John Boy Saint

With hindsight not that big a surprise on the part of the club, given whats gone on this year. In that the Chairman comes out in January to the media giving the manager, who as far as a vast majority of the fans in the stands were concerned had a huge question mark over his head, the vote of confidence, citing the VVD fiasco as the root of all woes. Then in the post season interview to the media, the Chairman then admitted that they didn't realise that our Premier League status was under threat until January, when most fans had seen the neon sign being wired up in the Leicester home debacle and tested on Boxing Day............many had seen the sign being delivered back when we got done in our own back yard quite feebly by Wolves second string in the League Cup. Many fans saw the Forster contract renewal as a message to stop the "brain drain" that had become the norm at Saints, yet more cynical viewers looked at the size of that contract renewal with raised eyebrows, in that we were rewarding a key player so handsomely, especially one who's distribution with his feet alone was questionable and seemingly un-curable. With that level of shortsightedness, especially with how this past season panned out, it really is no wonder that we find ourselves painted into a corner where Alex McCarthy is concerned.

I walked into a Customers in Wolverhampton yesterday, "Eh up John Boy - stayed up by the skin of yer teeth then in the end", they then introduced me to a new chap "This is John He's a Saints fan". "Oh right, Saints Fan" "we are supposed to be getting one of your ex players.........Pele or something" "Not Graziano Pelle?" says I. As one they all said "yeah thats him". "Wolves are looking to get Pelle in? What for? he's 33 and spent the last 2 years in China most of which as the 6th highest paid player in the world, and he is going to give that up for a Swansong (no disrespect) in Wolverhampton, he was getting slower when we sold him". Blimey the air soon whooshed out of their collective balloon.

Now about settling that debt from when we were nippers, I make it that you owe me 3 tubes of Smarties now, I earn more than you, I have scored more goals than you, and won more Silverware than you, I’ll let you off the one that Saints fans will still love me more than you by the end of our careers.

Wouldn’t be so sure, “last time we had a how old are you?” Ish thread on here, there was a remarkable number moany old buggers who are regulars and of an age to know who King Crimson are.

Thread title should be "Do players have far too much time on their hands" Quite a bizarre Tattoo though, given his reasoning for having one versus why he hates guns - is he going to have those words Tattooed on the other side of his leg, otherwise its a bit gangster. Penguin would have been more apt

Little snippet I heard was that he wanted out last summer, and that the club were not going to stand in his way if someone came knocking for him, but nobody did.

The FA a short while back showed how out of touch they are with the modern day when they suggested placing a cap on women players wages. When I read it, aside from thinking "really ?!!" I was more stunned that the insular minded fools actually let that thought escape from the box into the public domain.

Sparky better get on and book the Potters Heron for a press conference surprise announcement.............. :p

So if we had camped outside his house en masse and pleaded with him to stay, the fickle git would have stayed!! Do you think you can buy what he is shoveling - I reckon my Roses would come out a treat with a dollop of that to get their roots into!

Schadenfreude is probably banned in California..............probably spelt differently too!

Post of the night

Quick everybody kidnap Alex McCarthy so he can’t be sold to the bin dippers!!

Yeah that bloody Les Reed Grrrrrrrrrr!

WHAT A GOAL!!! Made in Southampton

Rather than start another Thread may as well bump this one, with the Hors d’oeuvre to the CL final, the Championship play off, kicking off at 5pm Where do folks think next seasons new away day will be, Villa Park or Craven Cottage? Think Fulham might get it in extra time.

Christ we are half cocked as a club 22:20 on a Friday night to make an announcement, it’s like a government trying to bury bad news when something else is afoot, it’s not as if it’s for the benefit of the Chinese as it’s 05:20 on Saturday morning, and if Guangzhou is anything to go by it’s bloody quiet for a city of 14:5 million people, they’re still in bed!! Still at least it’s done and dusted

There I corrected it for you we had had a game latter part of the season where we had a corner and for a moment all the players looked stood with a look of “oh who’s taking this?!” not long after we got another and they did it again. People mentioned Bertrand’s corners which last season were JWP style and damn good, there was no way Pellegrino was going to let Ryan go to a point furthest away from his defencive position. It is pretty pants that we only have one player capable of putting a ball into the box with pace and menace 9 times out of 10.

