Frank's cousin

Beg to differ - money provides a huge advantage, but it needs to be invested wisely and within a well managed long term strategy - which is what we have done. Many clubs have had money but keep failing to maintain long term success - Blackburn won the title through massive spending, but spending just on players and wages, not investing in infrastructure, or youth development, which is why since the money dried up, they have struggled. Our 'blue print' needed money to kick start it, given where we were (L1) and money again to invest in additianal quality as we came up through the divisions so quickly and therefore had to spend a fair amount just to survive and a bit more to be competitive, whilst the fruits of the academy take time to develop. Without money you end up as a Crewe - successful academy, but never enough cash to augment youth with quality experience to progress through the divisions... so money has enabled us to follow our strategy rather than just spend spend spend on short term improvements. The 'success' of our 'blueprint' will only realy be measureable in 5 or 10 years time, if w can maintain a competive challenge in teh top flight, yet also turn a profit/break even as the conveyor belt replaces older players or those who simply want to leave for 'bigger' clubs.

Clasic saints ins ome respect - we dominated, some pretty stuff, but failed to penetrate more incisively. Think we need to score early, that seems to drive us on with confidence and had JPs goal been given, think we would have gone on to win by 2 or 3. Sunderland were awful - played like a Championship away side, with 10 behind the ball and demonstrated the biggest problem with the premiership risches - the fear of defeat and relegation - for me its always why we struggled more against the lower half teams than the top, because we need sides who have confidence to come on to us and attack, for our pasing to be effective. We still do not have the pace and skill of the top sides to carve up 10 man defences consisitently - a definite improvement on last season so far but MP needs to come up with plans to deal with these opostion tactics - becaius at least half the sides we should be beating will employ them when they visit us and BIg Sam will be the next... I just hop we can muller them, because until sides adopting those tactics get beat regularly, rather than being applauded for surviving because of them, we will get this negative shiedt...

Aye, but teh first was a daft decision by the ref... so at least he probably recognised it. Thought it was clear he is going to give us something special - love that passionate swagger, confidence and attitude. Sure he will probably get a few bookings, but a team needs a bit of that. Hopefully that attitude wil rub off a bit on Gaston, who needs that confidence if he is to adjust. Nice debut, see him playing on Tuesady to get into teh grooove and can see him scoring.

Always looks skillful, but to me still seems to lack confidence - at times looks like a boy playing with older kids - is better skillfully, but often looks upset as he gets knowckjd around a bit and drops his head a bit when his passes dont come off. Think he could be superb, but is struggling a bit to adjust to the pace. He needs games - full games and his confidence should improve. I like his fluidity, and can see why w bought him, but he needs to deliver consistently, and that will only come if he can adjust and gain that elusive swagger that was clear in Osvaldo today.

More than a passing resemblance to Dave Navarro from his Jane's Addiction Days Cool fecker

When you think that an Average ticket increase of £5 only raises an extra £2.8mil if sold out, its not a huge commercial contribution, but woudl fund a £40k a week salary... this is the problem. If w ewant to be competitive in this league we need to maximise revenues. Yep biggest chunk is from TV, around 50 mil, with gates probably peaking at around £17mil (if we can average a ticket price including all kids and concessions) - 70-80mil in revenue would mean approx 45mil for playing squad - which is only 22 players on average of 30k a week when you afctor in all NIs and other associated costs... so we do have to make our choices - do we want better more expensive players or cheaper football? ironically its those lower table clubs that have less comemrcial revenue, that need to charge more, yet are often cheaper due to supply and demand... teh gap just widens and will *****inue to do so, as those top clubs get round FP rules through mega sponsorship deals....

Its probable, but even NC would look at all the factors - key is that there is clear progress made, but if we are unlucky with injuries to key players etc then that would be some form of mitigation. Think we know there is a desire to progress quite rapidly, against the judgement of some of what is possible, and I do think NC is smart enough to learn from the experience we have last and this season. If it becomes clear that although we have 'progressed' and improved, so have many others therefore its relative, then he will probably need to re-evaluate the timescale for his desired success. 14th would be dissapointing to me, if we fail to see improvements in those areas that were identified as being our weaknesses last season. But ditching MP would send out the wrong signals to me - we start to show that we are too impatient when we should also be recognising that MP is also still learning and will hopefully improve as the squad does. I suspect that NC knows that the speed of progression will in part be down to how quickly the younger talents can come good and become consistent. That is a pretty much unknown factor.

Its all a conspiracy... this place is like the Daily Mail in the 1930s appeasing facists.... reckon they have some dirt on Granty or its about appeasing those nasty chaps at the UI... either way there seems little or no will by the MOds to change anything, so reckon they must have enough fivers for a few more currys before tehy worry about the decline in subs?

