CB Fry

But this wasn't the problem in this game. As Phil has said above, and others who were there have said, the problem is we were rubbish. We couldn't execute our own game. It wasn't so much we were "counteracted" by Blackpool. Blackpool just played better and we played poorly. All I could see were the wide players coming in far too tight and teeny tiny intricate passing moves going nowhere. I think that was less to do with anything Blackpool specifically did, and much more to us having a collective off day. Whether these off days are the exception or the rule is the million dollar question of the season, and we'll know the answer by the end of October, I think.

Certain posters on this forum were starting threads titled "what's our plan B" after(and correct me if I'm wrong, Alpine) two games. But don't you just think if we had activated a plan "B" after two games, can you imagine the reaction of our favourite forum contributer? Would it be trebles all round, and well done chaps for being so decisive? Or, would it be "what are these idiots doing, it's a disgrace, they are spineless, clueless etc etc etc rant rant rant rant rant rant rant". No prizes for that one. We got spanked today, although we were okay in the first half. In contrast, having been at Derby last week, we weren't actually that good in the first half but we really turned it on in the second. The challenge really is conviction. I've seen three games this season, two live (Brum defeat) and one on the telly, and it is conviction we've lacked when we've struggled. Conviction to take chances, conviction to fashion real threatening chances. The problem this season is that clubs at our level can cope (or quickly learn to cope) with tip tappy pretty football. The opposition is going to think: You want to pass it about between the two penalty boxes? Fill your boots, chaps. We need that harder edge to convert possession into goals and wins. Funnily enough it looks like JP has seen this and lets hope he addresses it. LGSC - your observation on the match thread about this is the first game the team were expecting to win I thought was bang on. Suddenly the challenge of "come on, lets prove them all wrong" that has driven them through their first few games has turned into "they think we're going to win this". When you discover you can do something really well, remembering how you did it and doing it again is just as much of a challenge. Over these first six games, we have made a brilliant start. Brilliant. And I say that as someone that spat blood on the day JP was appointed. Let's see where this adventure is going to take us next, and cut the whining....

I, and lots and lots of other people, thought Crouch was a brilliant signing at the time. It was only really a few dinlows who decided he was a "skate" - after all of one season or so at Pompey. Agree about Marsden - it was at the time an incredibly uninspiring, unambitious signing - he was just a lower league clogger as far as I was concerned. But he did at least have a track record of playing regularly. 24 and not broken through at a club where your dad is the manager is not inspiring. But I doubt any of us have ever seen him play, so lets see.

What a pointless, scattergun paragraph. In the Prem days (and actually, even today) Lowe was slated for spending money on "facilities" - ie the stadium, the training ground, the academy, etc etc. You'll often get the line "if we'd never wasted money on SMS we'd still be in the Prem" churned out on here. If there is one thing Lowe did spend money on it was bloody "facilities". He was crowned "Mr Facilities 2002" I believe. And once again, you show yourself off as one of those people that really believes we could have bought nine or ten world class players with the gazillions we spent on setting up a licensing deal on the SFC branded credit card. All of those silly little things were set up to try and bring money into the club, ie into the team. They didn't really work, but it is just nonsense to suggest boatloads of salt-of-the-earth fans money was wasted bringing them about. I bet the cost of the whole lot of them wouldn't have covered Beattie's Prem wages for six months. And, err, as for the "conveyor belt of youth we'd never get to see play"....well, words fail me. Have you been living in a cave for the last two months? And the "constant journeymen" all arrived under the previous regime and led us to near relegation, but at least you were happy You can be consistently relied upon to come out with a right load of old steaming horses plop time and again. This time, you've surpassed yourself. Well done. :rolleyes::rolleyes:

Oh behave. Last week (versus Brum) we were the main game on the Championship, and we've got two live games in a row on Sky coming up. I don't know if you've ever actually watched The Championship, but every single club apart from the first game and the "filmed feature" second game gets 15 seconds every single week.

Jimmy Case comparing Lallana with Le Tiss! Heady days indeed.

Simple - Paul Jewell is a "golf course" manager - good laugh and lots of chums on the ex-player/pundit/old boys network chummery curcuit. So he gets the easiest rides of any manager I've ever known. If he got sacked tomorrow, you won't be able to move for the old chums lining up to say he didn't have enough time to turn it round. I mean, it's so unreasonable to expect a manager to win one game in thirty-odd league games, isn't it? What do these fickle fans want? Blood?!! Billy Davies (games Derby have won since he was sacked - zero. Players signed since he was sacked - 39 (or so) ) must have a bit more than a wry old smile on his face...

To be fair, Derby's problems are "the story". In the wider world Southampton winning one game is not quite earth shattering news, despite how well we played yesterday. Derby's, and Jewell's, woes, are hilarious, though. Being low profile is a good thing. Let's keep everything nice and quiet and stealthly establish ourselves in the top eight before anyone starts cottoning on to the revolution

Disappointed with that. It's been cut before I appeared on screen waving my fists and clapping. Poor show. Even more of a pity they didn't show at least one or two of our thirty five attacks on the Derby goal. Problem is, they decide the running order about a fortnight before and refuse to change it regardless of what actually happens on the day.

