suewhistle

From the Cagliari tifosi site today: "16.00 - Il Southampton fa sul serio e potrebbe avere addirittura già trovato l'accordo con Davide Astori. SNIP 16.00 Southampton are serious and may have even already come to an agreement with Davide Astori. The Saints have for days been confirmed as the team which has made the most convincing offer to Cagliari (€10m), but now there is also talk coming out regarding the contract offered to the ex-Milanese central defender. The manager of the English club, Nigel Adkins had in fact offered a 3 year contract at 2m€ net per annum (more than double his earnings in Sardinia) in expectation of weakening the resistance of Cellino, who would thus ensure some advantage from the prospective absence [departure] of the player. The article also makes the point about a similar contract to Gaston. 12.00 - Potrebbe davvero essere una corsa tutta inglese quella per l'acquisto di Davide Astori. "It may truly be an all English race for the purchase of Davide Astori... " It talks of interest from Everton and about the offer from Liverpool, reported in the Daily Fail, of €8.5m. “Cagliari are asking for £12 (around €15m). It willl be difficult to get so much, but probably, to see Astori far from Sardegna, the cheque to be deposited in viale La Playa will have to be at least 10 million. Would Anfield be willing to bid more or will they content themselves with taking advantage of the prestige, if a little faded, of their history."

Aargh! It's been closed for months! Mind you, you're not going to rely completely on sat-nav in the future, but an expensive lesson. Bit like sailing: use a chart plotter by all means but maintain fixes on paper charts... Did you manage to get over to Italy? Next time why not go through the tunnel and stay at La Thuile: cheaper, particularly for the incidentals (or is that essentials?) and with the car you could explore a couple of other local resorts. I hope to ski over there in the next week or so: had a heavy fall onto a lump of ice 2 weeks before Christmas then away for the hols and haven't skied since, but the amazing swelling is down and the snow looks good. I like to wait for the fresh stuff so may wait until next week as a dump forecast for the weekend. Sorry if I'm whetting your appetite for more.:-)

Farlington playing fields aren't gated off, nor is King George V so they could train there. Change in the cars like many a pub/low level team has had to, or change at Fratton and drive down. Back to Fratton for showers and the treatment room... sorted.

The presenter on Sky: "...the fans are knowledgeable...". Ha!

But it's probably perfectly fine for what the user wants it for, and I've no idea how it compares with my old Acer5735 which does likewise and which I only got at the time because I couldn't source a new power supply for my old one. I used to work in business IT writing user requirement specs, so look at what I want to do. I've absolutely no interest in games, don't do CAD or video-editing or any other intensive processing task and for myself and many others it'd be fine. With my next machine I'd get a bigger HD to allow plenty of space for partitioning and dual-booting with Ubuntu (if I can find that old disk..).. but this one will do me for now. PS Thanks for reminding me I need to do another back-up!:-)

From the Italian quote it says that the main interest in Italy is from Napoli, but that the counteroffer from Saints is to have the player in January. I suspect the generosity of our offer is conditional on that happening.

I'm in Southampton for the match tomorrow and finally managed to sort a ticket out this afternoon. Off out shortly to a good local boozer with a friend: the sort of pub where they don't have or need bouncers on the door... No names, no pack drill...

Rallyboy - like the content and the style although I do think some of the paragraphs were a leetle long: I mean, some of them were two sentences long!

Amidst all the gloom on here this bit genuinely made me laugh, and as we all know, it was said with a complete lack of irony.. That result was annoying, but we seemed to compete with Stoke physically a lot better than previous games had led me to expect. I'd agree with most on here that Davis is not the answer, but it was interesting to see the number of keepers' mistakes leading to goals over the last few games. I thought fresh legs up front might have helped, as we were defending from the front all game, and there were a few tired legs out there. Would Ramirez have helped in holding the ball more up front? Not sure to be honest in that one of his strengths is seeing the runs and making the pass, and there was less such movement in the final 20 minutes. The other thing is that once Stoke had the ball they cut out the midfield anyway, so we would have needed to retain possession very well indeed to avoid giving them any of their usual opportunities. They're effective but b****y ugly. No point analysing all the individual little incidents; they appear to have been done to death in just the few pages I've read here. Beyond my disappointment at the final result we did score 3 goals at Stoke, and that'll be a rare event this season and hopefully it'll have given our forwards a bit more confidence.

True.. Mind you, during half time I looked at the pre-match thread and I've never seen so much doom and gloom..

Thanks MOSaint: that offer did seem a little generous in the circumstances, although like Bologna I imagine they could do with as much up front as possible, and we may be in a better position to do that than the opposition.

