suewhistle

I've seen no quotes attributed to the player himself, all reported second hand, to disassociate the report from any human agent. (Hmm, agent?). Just like when you've had an accident.. "Mum, the window has been broken", to deflect blame. The club know there'll be interest, but the blatant reports in the press (with no direct attribution) and no contact from Liverpool, have bought things to a head.

It's made The Guardian too. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/jun/06/southampton-to-report-liverpool-to-premier-league-over-virgil-van-dijk-approach

Pellegrino is currently on a pilgrimage between various clubs. Perhaps he'll end up at St James', maybe he'll end up a saint. Who knows, I really should get on with my work.

We don't skirt around issues here, we zip strait to the vitals.

Well, I've renewed. We could get great footie with Puel as he gets to grips and new players or we could have utter crap with a new manager, but I constantly thank the powers that I'm generally optimistic, and that I'm not Heisenberg or Pluto or the rest who are glass almost empty even when it's pretty full. I do appreciate some people enjoy being negative moaners, whether they're justified or not. But the constant changes to match KO times and Southern railways are both, I believe, legitimate reasons for negativity! :-)

Had a good day out there a few years ago - apart from losing 3-1 (I think) and realising Jake Thomson wasn't the answer. The Station Buffet was great and they had a food festival in the station square, which all helped mellow me out for the Saint's performance..

Possibly in the drunken company of McInnes, if my Pompey supporting bar steward (really) is correct in recounting the tale of their behaviour down Goldsmith Avenue at the end of the season.. It's actually very difficult not to imagine John Major writing that 'not inconceivably' and reading it in his voice..

Very sensible. Although I haven't got them on ignore I also find it a good idea to skip over what Heisenberg, Batman, Shurlock and Hypochondriac post. The occasionally useful factual observation (like the Puel presser summaries) tend to be outweighed by the dislikeable negative, repetitive and reactionary cr*p. Whilst I'm on on a rant it occurs you could add Charlie Wayman to that list. Some of the other curious comments on this thread are only from part-timers, so they don't pass the "oh gawd, not again" test.

We can but dream.

Yep. Fortunately it was only like a bit of a play punt for me, and to have a few AGM rights, I knew I'd never make money on them.

It's funny. According to Kinsey 98% of us do it at least occasionally, but there are some people who take it as their life's mantra and act it all the time. MLG, bless 'im, hasn't realised that.

It was patently obvious why he was brought on. We weren't getting anywhere through the middle - and we had the pace and trickery of Boufal there too (however inneffective he turned out to be). Pied was there to give us width and a bit of pace on the wing, working in conjunction with Cedric. The problem of some of the criticism I've seen is that whatever Puel does, whoever he brings on is going to be criticised, probably by the same people who think JWP is useless.

I never had Mr. X down as a troll. Sort of thread the Heisenberg Discontinuity would post.

Yeah, Pirates of Portsea Island is getting panning reviews..

Really? Leaving the professional players less time to prepare? I expect the whole sodding squad to be ready and eager to play, like when I'm not in my team's matchday squad and still chuck my boots in the boot when I go along to watch in case I get the opportunity to be on the bench and pay subs' match fees. As for players not being happy not playing, quite right too. Redmond hasn't had good games every time he's played either and nor has Tadic. And if he doesn't play "his favourites" he gets criticised for rotation. There's room for improvement and we desparately need to score more goals, but some of the criticism is inconsistent c**p.

Well, it was only Manchester United, so not much of draw (this season). Quite a few season ticket holders around me not there and my friend couldn't make it as she was babysitting the grandchildren. There are difficulties for some people in going to mid-week matches, particularly rearranged ones. Plus you then get Southern cancelling the direct train to Littlehampton - again - which rather illustrates my point. Luckily I got to the station early, got the Portsmouth train and (surprise) found the Littlehampton train at Fareham, they couldn't be ar8ed to run it from Southampton, nor did they bother to tell anybody of the alternatives. Rant over.

We had a game against Leicester delayed 30-45 minutes due to a cloudburst. Fratton Park might see a postponement and you'd get wet in the stand, but we should be fine. Currently getting wet inside in a Wetherspoons...

Normally it's us older people who are miserable gits, but on here the younger ones are taking over. The advantage of a bit of experience is that we can put things into a slightly wider perspective. So home performances have been disappointing and we haven't made, and more particularly, taken enough chances, but it's all getting a bit overwrought and exaggerated here. A change after one year isn't going to resolve issues, will cost and be disruptive. Just like some of the players we need to allow a bit of time. A season without Europe and the rotation that involved, important players back from injury, some stability and a judicious signing could all make a big difference. That will be a truer test to see if we can get to a final, finish higher than eighth AND play sparkling, scoring football.

They may be nibbles but I don't think many get hooked mind. It'll be interesting to see the approach next season when we don't have all the extra games and some of our overseas players have bedded in a bit more and know what to expect. Remember that we can't afford to buy the finished article so would hope to benefit from improvement in our young players. Two more wins to see off this season would be nice..

That's about it, I feel; he's responding to the questioners. I'd be disappointed if he didn't continue, and disappointed if that extra experience didn't help us improve.

Hmm. Don't think Brighton is much easier than Southampton, plus it's Southern if you're going by train! Best join London Saints if you aren't already a member as they might help on ticket availability?

I have to say I'm confused. Rotation is bad, but some players need to be dropped because they're not playing well. But other players need to have a good long run in the side or they'll be 'rusty' and won't perform adequately. We shouldn't drop our best players, but others need to be given a chance. But we don't want rotation.. Is that a fair summary? Shane Long fairly sums up the position the club are in. Somebody with his speed who could also finish would be beyond our pocket. As it is, it's a team game and he worked hard, made an assist, made a penalty and the rest of the story we know, and it's a pretty fair metaphor for the wider situation. Tadic, one of our more creative players missed a penalty the other day, and didn't we all know that would happen? I hope we score a few on Wednesday, as it would be satisfying against a club who buy our player and then drop him following injury and lack of form. I mean, what's £30m, they'll just go and buy someone else. That's what we're competing against.

They've always helped us with our perspective from our dizzy heights, so have been most useful. I thought you were going to have Eastleigh as your local point of reference at one stage. Disparaging opinions of Portsmouth will always be welcome, from whatever level!

Wednesday may be interesting. We gave some of our better players a bit of a rest yesterday and hopefully Manchester will rest some of their better players on Wednesday. Frankly anybody moaning about the absence of Gabbiadini needs to have a second look at the situation (to put it politely). From what I saw of the game we never looked in trouble, and there was none of that real stress about whether they'd get an equaliser. Gone are the days as a Saints fan when you couldn't relax even with a 3-0 lead!

I've renewed mine. Biggest hit of the year on my credit card, but with good timing won't have to pay until July. I'm not sure I really debated the issue with myself, but as next season is likely to be my last actually playing on a Sunday afternoon I'm just hoping for not too many date changes and better football. We're about where we should be for the stature of the club - it's just that I want to be on my feet a few more times a season..