Ted Bates Statue

Totally agree - just like Gordon Strachan and Lawrie Mac, all were proven to be absolute frauds on the basis of their records after leaving us. If only we had competent managers in charge. But thanks to those buffoons, we will never truly know whether we could have benefitted from the delights of promotion, European qualification or even the occasional final.

That would about be as likely as Clive Woodward ending up in club football... oh.

It could well be a fairly ugly start for a few weeks, but I think we will finish comfortably above the relegation places and achieve a magnificent record-breaking 13th place trophy to silence all the doubters.

...I don't know.

Did anyone watch the game last night? Grateful that the drain-circling racism analysis has been moved to a new thread.

All this serves to reinforce the sense that a club lives and dies on its scouting department. They're unsung heroes, rarely made up of household names and others take the glory when they do their job well. You can talk as much as you like about fancy facilities, black box, 443 throughout the club, managerial philosophies, attitudes and playbook, but without the keen eye of the sort of people like Georges Prost or those individuals who warned Les Reed not to sign Guido Carillo, it all falls apart like a pack of cards. Same with the academy - if we are having problems in that area now, then you have to look back a number of years to identify where things went wrong.

Think the last time they posted they were dropping heavy hints that Flores was going to be our next manager. Honourable mention to EricB and LeG. Also SKD for quite a while.

Please score this.

Never mind this week's result, losing 7-1 and simultaneously blowing a 4 goal lead? Lawrie Mac must GO for the good of the football club.

I've had enough of other teams' players making history against us. Happy for him to give us a miss.

Interesting anecdote and to revisit the background on the original thread, I didn't know about any of that. I only recall he struggled for injury with us. Seems a bit shocking but not entirely surprising, tough decisions have to be made sometimes and we let go a lot of decent performers as we went up the divisions. In the strikers department alone we also showed the door to Barnard and Sharp despite all of them providing useful contributions in their short times here. Can't blame him if it left a bitter taste in the mouth though.

I'll take that as long as we aren't one of them. 4 PL teams guaranteed to be knocked out before the next round - can only be a good thing.

That would be unbelievably charmless, so maybe some of the Man Utd support then with memories like a goldfish after the weekend game. Looks like Bayern Munich have overshadowed us tonight anyway, they won 0-12 in their cup competition.

I'll take a draw TBF

It's usually at our lowest ebbs that we get pleasantly surprising results that give us all hope until the next battering.

We're not supposed to be able to hold onto our best players. FFS how can I use this as a stick to beat the club with now???

2009, come off it. It's autumn 2018... 😬

Neither did Livramento until 5th August 😂

Agreed, same happened with Jay Rod. It's a lot of money for us but we have to be patient - Adam and Adams are the starting goal threat for us now, with Broja and Tella in backup. I don't know why we gave Long a two year contract extension, surely he will see it out entirely on loan.

Very bandwagon, very modern art. Not my thing but as it's weird enough to fit in at the Tate Modern, hopefully each shirt is priced at £1M so that our marketing team can close the #commercialincomegap on all the other teams in our league.

Matty Targett to Villa, Jay Rod to West Brom, Jose Fonte to West Ham, Jack Cork to Swansea. You see, we just can't hold onto our best players.

https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/9127925.southampton-fans-return-season-tickets-due-to-car-parking-change-at-st-marys-stadium/ I think they had a point to be fair, although the 'concerned local citizen' photoshoot never fails to amuse me. I wonder if they are still boycotting.

Are you talking about Harry Kane, England's best striker, having spent years with the National Team watching his team-mates at Chelsea, Liverpool and City win trophy after trophy while he prepares for a season hoping to qualify for Europa League via the third-rate Europa Conference? If those are ideas above his station, then what is his station? Funny how the penny's finally dropping for Spurs supporters today. They seem to be the last to realise he's gone.

True - and for a more recent example see also Oriel Romeu. Decent value for money at £5M.

I know what you mean. I personally get very annoyed that despite bragging about it, we never seem to do any actual marching.