Incidentally, I notice Turkish appears to be stalking me again: it's amazing how often he posts immediately after me. Just to let you all know again [to wind him up really] that I have the biggest p*****k and bully on this board on ignore. :-))

Only stuff I can find seems to be repeating the tuttojuve source about Southampton having made the only firm offer: €10M, although Juve have been chasing him but made no offer. He appears to be (or once was) on Twitter [DavideAstori], so over to you guys....

Although I live out there I don't follow local football, but the financial problems are well known. If you're ever in a bar and look up at the inevitable game on the TV you'll see that apart from the derby games the crowds aren't that big. The general economy, as I know to my cost, is also a bit in the merda. Cagliari are in pretty deep; but time to go off for some internet investigation. I'll try and provide better translations than Google!

That's what I like about this thread: full of questioning, intelligent and er.. devious minds..

The BBC report said: "Rickie Lambert's late spot-kick secured a deserved point for Southampton against Fulham at Craven Cottage. [snip] It was all Southampton from then on, though, with Jason Puncheon and Rickie Lambert both close to equalising. [snip] Sidwell came close in the dying minutes, as did Hangeland, but the Saints went home with a worthy draw. " Could be worse, I suppose...

Well.... I've given up: at least trying to get a stream on my mum's 'puter. Downloaded programs, codecs, sopcast.. every soddin' thing and nothing except dodgy pop-ups and going round in circles. No problems at home in the EU on my PC... but doesn't sound like I've missed much...

yep, and someone else paying.. very appropriate!

Oi goneawol, it's no good getting all pedantic with Portsea Island residents... Mind you, I reckon they'll all soon be prostate with grief...

Maidenhead United, The Magpies; one of the oldest clubs and grounds (York Road) in the country. Who can forget the FA cup tie against Aveley, the "we hate Slough Town" chants. Featured in 'Fever Pitch', no less. Apart from that I'd turn out to watch my women's team even if I wasn't playing. But local Italian teams: Juventus is obviously out (supported by plastics) so Torino would be my nearest league team. It's just not the same though as supporting Saints, difficult to explain as it is.

Hmm, I need a fair bit of dental work doing. Not so sure about neo Nazi stuff but tattoed lesbian is fine by me.:-)) Would I get a discount if I told her I was a woman footballer and supported Saints? How long after anaesthetic can you have a beer?.... Meanwhile, back on topic, this thread continues to entertain.. Don't know why Pompey fans complain it's a masturbatory fantasy. Who needs a fantasy with this reality, and I'm too busy laughing, chuckling, chortling, snorting and snig gering to get the rechargeables out...

Thought I'd replied to this earlier?? Anyway, good point but you can avoid the top one by hacking off left towards the Piccolo S Bernardo Express or Fourclaz..

I think I preferred chapter 5 to chapter 6; the latter seemed like you were in a hurry to get somewhere and there were more lolz in 5. Sorry I missed your kind offer to write my own masterwork - or is that mistresswork - but the memory isn't what it was and adventures are few and far between here. If I were into the juniors in the footie team like our disgusting _ex_ physio then there might have been more, but fortunately I'm not... Still, writers are meant to be imaginative, aren't they - E L James excepted - so maybe one of these days... Maybe I'll have a good New Year's Eve in Southampton this year and then have fun in the Itchen stand ladies' toilets at the Arsenal match - if I can get a ticket, that is...

I've skied many of those runs, but never very elegantly, and as I'm no longer young these days I'd ski them a bit slower. Tortin was fun but Mt Fort was er... more of a strain on the heart, The Wall at Avoriaz I did quite early on in my skiing holidays and wasn't too bad. I've also done a few steep mogul runs doing the impression of a lump of slithery liver sliding downhill but names don't come to mind. I've come to the conclusion that it's not so much the run as the conditions, and if you're having a bad day even worse... So piste no 3 at La Thuile (the Franco Berthod downhill) is fine in decent conditions, tremendous fun in fresh powder before they prep it but lethal with ice. I take all talk of straight-lining with a pinch of salt... I skied the Hahnenkamm after the World Cup downhill: they'd closed the Mausefalle due to lack of snow, and the rest was race-prepared ice but my skis weren't. I got off it to the side as soon as I could. After watching Tomba do the slalom I had a go on that run too (without the gates), and it gave me a new appreciation of their technique and the sharpness of their edges. As for ski injuries: surely that's another thread?:-) I managed to hit a slightly disguised line of snow/ice lumps as I came from the off-piste, and although I was well-balanced and going straight both skis released almost at once and I came down on a lump of ice on my thigh and (I presume, judging by the bruises on my hip) my pole. Landing so heavily and without time to adjust I was really shaken up and almost fainted as I made my way home. Fortunately our football game was called off at the week-end as I was due to play in goal, and the bruising and swelling was impressive, and still is!