Believe the hype. We were absolutely fantastic, especially in the second half where we came out of the blocks brilliantly and then just didn't let up. I've never seen so many backheels, nutmegs and just clever, pretty, incisive football. Scheiderlin was my MOTM. Just the abilitly to hold the ball for a few second and knock a simple ball, or spray a long ball to switch play. He was at the heart of our play. Hats off to Jamie White - I looked skyward when his name was read out, but he was superb. Great performances all over the pitch - Surman great, Lallana class, James good, Gillett full energy. The pressure is on McGoldrick now though - with build up play that fantastic, we need to take the chances. Even the goal required a couple of bites of the cherry. Even the substitutions were genius - Wotton was exactly what we needed when he came on. Just a bit of solidity to break up the (admittedly weak and desperate) Derby attacks. And even the final minutes weren't fraught or nervous. We ran the ball into the corner, and just contained Derby. We'd destroyed them by then. I saw the Brum game last week and thought we were flattering to decieve. Now, I think we can really, really deliver. Well done the team, well done Poortvliet. I'm a pessimistic old tw at usually, but today I am buzzing.

How do you work that one out, smart arse. I'm not the one saying the idea that we might go into administration if we're not careful is a big old made up lie. John Smith is your man for the "I know better than everyone" routine. And if you believe what he's saying, then frankly I am cleverer than you, and you are thick. Okay?

Obviously that was the plan. Stated by all involved, and understood by anyone with half a brain. However, no-one wants Skacel because he is on far too much of a cushy number here so his current contract is pricing himself out of a move. We. can't. seem. to. shift. him. If someone comes in with £3m for Surman then he'll go. It doesn't mean "selling Surman was in the plan all along and evil evil Rupert didn't tell us" it just means we can't afford to turn down £3m for a player. It's exactly the same as when Leeds said they needed to sell players, and Leeds fans happily predicted that Michael Duberry and Seth Johnson would be flogged off to balance the books. Happy days. But no-one wanted Duberry and Seth Johnson. They wanted Rio Ferdinand and Woodgate and that's who got sold. It's the same priciple here. The fact we want rid doesn't mean other clubs are obliged to pick up our overpaid wasters. (The same overpaid wasters you were slating day in day out last season, only to become your all time favourite ever players once it looks Lowe was going to sell them) Once again, this is primary school football business basics that you misunderstand for (no great) effect Alpine. Just more of your usual garbage.

What's the true picture then, JS? Obviously Lowe, in cahoots with the bank and, oddly enough, Leon Crouch and the previous administration, to spin this fantastical tale that we are skint and us thicko dimwit fans lap it all up coz we don't kno no better or nuffink. But clever old you, you know better don't you? And you've worked out that once Lowe has finished his latest press briefing lying about how awfully poor we are he goes into his office and sits in a giant hottub filled to the brim with fifty pound notes which he throws up into the air and cackles a lot for three or four hours. And then he settled down to a delicious tea of freshly slaughtered newborn baby, ideally stolen from a couple who had been trying on IVF for the last three years. This club gets the fans it deserves, and unfortunately too many of them are clueless idiots like you who can't see beyond their pathetic tiny world view. Come on then, JS - tell us fickos the true picture and how rich we really are. Some numbers or facts would be helpful.......

LOL at Alpine taking some moral high ground on a thread he started on the back of the opinions of Chester Perry/UTS/Mille Miglia clueless schizo Matty Paul. LOL, LOL and LOL again. I wonder when Alpine is going to swallow the dull, but blindingly and pathetically obvious point that the decisions in companies are the responsibility of the cheif exec/chairman, and not the Financial Director. The FD can provide the info, but ultimately they don't make (or crucially take responsibility for) the key decisions. I believe the Ladybird My First Book of Business will give you that information. But Alpine skilfully ignores that and off he goes rant rant rant rant likes he's uncovered Watergate, when in fact he looks utterly ridiculous. No change there then. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

So what exactly is your point? So when we finished 12th, 10th, 11th, 11th and 8th in the late nineties and early 2000s what were you saying at the time? That we were rubbish? That it was all a waste of time? Were we underperforming then? If you don't care about getting to cup finals then why the **** do you follow a football team? Cardiff was one of the best days out of my sporting life - the atmosphere from when I arrived in the city at 10am until I left that night was fantastic. A great great day? Where were you? Sat in a dark room with the TV and radio off because you were so disgusted by how easily we got to the final? Did you complain to UEFA that we should never have been allowed to compete in the following seasons UEFA cup? Did our participation disgust you so much at the time? Stop being so bitter you silly little man.