Firstly I did not, I stated that the selective pressure for parents to stick around led to the evolution of secondary sexual characteristics such as pleasure from sex and emotional bonding. In most individuals these two 'needs' have become greater than the biological or natural 'need, for reproduction. Or do you only ever have sex when you want to reproduce ? ...and you are forgetting that these physiological effects that can occur 'naturally' such as those mentioned in those studies are only possible because these hormonal shifts are part of the natural variation in the physiology during gestation. Any behaviour we exhibit as humans is normal- because we are physiologically capable of exhibiting it. It is society, through various mechanisms be they religious doctrine, politically motivated or simply social 'convention' that lead to suggesting things are not natural or taboo. In some cases there is a genuine rational reason for such determination - behaviours such as murder or other crimes area naturally not tolerated, but only in those societies that remain ignorant is there a fear of homosexuality.

Indeed... The most popular misconception about natural selection is that the payment believes its 'for the good of the species' - it's not. - natural selection acts as the level of ten individual. if as a consequence of some selective pressure a side effect of a gene being dominant was a desire for man love, and man love alone, we could as a species die out... Genes are NOT altruistic. So you may laugh and take the **** Turks but you are simply factually wrong in doing so. Like I said , go read up on it.

This one is so simple....our emotions for others and also 'pleasure' from sex, are typical secondary sexual characteristics we have evolved through the the anisogamy we exhibit... In effect the drive is not just about reproduction, but about ensuring our offspring survive to pass on our genes again... And from a evoltionary perspective, at some point offspring without two or more adults were less 'fit' in survival terms... So there would have been an evolutionary selective pressure for those you exhibited a desire to stick around... Emotional connects, pleasure from sex etc evolved... And like all evolved genetic behavioural characteristics, many have additional consequences that are not associated with the original selective pressures... The odds of 1 in 10 being gay is total Ballacks - the 1 in 10 is have experienced a homosexual event - as many young folk do when confused and hormonal in adolescence.... But the feck wit ignorant IRressuss or whatever the feck his name is, is factually WRONG. Homosexuality is just as normal as say and emotional love between man and women... Because both only exist because the was an evolutionary advantage to evolve love and pleasure.... In some this has become stronger genetically than reproduction, and as such reproduction is not the 'normal driver' erresuuuyu you are talking a load of crap... I know this as I have a 1st class honours in evolutionary biology and the impact of anisogamy on the evolution of secondary sexual characteristics and behaviours is pretty standard stuff if you bothered to get a fricken education and not simply accept your own ignorance.

Like Apartheid should have been left to the South Africans and we should all just have sent our sportsmen and women? Come on DP, the principle IS the same - the difference is only in the way people view racial prejudice v prejudice against other minorities.... The saddest part in all this is political hypocrissy shown by Govenernments - our and others happy to brush such things under the carpet in fear of offending powerful, strategically improtant or commercially sensitive countries - happy to criticise ethinic cleaning in former Yugoslavia because 'who the feck are they'? Criticise Chinese human rights? Nah.... and Canerons wresponse was as pathetic as it was predictable.

Well, Stats that are accurate are never in doubt - more how they are interpreted. Also using historc data to predict is a difficult one. If all clubs were in exactly thye same position, same players etc no transfers its would have more merit, but even then players a year older which for some will mean more experience and others past their prime.. so whilst interesting, not sure it is a very accurate way of predicting - we could hbe twice as good as last year, but if everyone else is 3 x as good, we go backwards in relative terms ;-)

Nah, you and the bear are just so friggin mental you are actually funny, the likes of Alps is just a miserable git, but just his genuine frustration and passion exploding, so acceptable IMHO. What ruins this place are those who simply enjoy irritating and spoiling every thread with their patronizing, agenda laden rubbish when dome just want to discuss something - every transfer or player debate is not so subtly turned into a critique about someone or something being wrong at the club. We all know they have a dislike for NC and his approach, yet like to pretend that they will praise when its due and criticise when necessary... fair enough, if that was the truth, but the simple fact they look to ruin every thread with the same shiedt, suggests otherwise. they simply enjoy winding folk up and then sit their most likely with their dicks out sn igggering at the responses - just odd really.

Saints in making some transfer errors shocker! Well Dune you would be right to pished off if we were the only side to do so... but ....

Funnily enough, I dont actually have a problem with him or his agents telling it like it is. Its pretty obvious that any player would idealy want to go to a club playing in Cl etc, rather than a smaller, yet upwardly mobile club - even if we do offer an acceptable wage. Rather have some honest from these guys for a change, than bollix about 'always wanted to come here, vision, love Southampton blah blah...' Ultimately, if we did buy some miracle pull this off, he would be desperate to give it his all - even if only re the WC selection, we benefit from that. All this expectation about loyalty, loving the club etc is for the naive to swallow up. If someone gives tehir best in the saints shirt, matters not what his reasons are for being here or if its a stepping stone to something better. Its the job of teh club as it hopefuly progresses to make our best players realise they can take nexts steps with Saints. Fans who moan about players leaving for 'bigger' more successful clubs forget that ultimately the club have to make themselves more attractive to get them to want to stay. I would say we have become a more attractive proposition in each of the previous 4 seasons, aligned with our progress - we continue to progress and we will become more attractive - simple.

