CB Fry

Ummm, you said it about five minutes ago. Here: What a good game. PS - just to clarify, the LAW does not state 'journalism must be fair accurate and contemporaneous'. There are libel, slander and defamation laws of course.

What facts did Stelling get wrong then? I've only watched it once but it sounded like an off the cuff harmless opinion piece to me. What precisely did he say that was either a) untrue b) anything even slightly equivalent to accusing someone of being a child molester? Or are you really getting carried away getting stupidly upset about absolutely nothing at all?

If you think it is against the law for journalists to be unfair and inaccurate then you really are dumb.

Maybe, never thought of that! My point is, if one had a complete blank sheet of paper and one was creating a charitable foundation wholly connected to the club, I am not convinced that for 99% of normal fans, the names of Iwan Thomas and Chris Tremlett would be first on the list for the ambassodorial roles. Local sportsmen from other fields, yep fine. Get on board. Even local celebrities and notables, yep, get Chris Packham and the drummer from coldplay on board. It's good to go beyond just ex-players. But wouldn't you think it would be something approaching normal to have one notable ex-player, or ex-manager on there? And no, not neccessarily them, but someone? It looks like an aching gap to me. For whatever reason. And before the cult of Cortese squinnying bedwetters go ballistic, I don't really care either way. It's just a very odd gap that I doubt Rupert Lowe, for example, would have got away with.

Not really interested in the original post - looks like hearsay assumptions and a bit of a fuss about nothing. But had a quick click on the Saints Foundation website. I am in no doubt they do some very fine work, but who are the three listed ambassadors for this Saints charity? Nicola Cortese. Saints legend Iwan Thomas. Other Saints legend Chris Tremlett. And nobody else at all. One thing I have thouroughly enjoyed over the last couple of days is the gymnastic leaps of logic that some forum posters have put themselves through to cast Cortese and everything he has ever done as utterly faultless and brilliant and everybody else as having evil agendas and go knows what else. Your next job is to defend those as the best and most fitting and only ambassadors for the Saints (Southampton Football Club) Foundation. I am sure you are all about to tell me it is some absolute masterstroke. Take it away.

There was some plan at one point to expand one of the stands (can't remember which one) and have the road going under it. That might have been from the seventies or early eighties though.

Sorry, don't buy it. No journalist forced Cortese to use the phrase "people wanted freebies here, freebies there". That was a pointed phrase used by the protagonist, not some forced misquote. Cortese could have quite easily not bothered mentioning freebies at all - we are, after all, top of the freaking league. The reporter from the sun really doesn't care about freebie tickets. It was clearly a point Cortese was determined to get across. Isn't it funny that absolutely everybody involved (The Sun, MLT, Stelling) has a shadowy agenda except the naive innocent Nicola Cortese. There certainly would not be the depth and passion in the support. Well said that man.

Fair enough. Jolly interesting how you launched into your original "there's no demi-gods, there's no superheros, grow up" routine on the back of me saying something utterly anodyne about Matthew Le Tissier - basically that I think his contribution is worth more to the city than someone's mum working at Tesco for 30 years. A harmless, pretty undeniable statement but greeted with furious sneering by you. Let's not forget who started accusing people of thinking people are demi-gods. Weirdo. This forum is resembling the church of Scientology at the moment. Populated by dead-eyed robo-thinkers coldly defending their deity and desperate to stamp out and sneer at people promoting the enemy by saying controversial things like "MLT means more than someone who works at Tesco" or "actually MLT did not come near to destroying the club". The fact that anodyne phrases like this are interpreted as a de facto attack on Cortese speaks volumes about the strength of the cult. Listen you chaps in the cult, get your head out of Cortese's arse and get used to the fact that most normal Saints fans would like the space to say Matthew Le Tissier was and is a force for fantastic good for this football club. Stop trying to stamp it out with your sneering.

So, just to confirm you're allowed to accuse people of treating Matthew Le Tissier like an untouchable demi-god but get all uppity and offended if people accuse you of the same just over a different person. And then start having a pop at people over their "mental age". What a charmer you are.