Everyone knows Tadic might have a bit more talent than JWP but since Koeman left, for someone viewed as so bloody great he has certainly left that talent somewhere safe for the last 2 seasons, plonker Puel said he would build the team round him, pipe and slippers came out, MoPe had no spine as it turns out Dusan just carries on but gets away with slacking a bit more. New Sheriff rides into town cracks the whip and rules with a rod of iron, Blimey Charlie we suddenly see a glimpse of the original Tadic. Up until just recently anyone with 2 fully operational eyes can see he’s been pretty disappointing and justifiable in copping flack off the majority of fans. Corners - Tadic v JWP = JWP Freekicks - Tadic v JWP = JWP Defending Tadic v JWP = JWP Given the choice of taker of a Penalty Tadic or JWP = JWP If you can say hand on heart say that you have 100% confidence in Tadic taking a penalty then you have truly bought the Emperors new clothes!

Well it’s pretty obvious he is a Marmite player

Good summary. Funnily enough all the knockers (an apt term for some) seem to reside on here and the sheep follow. Sat in the stadium on a match day you never hear a grumble, even from the persistent moaners, when he comes on, in fact you often heard more of a grumble when JWP was on the pitch with Tadic and JWP was subbed when Tadic was clearly the player who was doing chuff all for much of the game. Last couple of seasons he has improved and become more combative, in the European games, Milan at home in particular I noted that he was getting stuck into players with a bit more bite, and knowing what foriegn players are like for trying to hoodwink the ref, thought jeez he’s going to get booked for that or will do if he keeps that up, but the ref did nothing, I figured that having played so many European internationals every summer, and being an intelligent chap, he had worked out how to winkle the ball away without incurring attention from the ref. People say if he was any good someone would have been in for him, if you notice only headline players in teams get the attention to be sold to other teams the grafters or glue of the team very rarely get looked at. Funnily enough Bertrand, who many think is our only option at left back, could have gone last summer.........if someone had actually come in for him. So that example being used to emphasise just how rubbish JWP is pretty lame. Ah if only he didn’t come from Portsmouth and his first name was pronounced Ham-ezz!

Just popped up on Facebook, the club are all going ta-daa we’re off to China pre season look at us ain’t it great?!!! The majority of responses are “be nice to know who the manager will be”. You would think someone would go “oh this ain’t looking too clever”. Still a training camp in China in July, that’s going to find out who’s kept up with their off season fitness regime. It’s always a threat at work to be sent to China in July and August for factory inspections, the heat can be relentlessly oppressive.

And not forgetting the Old Gold shirt and Black shorts (a la Wolves) as our away strip. Last time we played in Navy Blue shorts, the shorts were still being referred to as knickers in the programmes

Aside from Gao, I don’t think there is anyone at the influence level at the club who is actually a businessman, hence the dithering by committee, Les Read sports coach worked at the FA wrote a book, Ralph Kruger sports coach wrote a book, Ross Wilson stumbled into football at Falkirk, found himself a role on the coat tales of the game. None of them from what I can tell have had a position in business where a decisive descision needs to be taken, striking while the iron is hot. The Coates family binned of Sparky early on when things weren’t quite right up at Stoke, Saints dithered for 2 months more, they binned of Lambert as soon as the season was done, in the modern competitive world of betting Bet 365, their main business, they can’t shilly shally of a descision that keeps their business at the top of their game. The dildo brothers at West Ham, they maybe objects of mirth due to the source of their wealth, but in reality the pair of them are business men who have made a lot of money selling titilation (you can imagine there is a fine line between a bit of naughty and pornography) Moyes kept them up, they felt Moyes wasn’t right to move forward with binned him off and pulled a rabbit out of the hat appointing Pellegrini on a “pay cut”. We haven’t had a cold hard face business man at the upper escelons of the club since Cortese was binned off, and before anyone says “what about Ms Liebherr she took on her late fathers businesses” Cortese was also removed from the board at Male the company Markus built and made his money, a comment to come out of that company after Cortese left was that it had gone from a company with drive to a company pretty much just floating along directionless. So in reality it’s little wonder it’s taking so long, we have an owner who bought a pretty bangle, with a board who have in reality never actually made true hardfaced decisive business decision in their working lives. Plenty of chat but nobody putting their balls on the table.

As I mentioned on the Hughes thread, I read that as well as Lambert going the Director of Football or whatever they call him up there, is also heading towards the door with Wimmer Berahino and A N other being his call not Sparky.

While we are waiting, I saw a piece in the paper over the weekend about Lamberts departure from Stoke. It went on to say that the DoF (or whatever Stoke called him) was also under severe threat of being shown the door, because of the failings of the recent signings there providing a very expensive bench if they were lucky enough to be selected. So whilst the Coates family maligned Hughes in a recent club statement, as widely commented, and feared, on here Hughes seemingly didn’t have the level of input into transfers that let him down. Taking the signing of Carrillo as an example, might be the reason why Hughes apparently doesn’t want players bought for him, by Les Reed, who he has no faith in and ends up the same creek as he found himself at Stoke.