Not sure you can say that - afterall we have not had any word about 'expecting BIG signings' from the club, just the normal that they will look to get in players that are better than what we have, young etc. All teh stuff about big signings is really only fuelled by the rumours and then on sites like this where fans build their own theories and then when it does not happen blame the club. The prem is still attractive given the wages, but tax is an issue and there are many more 'new rich' clubs in Europe with CL qualification that make them more attractive. All depends on what you expected. I go by what teh club has always said - a desire to progress eventually to Europe, by a mixture of homegrown and quality young signings - if no one they think fits the bill is available so be it. Whether NCs stated ambition is achievable or not following those principles is another matter, but not seen them state anywhere that we are after big signings... just better in a few key positions. Just as important is keeping talent and so far that has played out nicely.

e anThink given that so far we dont really have a scooby about what all this could or could not mean, until we have someone with corporate accounting skills tell us in laymans terms... hopefully it wont see a fall into wonton speculation like the inbreds down the road seem to be orgasmically enjoying in typical misinformed manner. It could be perfectly normal, useful, or bad... but until we know any different, cant really comment. Having said that, I dont think we should ignore it - we have quite rightly criticised those that worship at that cowshed for choosing to ignore any hint of goings on that did not involve spending wildly on mercenary internationals. Would be interesting to get perspectives of those who DO know what this all means and the options that it presents, even if we do not know the details. Just wondering (and pure speculation), whether part of the agreement reached between NC and the Liebherrs was that they would at some point get back what has been put in so far, and that then NC would be able to run as he sees fit etc.... but as said, wild speculation

Ha ha... and that is why you are chairman/manager of a prem side? Jeez, Barry we all know you love finding fault where there is none, but at least TRY and make for a credible response. That way you can at least come across as having some sort of valuable opinion, rather than a WUM axe grinder of minimum humour. NC/MP/LR... have always stated that they a) wont waste money and buy for the sake of it b) will look to develop our own youngsters up to a 50:50 ratio, c) wont buy unless we can find something better than what we already have. So far we have bought 2 players who wll improve in two areas, and have seen during preseason that with Chambers and Isgrove slowing showing promise to add to Shaw and WP, there seems to be no deviation from the plan. Pretty obvious we are after a striker, but no point in going for anything less than better than what we have - we seem to have tried, but not been successful - as better than what we have is a) expensive and B) likely to want Euro football/big wages... but there is a month to go and we will no doubt keep trying.... .. in activity? there' aint a face palm big enough for this thread...

To be honst, these sorts of comments are pretty typical after a 'Change'. The sqaud and Adkins had come a long way together on the 'bus'. achieved a huge amount and realised the ambition of a return to top flight. They then had a bit of a rude awakening, in that whilst still playing well and often with style, the reality was that at the higher level, mistakes were punished and results tough to get. No surprize if there were feeling teh pressure, and that gets to everyone eventually, especially if Nige was living on borrowed time anyway. The change was clearly a positive, in that it shakes things up and helps get out of any rut, new training, new faces eventually and new ideas. Not always necessarily better, but different and that's often the important thing. Think Adam's comments and those we have seen from othere reflect that + the the fact we have invested reasonably and that also potentially injects a new enthusiasm.

Fascinating maybe not, but thank you for honouring me with a reply. It was worth it just for that.

It does not **** me off Wes, for me this place is NOT that important, but it would just be nice to have a discussion now and again... humourous or otherwise. If thats not possible, no point signing up. No skin off my nose as I have plenty of alternatives, they obviously don't.

At the risk of boring you senseless which is your most common response, not sure how someone of your obvious intellect fails to grasp such simple points.... There will always be a difference between how folks respond to positive of negative articles - from whichever paper, even those mindless numpties at Britain's favourite 'Mail' - a paper which loves to turn important issues such as immigration in to bigoted rants to appeal to the 'little Englanders'... but that is another matter There is never really any need to be concerned about positive articles, whether they are true or not, makes no difference, as they have no impact - you can choose to believe if you wish, and most judge on previous form, but ultimately apart from maybe raising expectations in a few, mean feck all Negative articles on the other hand can be damaging - fair enough most is tomorrows chip wrapper, but nonetheless, they can leave bitterness, and can be harmful to reputations, business etc - so quite naturally when sensible folks read negative press, they will question the source and look for supporting evidence - or do you always believe everything you read? Cortese back in the press... revealing precisely feck all. He may appear in the news now and again, but as we have seen reveals nothing so is consistent with his desire to keep the important business behind closed doors.. You and Turks are strange, seriously, that you seem to get so much pleasure and amusement from winding up and irritating folks on a web forum, like some sort of virtual playground, you two 'bullies' with Hypo like some weedy kid hanger on believe its hilarious... please tell me, just what is the point? HOw serious someone wants to take all this has got feck all to do with anyone else... but you guys simply cant let it lie. .. eventually you 3 will be the only ones left in the playground as no one can have any discussion, humourous or serious without yuo and your wee chums sn iggering pathetically for your own enjoyment... seriously wierd

Boy needs to get on the SRL diet and trim up ;-) Lets see what he can do

Its why they almost wish Rangers were back up already, as at least they got 4 games and the European games. Think the Spl and sfl rejoining is good, but as with England, they should really not have so many professional clubs - 2 pro divisions of 16 would be better for them