Sunderland resisting for too long, especially when Nyron starts making waves in the dressing room if they deny him his dream move. A shot accross the boughs of the rest of the Premier League. There's a new kid in town and good god, they mean business.