CB Fry

Chill out. Football club signs some rubbish players and may have also passed up on some other players. Gee whizz. It's such a pity we signed useless f*ckers like Marsden, Beattie, Svennson and Neimi. PS - there was not a meeting where Southampton football club had to decide between signing Didier Drogba or Brett Ormerod there and then.

DaMarcus Beasley is utter sh*te. Calm down about Drogba. He was rubbish in his first season for Chelsea and they spent £20m on him. We were looking at him several years before that, and if we had signed him there is no guarantee he would have become the same Drogba we know now - remember he has a tiny attitude problem and Saints may well have bombed him out after a season for being an arse. Remember, Skacel and Delgado would be whinged about as "great lost world beaters" to this day if we never got round to signing them.

But your accurate analysis of his skill set is precisely why he is only going to get a job at the likes of Sunderland. He's a great manager at a certain level, but I wouldn't give him a job to get, say, Spurs, Villa, Man City or Everton into Champions League contention or to acheive Europa qualification as a minimum requirement (as it would be at those clubs) season in season out. Sunderland is likely, the only think stopping him would be the "I'm going to take a little break" routine. Newcastle or Boro would also be very good shouts, especially if both persevere with Shearer/Southgate and it doesn't start too well as I am sure it won't for them both. I expect WGS to be back in management at the first big job of the autumn, rather than walk into one straightaway. My shout for Celtic? Steve Bruce.

You seem to be confusing Gordon Strachan, by a country mile the most popular Saints manager of the Sky era and welcome in any pub in the city whatever he does for the rest of his life with Glenn Hoddle, who is a c***.

Correct. The self aggrandising "some of us have a club to save" bucketeers are just getting in the way, as is Crouch. The sooner we get to the eleventh hour brink, the sooner we get taken over. Crouch coming in paying the bills all the time just removes the urgency so any negotiator worth their salt will just drag it out for longer. Why pile in when Ted Rogers is going to pay the wage bill anyway? Just wait another month. Put the buckets away and lets get to the eleventh hour asap.

What the ****? Mickey Mouse just means "shambolic" or "inconsequential" whatever its applied to, there is no special definition to be "applied to football clubs". Anyway, I came on this thread simply to say: The Toon have no relegation clauses in their players contracts. Arf.

So you are completely disregarding his excellent record with the Welsh National Team and his even better record with Blackburn over several seasons, then?

This is why businessmen will continue to make huge sums from football fans. They are, by and large, idiots. I'd quite like our new regime to be reasonable, rational, honourable businessmen with some kind of track record of genuine success behind them. Just any old bloke, oh I don't care. Rapist you say? Fair enough, up the saints. And I wouldn't be so bothered about this "anyone will do" attitude but the precise same people will be droning on about the "spirit of Southampton" and "honour" and "loyalty" and "fans taken for granted" and "the true meaning of football" within six months of the new regime taking over.

It is only ten games a season live. Annoying really because you'd think we'd probably have been on once. And I think its only the Carling Cup semis and final. But the highlights will be good - I bet they put the CCC goals on a loop on the red button every Sunday like they used to with the FA Cup, as well as a proper highlights prog. Shame I couldn't give two ****s about the CCC next season.

Correct. Sick to death of posters sticking up nonsense about "we're in Division three, deal with it" and making out that our relegation has turned us into Weymouth. Being manager of Southampton Football Club is still a cracking job, and being a hero at SMS would be a brilliant opportunity to an experienced manager out of work for a while (hello Steve Cotterill) or for a lower league boss thinking they can take on a big club (hello Alan Knill, Paul Tisdale). It is a job managers would jump at. Can people stop overplaying this "we're so pathetic" routine.

How was it "hidden" from him? Every single fan knew about the Derby and Sunderland interest long before he went on strike. Saints were trying to get the best price for him. Jones going on strike made him look like a **** but that's because he is one.

But we are talking about Southampton. See what we did there?

I couldn't disagree more. Madjeski is the last man I can think of to go "balls out" for promotion. His next manager will have a strict budget to work to and promotion will happen if it happens. He won't buy it.

Sorry, I think the irony was lost on you. My original post about South Today clearly states I had made it up, so when I said "There is absolutley no question of the validity of the statement I made earlier regarding Matt Le Tissier and tonight's South Today" it was because I had made it up. Never mind..... I love Monty Python and the Holy Grail too*.

Seems quite odd - its not like none of those players can't do a pretty decent job in the CCC. And odd that they've done this before the manager is appointed, too.

I resent that. There is absolutley no question of the validity of the statement I made earlier regarding Matt Le Tissier and tonight's South Today.

I take it you are working on a takeover yourself as we speak then? Because it seems to me you're aimlessly chatting on a message board as well. Don't you realise we're about to go bust? Bust, I tells ya, buuuuussst!

If this thread is ever featured on Football Focus, my post will be strategically removed to make it look worse than it is.

You do realise this is a fans forum on the internet? This thread not being started would not have resulted in us being taking over any quicker, you know. Get over it. Back on topic - the slate grey kit is ruddy awful. Yellow and blue, or two tone blue is fine for us.

Bet we don't.

We were never going to have "no bids at all" and it was never going to be "the only way of saving the club". That is a point a lot of people did try to make. We were not, are not, and never will be Weymouth, or Grays Athletic or some tin pot nothing club maintained by fans having a whip round. And that £90k was just people on the forum saying yeah, I'm in. Which isn't money in the bank as reality would see you realise a fraction of that. And either way, £90k wouldn't be much of a top up of anything. Anyway, fairly pointless having this debate again as the deal will be officially sealed and announced on South Today this evening. MLT has just popped into the odd bins round the corner from me for three bottles of champagne*.

God, yawn. People missing the point of a thread by a mile for only the 457th time this week.

What he said. Sorry Frank, All the neighsaying was deserved because it was never going to work.

Option 3 and 4 won't happen. If no-one wants to buy the stadium as an ongoing football stadium, no one would want it for anything else. No one is going to buy the stadium to not play football in it and no one is going to knock it down. And by the same token no one is going to buy SFC only and then try and find a new ground or share with Eastleigh etc. Not ever going to happen. Option 2 is perfectly possible but would not be a great situation. Likely buyers here would be the council but yeah, you could get a property speculator wanting the ground but not the club. A bit like when Goldberg bought Palace off Noades but stupidly let Noades keep the stadium.

Correct. It's a shame so many people take this view as "you don't care about the club I supported as a boy through thick and thin where's the passion gone everyone is so spineless blah blah blah etc etc etc etc"