Glad you've been reading thesame cult-of-Cortese demi-god worship as me then. You're right, it's fuc king loopy.

That's funny because quite a lot of people on this forum were saying the deal was dodgy and were getting hell's abuse from happy-clapper scarfers squinnying that negative thoughts on this forum would scupper the deal. The Pinnacle bid would never have happened, MLT had seen the light on that towards the end anyway, so there is no point throwing forward some made-up scenario where they were successful in their bid and then "disastrous". Either way, we would have never, ever have been "destroyed" by Matthew Le Tissier. Cretins on this forum are a disgrace at present. Earlier on someone was saying MLT's contribution was worth no more than "my mum who worked at Tesco for 30 years" and now this garbage. This is Matthew Le Tissier you people are belittling, smearing and sneering at. Shame on all of you.

Cortese could have done an interview only about positive things. He didn't need to mention freebies or "these people" or anything like that. There are plenty of positive things to say without talking about freebies. If he didn't mention freebies he's had all day to issue a clarification. And this was not a "response to a half baked story" it was a set-piece interview. And if we are talking "ALL the facts" please don't peddle the supposition that the club would not exist without Cortese/Leibherr. It would. It was never, ever going to go out of business. We may not be top of the Championship today, but there was absolutely zero chance Southampton would have folded. Zero chance.

For one Cortese didn't need to mention freebies at all. Most interviews with football chairmen in national newspapers don't tend to cover "who are you giving tickets to these days then". It would not have been on the reporters list of questions. And if we are to swallow your gigantic dose of disingenuousness, who are "these people" then? Kevin Williamson of Sholing? Gavin Snorkdale of Eastleigh? Barry Shi tpeas of West End?

Wrong. In recent interviews with the Echo MLT has been very positive about Saints, Nigel, Lallana and Lambert. No quotes about Cortese, no mention of him, no nothing, no points scoring. Those articles got very little airing on here because it didn't fit the "evil Echo have an anti-Saints agenda" horsesh it peddled on here. We could have taken from that that MLT had indeed STFU about it. It was Cortese that has continued it and decided to petty point score again. Let's remember this has started from Cortese being a twot in the national press. The point stands.

This was in the Sun, although the dead-eyed Cult-of-Cortese bedwetters have decided that innocent naive little Nicola was hoodwinked into saying this stuff by the evil meeedia: "Yes, Lawrie McMenemy and Matt Le Tissier have criticised me but they should know no one is more important than the club. "I simply couldn't accept all these people trying to get freebies here, freebies there. "Listen, if I pay for my season ticket then I expect everyone to pay for their ticket too. "And I'm not interested in being popular, I'm focused on making this club successful." I'm sure if the nasty-wasty evil journalists have misquoted him, then Nicola will come down on them like a ton of bricks. I'll assume he has read the article now, so I am sure a clarification of what he really said is imminent.

How about this, comparing Matt Le Tiss to a bus driver or a spot welder: There are also a lot of people here whose starting point for this debate is "Matthew Le Tissier is demanding loads of free tickets all the time" and are using that to fuel their doe-eyed adoration of our current chairmen starting petty squabbles in national newspapers. Let's remember this has started from Cortese being a twot in the national press.

Nicola Cortese has got so much time for petty squabbles it is untrue. Why on earth he decided to use his first interview with the Sun for a long time (who previously he was having a petty squabble with) to rake over his petty squabble with Matt Le Tiss is something only Cortese can answer. And if you think sacking Alan Pardew was some finest hour for us well sorry, you're wrong. He was a successful manager for us, he assembled the vast majority of the team playing today. Something personal happened between the two of them. It was a **** up at the time, not least because it dumped us into 22nd as the team went into tailspin. Of course the Adkins appointment was brilliant and he has been fantastic for us. The fact that Adkins was a great appointment does not make the decision to sack Pardew a good one. Happy to stand by whatever I said at the time, especially I was right when a huge number of Cult-of-Cortese dinlows were peddling drivel like "it's all evil media speculation, everything is fine". Back to today and we now know Cortese "expects to be champions this season" so lets see what happens if Adkins doesn't deliver anything close to that - say we finish seventh, which for me would have been a great result this season, but a million miles away from what we now know the boss expects. Adkins had a very good schtick in interviews of downplaying everything and keeping everyone's feet on the ground and being measured and cautious. Unfortunately his chairman has royally fu cked that up now by telling the world he expects to be champions this season. Good luck with that pressure Nigel.

