CB Fry

The one about drawing a blue line under it or something. That was brilliant when it was ringing round the Northam.

Another clueless post. The evil meeeeja making it all up again. A story like this is no benefit to the frigging newspaper or "media station". Do you really think the Sun are going to sell thousands more copies on the back of a sentence on Ricky frigging Lambert. Even though it's one sentence in that paper I tell you now they will have got it from somewhere. From a conversation with an agent, or someone connected with the club (either club), from an off the record chat with Pardew at a reserve game, something, somewhere. It's not just made up. I know people don't like to hear it, but it will have come from somewhere. That somewhere may well be a poor source, or someone with an objective, but it would have come from somewhere. And, it's utterly naive to think "the only people who benefit" are the evil newspapers. Stories like this a seeded to the newspapers by agents as part of the long game of contract negotiations, used by football club as second hand PR to the fans, used by managers to pressure their chairman to release funds, probably used by chairmen to get managers to agree to signing a players they want but the manager doesn't (Ronaldiho to Blackburn), used by players themselves to engineer moves away. Plenty of parties benefit from the press machine. I'd stop calling yourself Professor if you really think little tit-bits like this is just evil newspapers serving their own ends. There's a hell of a lot more going on that you know.

Maybe, but there is far more to be gained from working together than not at all. The pi ss weak attendance at that Liebherr tournament thing could have been significantly higher with a bit of promotion and support in the Echo. Not game changing but the Echo can serve a purpose in helping to shift tickets (for the smaller games, granted, but they all count), corporate packages and merchandise. It also provides objective comment as opposed to spoonfed sanitised tosh that dribbles out of the official site and the divs on here seem to lap up. Absolutely. Pant wettingly hilarious to see them all troop out bleating about any tiny slight on the club as evidence of this mythical "agenda". Oh, and the BBC are in on it too, with the whiners on here every sodding Sunday grizzling about the "anti-Saints agenda" on, err, The Football League show. Infamy, infamy. This is what happens when a generation grow up brainwashed by PR drivel from corporate websites and football management simulation games. Bedwetting preciousness if anyone ever dares suggest their club could ever do anything wrong. Braindead robo-fans parroting "this.is.not.an.official.announcement." Save us all from such lack of perspective, and please preserve the fourth estate. God help us if there's a war.

Which I for one never, ever read. I have no interest in getting news about my football club filtered, whitewashed and satinised into a load of corporate press release guff. Getting Saints news from the official website is lame as fu ck.

For someone accusing people of overstating, you're overstating Leeds points deduction which was -15. Leeds are still the only club to achieve a play off place with a deduction, and Saints came bloody close. A hell of a lot of fans on here like to bleat on about how important pre season is and Dennis Wise was well establised at Leeds before that season. Pardew had just walked in the door and had to build an entirely new team from scratch. The vast majority of that team he built is currently second place in the Championship. And hindsight is a wonderful thing - there were plenty on here in that first season fully expecting us to be scratching about fighting relegation to the fourth tier. And to your other rather lame point, I also think it is vital for a modern day chairman to keep a good relationship with his football manager. You have no idea whatsoever, no idea at all, of what made up the relationship between Cortese and Pardew, so don't bother preaching about it.

Absolutely. The only people that don't like him are ungrateful dinlow Reading fans who have decided that because he is a multimillionaire he must spend every last penny on footballers fees and wages. I remember plenty of grumbling Reading fans moaning about when he decides to buy a sculpture, or invest in an arts project or whatever. It's his freaking money and he aint obliged to spend everything on the bottomless pit of a football club and a bunch of fairweather fans who'll end up hating him regardless. Without him, they would never have got into the Premier League in the first place, and they certainly wouldn't have their nice stadium.

We finished the previous season winning something like ten of the last twelve and winning the cup as well. And Pardew's last game in charge was a 4-0 hammering. The fact that form collapsed on his departure is, if anything, an indication of the players clear affinity and support for Pardew. How you can spin it as proof they had a problem with him is frankly bonkers. The general "new manager effect" rule would be players fed up with old manager start winning as soon as manager departs. That clearly didn't happen with Wilkins. I really don't understand this desperation from some to belittle and write off Alan Pardew's season with us - he clearly did a fantastic job overall, and left Adkins a superb legacy.

We're not talking about a 25 year old james beattie either.

Yawn. Big signings don't guarantee success. No s h it Sherlock. Here's one for you - not having big signings doesn't guarantee success either. Nor does just having youth team product. Nor does having the same manager for five years. Nothing is a guarantee of success. I love it how the only one forum bores home in on is the "big signings" one, and then peddle it like a great invention, like they've just discovered milk. Secondly, as we know bids were made for Jay-Rod and Billy Sharp at least, we know Adkins and Cortese wanted a big name signing if they could. If I were you, I'd let them get on with it, instead of sniping from the sidelines about what a waste of time it all is. Finally. So you claim, nine out of ten signings fail. So, why is it that, on the day our next signing is announced, if anyone on this forum even dares to suggest they might just be no good, why will they get attacked by the happy clappers on here like a paedo in Paulsgrove?