We haven't been in "freefall" since 1997. Have a look at the four relegation battles in five years before the evillest man in the world took over. Have a look at the Branfoot era. Even the arse end of the Nicholl era was pretty pants, and shock horror, guess what, we flogged all our best players for to bigger clubs sometimes for peanuts (Horne, Ruddock, Flowers, Kenna, Shearer, Wallace, Townsend, Magilton, Richard Hall). And we wasted money on rubbish replacements (come in Alan Mcloughlin) Establishing ourselves in the solid middle of the Prem, getting to a cup final and Europe and moving to a good ground to serve us for the next fifty plus years is not "freefall since 1997". We got relegated. Every other club our size in the last decade or so has spent time at this level. Get over it you infant.

Does he? He had lots of opportunity to to tell the club, the Echo, the website and anyone else who'd listen that he doesn't want to be called Killer. And maybe they ran the T-shirt idea past their club captain too? I think he likes his nickname. Just a hunch.

Well, he did seem to "give" his old mate Mark McGhee a million or so quid for Adam Virgo when both were at Brighton a couple of years back. Virgo barely got a game and has now shuffled back to Brighton. Go on Gordon, give us a slice of that Champions League dough that Rangers generously gave you by ****ing it all up last week

So its drivel to suggest the horribly contentious idea that other football clubs in the UK have suffered at the hands of shocking mismanagement by their executives? Is it really? It's drivel to suggest that maybe, just maybe, the fans of every other football club in the UK aren't cheering the decisions of their chairmen and chief executives from the rooftops? Is that drivel, or is the ****e you spout about how how hard done by we are and how we have suffered at the hands of britains most evillest man, like, ever, day in day out drivel? I f uc k ing wonder....:rolleyes: As for Hillsborough. Try reading up on it before you accuse me of drivel. There are plenty of things the club could and should have done long before the disaster, and things the club are to blame for. Go and tell me about the ground's safety certificate and how up to date it was. Tell me about the crush barriers. Tell me about the registered capacities, and what those capacities should have been. Tell me about the barriers, exits and safety routes in place. Tell me if that is the responsibility of the Police or the responsibility of the executive of the club. Do you know about any of that? Do you f uc k. Get over yourself and go and learn something before you start accusing me of drivel. Anyone who reads your broken record on here has a pretty good grasp of what drivel is.

How about all of them? From Coventry to Bradford, from Sheffield Wednesday to Leicester, from QPR, Crystal Palace, Sheffield United to Derby County, Forest and Ipswich. Sheffield Wednesday were saddled with "executive incompetence" that saw 92 football fans lose their lives, but hey, Lowe spent money on a South American striker, so that's loads worse :rolleyes: It's only small minded fools that think Saints are the centre of the universe that think we are somehow special because we got relegated. Once. Well, we're not.

Yes they do. But there's a million miles between what Ridsdale did to Leeds and what Lowe "did" to Saints. A million, billion miles. The morons in the fanbase do like to get all over excited pretending that Lowe "destroyed" "wrecked" "ripped the soul out of" the club and all the rest of it, and get nice jolly stiffys making out we have suffered more than any set of fans in the history of sport and are some super club who have fallen further than anyone could possibly ever comprehend, but it's just utter, utter b o llocks. But guess what - middle sized, medium city club gets relegated from the top division. Big, stonking, wow. Just us and about 25 other clubs of similar size in the past thirty years then. Almost all of which have suffered more than us in the same timescale. We are not the only club ever to be relegated. Get over it you old woman.

If we can't afford to pay a player £15k a week, and we think someone might cough up a million quid for them then it makes absolutely no difference how good they are on a Tuesday night in Exeter. It doesn't fit your skewed view, but maybe, just maybe the decisions about players are being made for financial reasons rather than Lowe saying "I've decided so and so's a bit weak in the tackle, lets sell him". Alpine's back everyone....

Like all conspiracy theories, this one about us buying Spiderman "for" Arsenal next season is a utter ******** and I don't care what any of the ITK dinlows on here might say in response. If Arsenal wanted to buy him, they would have bought him and loaned him out themselves. That is what they would have done. It's not like that is in any way difficult, and its not like Arse can't afford the £500k or whatever down payment we've lobbed in for Spiderman. Conspiracy theories are all jolly exciting until somebody sensible turns round and says "what's the point - why would Arsenal bother?". Beyond all that - the purchuse of MS is exactly what a club with our resources should be doing with our limited funds. Buy players with potential and a sell on value. It's an absolute no brainer for me - why people are using this as a stick to beat the regime with I have no idea.

Changed it for you. Footballers on £8-£12k a week (just the half a million quid in his sky rocket) don't get "treated like crap". Diddums. 30 games is enough of a chance to score some bloody goals, isn't it?

Have I missed something, or did Saga score three goals in thirty games last season? How does that make him irreplaceable and how is it a disaster if we've shipped him out. Last time I looked three in thirty for a striker on £8-10k per week is rubbish.