Lazlo78

Espanyol I think

Jaidi would be a great addition. Playing him and Trotman in the centre would give us the opportunity to play Thomas at RB (not a suggestion I'd have given too much thought before the Stockport game). Then we'd be having Perry and Murty (when fit again) competing for a place. With Harding completing the puzzle it's not too bad for League One...

Spoken like a true FM-player. Funny thing is though, that sometimes reality is a tad more unpredictable than a computer game

He runs a wellness centre for poodles...

Smith certainly never lacked effort though I'm not sure if he would ever have made it with us. To be fair though, I do remember a few concerned voices amongst the cries of joy when he left. Not all thought he was crap... Me? I'm fencesitting this out until we know for certain whether he did get the speed of Fabrice Fernandez and the tenacity of Paul McGrath or if it was the other way around

So basically you are asking when you can be excused for losing faith? Lose away happily, it's... your loss Sometimes it seems to me, as if you wouldn't want to miss the opportunity of being the boy who saw that the emperor really had no clothes on! It's certainly better than running the risk of having faith and being proven wrong. Because then you wouldn't be the realistic, cynical truth-seer (quite cool!), you'd just be a happy clappy idiot fan like the rest of us (quite uncool)... That said, it's probably not a bad thing that all fans aren't as conservative or even complacent as I am... Let's leave it at that and find a more interesting topic. Have any of the new players got a fit missus we should see pics of in here?

Ohhh time to feed the troll... or not

Hey, that'll do

10th - 15th place in the league and a clear idea of a regular starting XI with no huge weaknesses...

It is indeed devastating and to find any positives in our current situation you'd have to go for clichées along the lines of "this is a test of our loyalty towards SFC". Which btw isn't entirely untrue. I haven't for a single second considered following a PL-team while Saints are rebuilding even though I don't as such have any geographical limitations to my choice of team. Good times are ahead but as you say probably not in the near future. In the near future we'll have ups and downs and start understanding what SFC under ML & AP is all about. Long term we'll demand more (and hopefully get it). What needs to be said is that somewhere, sometime, somehow we'll have to stick with some manager for a long period of time in order to achieve anything with this club. Be it Pardew or another, we'll have to stay cool enough to not panic over minor setbacks if we can see that the course set is sensible. We simply cannot continue ****ing our pants to stay warm... The Stockport game is a great example of this as this was a minor annoyance, not a reason for discarding the entire ML-setup as rubbish. Everyone was gutted and sickened after the late equaliser as this could have been a great step towards getting above 0 points. To my pleasant surprise however, I found that the majority (yes?) of posters have shown the willingness to look beyond the annoying Stockport result and look at the long term development of the club After the initial swearing, our focus was once again turned to the larger perspective, and the fact that the team seemingly showed improvements was highlighted. That makes me confident that we're not going to see any premature "Pardew Out"-reactions as long as the team stays on course (and it convinced me to sign up as a full member of the board, since I now believe that this actually is not an online confessional for Hampshire Depressive SOGs Anonymous. The cuddly old swiss has done an Obama on us and convinced us that "yes we can... probably... maybe next season") There are no guarantees that the current setup will deliver the results we want, but that's what faith is for ;-)

Considering that Kelvin Davis constantly has been our MOM for the last year or so, I'd call it a step in the right direction that somebody else joins that rather exclusive club. And oh, it's one of those CB's we've been crying out for...

Haven't seen this posted: http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Furious-Peter-Storrie-blasts-former-Pompey-owner-Alexandre-Gaydamak-in-scathing-attack-article137931.html

I almost did the same thing. Problem is, that my wife and kids are not aware of Saints' results and their importance towards my general mood. That's the downside of being a far flung fan - there is noone to share the joy and frustration with... Lots of positives from this thread - makes me count to ten and go back to the original "our season starts in september"-mindset, difficult as it is...

I certainly see where you're coming from, but on the pitch our years in the Premier League counts for absolutely nothing right now. Zilch. Our history gives us fans an immense feeling of not belonging in League One, increasing the frustration of playing against League One opposition. But the sad truth is that none of our players were there in the Premier League. We are a League One team with loads of issues - Brentford is a League One team with the joy of promotion fresh in mind. So to the 22 players on the pitch our Premier League history means absolutely nothing. Or at least less than Brentfords recent promotion...

Aalborg BK hung on to their manager after seasons of finishing 5th, 4th, 5th and 3rd (from 12 teams) and he then took them to win the championship in the 5th season. In most cases the manager should probably be released if he runs out of ideas/steam (Burley), but sometimes letting the manager know that he can look at long term development can be beneficial. Letting the manager not fear for his job over a current period of bad results can make him make better moves in the transfer market for instance and design the team of his liking over time (instead of relying on old henchmen to provide short term results). It's a delicate balance when to act and when to keep cool. I usually prefer the latter but sometimes the former gives unexpectedly good results :-)

*s******s*... You had that one prepared all evening

Slightly improved version of the above picture...

Saints' Quidditch captain on his invisible Nimbus 3000 broom...

I've never seen this "trend" before but it must be a good sign. For 10+ years we have been crying out for a spine in the team never caring too much about wingers. So I assume that when we are talking about wingers now it's because the spine is slowly getting in place?

We really need some inspiring youngsters to come through the ranks in the coming years... All focus is currently on establishing the first team (and rightfully so) but once we get going, we need those youngsters to come in to an established side and add something extra. Imagine how a lot of our current youngsters could have developed if they had been introduced to the first team squad over a longer period and with less responsibility from the start (Lancashire for instance?)...

Can someone please copy/paste this into the appropriate threads where people are slagging off Pardew again... *News flash* - since the above was written a new CB has started and Wotton was also on the bench.. We're getting there, slowly but surely...

So Swedish International midfielder (with plenty of Premier League experience) Anders Svensson would perform well in League One? I somehow doubt it ;-)

My wife has no problems convincing me that we have to go visit her aunt in Crawley every now and then. As long as I can take a train down south for one of my rare visits to St. Marys, I'm happy

Oh, I'll just add the usual disclaimer: the above is easy for me to say as I don't have endure the pain of witnessing the rebuilding phase first hand and paying huge amounts to see Saints succumb to the Peles and Maradonas of our League One opposition... So fair play to those who go to games and vent their frustration afterwards - just don't lose the perspective