I've been on this forum and its predecessors since the Strachan era and this pining for the good old days when posters said "jolly good point, Claude, well bowled" to each other was going on then and it's still going on now. Pining for a forum that has never, ever existed. When were these super polite courteous debates going on? When Sturrock took over? When Sir Clive arrived? When we got relegated and spent £90k on Fuller? When Wilde stepped in? When Wilde lost interest? When Lowe came back? When we went into freaking administration? When Pardew got the boot? Do point me in the direction of a thread where any of that was debated respectfully and amicably. As for your second point, I couldn't agree less. The positive posters are far more likely to be inaccurate than the negative ones. The positive posters have spent most of my time on these forums talking the club down and then talking them up to equally ridiculous inaccurate levels. It was positive posters who pompously told everyone that Saints fans were "arrogant" to expect to beat Yeovil and Saints should not consider themselves a bigger club than Yeovil. It was positive posters who used to say scraping a draw against some nothing team like Walsall or whoever was a fantastic result. These days it's positive posters peddling the lie that we're off to the Champions League to fill our 45,000 seater stadium entirely because people said you couldn't climb Everest and something about Chelsea not having many fans in the eighties. Positive posters haven't got a fu ck ing clue.

As someone who follows basic arithmetic quite closely, I can tell you that Macheda's transfer fee was absolute zero, which is my understanding of "big money transfers" does not constitute a big money transfer. And, as usual, you completely misunderstand the point being made which was someone said for every one big money success, there are ten that fail. What Turkish has patently not said is there are no big money flops. In fact the man hasn't said anything other than the original theory (ten failures for every success) is utter guff. Posting up links to newspaper lists going on about Chris frigging Kiwomya doesn't change a thing.

I remember the day Scott Minto signed for Chelsea. All over the papers it was. Can't quite remember if it was £15 or the full £20m they paid for him. And who'd have thought Mr McGarvey would have failed after his big money signing for whichever club it was he signed from for big money. Remind me again, or are you just listing any player that was once on the books at any football club.

Just remind me which of you preaching this "we won't break the bank, being sensible, evil agents, held to ransom, sustainable club" stuff were the same ones saying we will be playing Champion's League football in a 45,000 seater stadium in the next few years? Those two things are completely mutually exclusive so do remind me which route you are proposing the club should follow. And before anyone starts having a pop, I think managing the club sustainably is absolutely the right thing to do. But I also think that a result of that is we will never, ever be a Champions League club, which is absolutely fine by me.

It's perfectly possible to wait and see, and make the observation that he looks sh it e on paper. He does. 7 starts for Celtic in a calendar year and 7 starts for Copenhagen in a loan spell suggests shi t e on paper in my book. But of course I will wait and see. We all will. Jesus, spare us from the happy-clappers.

Looks sh it e on paper, clearly fourth choice CB in the window at best after Jemal, Gorks and matey from Bristol who I have already forgotten. Fontaine. I'm sure the spinmeister generals on the forum will be spinning how fantastic this all is and how Cortese has played a blinder and this signing is absolute proof that we are standing up against agents and revolutionising football or something.

Quite right. He's never managed a single minute in the Premier League. Glad we agree. He has been relegated from the second tier though.

West ham promoted and then taken to eighth and an fa cup final did not require anyone to finish it off and is a far greater achievement than many managers have achieved. Adkins has done nothing even remotely comparable.

You make it sound like pardew's only achievement was a 'fluke' win against bristol rovers. We finished the season before on something like eight wins out of ten plus the cup of course. And pardew built last season's promoted team, as others have said. Pardew was sacked for personal not football reasons.

To be fair, there are plenty of people on this forum peddling out stuff like "we're standing up to agents" and making out Cortese is a revolutionary single handedly taking on the "old ways" of the old guard of football. All of that stuff is equally based entirely on rumours as no one has a freaking clue what is going on. Do be sure to pick up on those people too, won't you?

It's one person on one forum, and even then it reads like they are talking generally -doesn't suggest he thinks LCFC can or will sign him. The pompous preciousness of saints fans on this forum is truly staggering.

Quite right, great post. Meanwhile on another planet there is a breed on Saints fans on this very forum absolutely convinced that we will become Champion's League regulars on the back of our academy, and because Cortese said so, and because people used to say you couldn't climb Everest. Tell that to Everton, sustainably run with the best manager in the game or indeed to QPR going the Jimmy Bullard route, lobbing £60k a week at Joey Barton. If we get to the promised land it's going to take a hell of a lot of running just to stand still.

Never has a post been so wrong. Clearly not the 'job spec' especially as we know we offered 3.5m for billy sharp. We've got our occasional back ups - barnard and connelly. We should be, and i think we are, looking to improve the team, not just pack the squad with mediocrity as you suggest. 'Better or no-one' should be the credo.

Mis-spelling their names proves my point about my own ignorance. What I have got far above you is perspective and an understanding of how real life is actually lived. Stick to your bedroom you computer gaming pedantic freak.

Quite right. If someone who had never even heard of Fontaine until two days ago said "this sounds like a brilliant signing" none of these happy clappers would pick him up on it of course. Initial reactions are allowed. Having not really heard of Fontaine, Gorks or Jay-Rod until we were linked with them and being a tiny bit aware of Waghorne as I live in the East Midlands. I am excited by the prospect of us signing Gorks and Rodrigues, and not excited at all by us signing Fontaine or Waghorne. The tedious happy clappers would permit my opinion on two of the players but slate me for my opinion on the other two, even though my opinion on all four are based on the same level of ignorance, basically a little bit of reading up. Funny that.

We were already relegated before Clive turned up.