CB Fry

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.

Who talks postively about us all the time, especially on Five Live but also on the FLS. So what? We had loads of coverage in the last two weeks. Yawn. Derby got much the same coverage, but of course we currently running away with the league being an entire goal better than they are and we now automatically deserve an hours full match coverage every week for the rest of the season. Yeah. Course there is. Newsflash - Saints home to Millwall is a nothing game, when two ex England managers are squaring up for the first time in the NPC in a big local derby and another game ended seven freaking one. Why oh why oh why didn't they show every single kick of Saints v Millwall I ask myself. Except at the beginning of the round up and at the end when the tables were talked about. Yeah, not a single mention. ****ing retarded. Sure they do. Except Barnsley. There is a clear pro Barnsley agenda on the Football League show. Always has been. Or is it Ipswich? Or Peterborough. Yeah. That's it. Speak to any Peterborough fan and they'll tell you that the BBC definitely have a bias towards them. No. Hang on. I think I mean Derby. Derby fans love the BBC because of their blatant pro Derby agenda. Or is Burnley? I'm sure the parade of utter spackers on this thread grizzling about how the BBC spends all their time thinking of ways to be biased against Southampton fu ck ing Football Club can tell you which clubs feel the benefit of the bias of the evil BBC. See you all next week for the exact same drivel. The BBC hates Saints. Boo-fu cking - hoo.

Not having a pop at nigel, but it is hardly revolutionary thinking to use three subs by the seventy minute mark. It's not like every other manager refuses to use a third sub on the off chance the keeper might get injured. We're doing very well and the substitutions worked but lets not start making stuff up. He hasn't invented the idea of using three subs.

We did win our next game 4-0, though. And in the previous season we'd won seven of our last ten, losing only one, and throwing in a cup final win at Wembley on top. But no, winning streaks were a complete alien concept way back in the dark, dark days of this time a year ago. Christ almighty.

Yes dear. The bbc are sooooo anti-saints aren't they? It's quite sickening how pro-coventry they are. Always been the way, though. BBC world famous for their pro Coventry bias and their utter hatred of southampton.

I can imagine what could happen. Solid top ten, flirting with top six, proper go at the cups. Not ever champions league, bar a everton-style oneoff. We will not ever become the champions league regulars you have in your bedroom bound computer game obsessed geeky little mind.

That's just lovely. Never going to happen. Even if we finish sixth two reasons in a row, our best players will still want to join chelsea or man united. We couldn't stop them. And being 'well managed financially' and champions league qualification are mutually exclusive concepts for unfashionable clubs. We'd have to spend millions and millions more than our turnover. So. Never, ever going to happen. And seriously, who cares?

Yes, these are exciting times. I have always been pretty confident that this regime will see us into the Premier League, although Adkins has to deliver far beyond anything he has achieved in his career thus far if he is the man to take us up. Once we are in the Prem we will see, but one this is for sure - we will not ever become a Champion's League club, and no one should waste any energy even thinking about. Look at that spack of a manager that Blackburn rovers are currently employing still labouring under the believe that he is creating a Champions League standard club. And laugh. The put red and white stripes in the background, and imagine us saying it. It's not going to happen, which is absolutely fine and dandy for me. Mid table Prem ten years in a row would be astonishing for SFC and that's what we should be aiming for. But let's get promoted first, and let's have a go as of now.