What a shower of snivelling ****s infecting our fanbase these days. Matt Le Tissier was a "paid employee paid for doing a job". What a bunch of utter, absolute ****s you are. I'll go back and watch my Unbelievable Video, or the youtubes of his wonderful goals and what those goals meant to me. You bunch of *****s go back to ****ing over press releases from our current chief executive. The spirit of new Southampton fans - godlike worship of a chief executive. A chief executive that moron fans have decided to shove their heads up the backside of. A chief executive. That is your hero? A chief executive. Dismissing Matt Le Tissier as a paid employee whose relationship with the club ended the day his contract for his paid employment finished. Jesus. Meanwhile the chief executive seems to have become Mr Southampton. Do point me in the direction of an interview of Nicola Cortese that will stir my blood like Le Tissier's double against Newcastle. Or his cheeky free kick v Wimbledon. Or his dinky dribble against Liverpool. Do show me, because I think I'm missing something. Soutampton Football Club is about more than one man of course. But Matt Le Tissier is worth ten thousand Nicola Corteses. Ten thousand. Cortese is a termite in the history of this club. Le Tiss is a collosus. But you keep ****ing over his interviews boys. And let's wait for the day which may well come when Lallana asks for a move to a bigger club. Or even Lambert. Or Fonte. or anyone. And let's hear the squinnying and grizzling from the same snivelling ****s who have written off Matthew Le Tissier. You same shameful shower will be squealing loyalty like the *****es you are. I guarantee you were all whining like women about A O-C crying where's the loyalty? Loyalty works both ways. God knows why any Saints player would want to be loyal to you *****s. If Matt Le Tissier is "just an employee paid to do a job" then what chance do they have. Get out Adam Lallana while you can, these fans are a bunch of utter ****s.

I can remember freaking uproar on this forum when I think the Lowe regime (it could actually have been the Wilde regime) were refusing Alan Ball's wife and children and grandchildren free tickets. Absolute uproar. It's a different world now.

We do not have, and never will have the resources to back up an ambition to be a champion's league club regularly filling out a 50,000 stadium. This thread is bizarre. Cortese getting praised for his "straight talking". Saying he expects us to win the league this season, and that we may pay £200k wages when we have a 50,000 seater stadium is not "straight talking". It's ambitious, it's stretching, it's what some fans want to hear, it sounds jolly exciting but it is not "straight talking". As others have said, other chairman of ours saying anything similar would get crucified. Anyone from any other club in Britain would get short shrift on this forum too. If Gus Poyet came out and said the exact same words as Nicola here, there would not be enough mops in the world to clean up the response from the bedwetters on this forum. You people would be going freaking ballistic. When the Blackburn idiots said similar last season we all laughed. When Sam Allardyce says he could manage Real Madrid everyone laughs. I also remember I said I expected us to get promoted last season, and I said Cortese would expect us to get promoted last season. In September 2010 this is, when Adkins got apppointed. Plenty of bedwetters on here then slated me for being impatient, immature. Some people (Pilchards is one I can remember) were trotting out the bo ll ocks about Adkins needing two seasons to "settle in" and get promoted in the third. Settling in, bedding down, stop being so arrogant, he needs time, stop putting pressure on. All that sh it e. All that "we're so even handed, you expect too much" rubbish I had to read in response to my posts. Well, we've heard it now. Cortese expects us to be champions this season. So you can all belt up about the Championship being harder this season. And don't bore us with "we need to establish ourselves and push on next year". And if we hit a rough patch, you can forget wheeling out "well, look how far we've come, we were 22nd in the third tier a year ago, we don't have a divine right to beat Coventry City". Cortese expects us to be champions this season. Swallow it up. Remember when you bunch of girls start having a pop at those forum posters who expect us to win every game, that that worldview is far closer to our Chairman's than your view of "haven't we done jolly well to draw three in row". The form we have shown so far is merely what the chairman expects, not some added bonus. We're winners now. Get used to the mindset.

No chance whatsoever. Cortese and the Leibherr estate will find a point to sell the club on. Optimal time to do that would be after one full season in the Premier League where he can "sell" the idea that we can get into the Champion's League to the next mug. There is no way Cortese would sanction the kind of spending required to get us to fourth in the table, and even if he did, those kind of players are just simply not going to come to us anyway. Those that did would be here for the money which means they be a bunch of c%*%s. Cortese's campaign for the Champion's League will take the form of "I truly belive that Mr [Thai/Russian/Indian Businessman] is the man to take this great club into the Champion's League" before scarpering off into the sunset. Being in the Champion's League is such a pointless and tedious ambition anyway - who really cares. I would be absolutely delighted if we were never, ever, ever, in the Champion's League ever. No interest whatsoever. It's just not what we're about.

The only thing a 7,000 seater stadium says to me is they eventually would plan to put a feeder club into the lower divisions. That kind of ground could grace League 2 no bother, and in fairness League one as well. I know it's not technically allowed now (or is it?) but it could be one day. Next time Bury, or Oldham, or Stockport, or someone smaller like Altringham get into a financial mess, who would rule out a convenient "merger" with Citeh? Even if it's "we'll lend you a stadium. And maybe a couple of players". Handled correctly, it might just work. Or just going the whole hog and sticking a feeder team into the Northern Counties whatever league and go from there. Saints can't keep up with that, and frankly I have no interest in us even trying. Why anyone wants to see Saints in the Champion's League I'll never know. Scrapping for glorious mid table mediocrity in the Premier League and a few cup semis and finals. Lovely. Stick your Champion's League up your bum.

Just watched Saintsplayer myself. We don't score many bad goals these days do we? Highlights never effectively show the work of clearly instrumental "team" players like Jack Cork, which is a shame. But Lallana is just looking unbelievable. Can't imagine there are many better players in the second tier this season. The big worry for me in the coming months, especially during the winter, is that more and more teams and individuals will take the Stephen Carr route, and start dishing out a few "reducers" on our Adam. If I was a opposing manager, that's what I'd be saying - kick him.

Never, ever fails. I can remember being on the forum on just after the launch dinner when people started uploading the early pics of it. A couple of posts of vague approval before someone piped up "hang on, isn't that sh it?". A little bit of defensive "it must be the light/angle of the camera/how dare you" stuff from some before the floodgates opened and the torrent of top quality gags began. The word LOL gets used a lot but that thread had me almost crying with absolute genuine laughter. I'm laughing now just thinking about it. But the serious point is about fans on the board. That bloke was chosen and given £££ commission to make that monstrosity despite being a woodcarver specialising in animals with zero experience of large scale public art commissions or creating sculptures from bronze or creating sculptures of human beings. His one and only qualification "he was a passionate Saints fan". To the badly haircutted idiots on that Statue Board that was the only qualification they looked for, being a passionate Saints fan trumping any sensible qualification for the job. And as they all patted each other on the back in the social club where they made that decision, keeping it in the Saints fans family, because Saints fans know best, they brilliantly pi ssed away £110k odd of genuine Saints fans money, and then another £100k of Leon Crouch's money when he had to stump up for the proper one months later. Which turned out to be a hell of a lot better despite not being created by a passionate Saints fan. Funny that. Keep the fans off the board, forever. Flask drinking, well meaning idiots.

All too soon. Lallana hasn't really achieved anything yet. His major contribution has been assisting us to promotion from the third tier of English football which is really nothing special in the grand scheme of things. Taking us to the Premier League will position the boy as a bit of a Saints legend, but he would still have to play a season for us in the Prem, and play well, to be assured of true Saints legend status. If we're talking about "Legends" then that does not include players that are simply currently very good. Being "the best player since Le Tissier" is not enough to be a true Legend. Saints are a top level team, and our legends need to reflect that.