Mowgli

lol at the confession Can only see our major deals being concluded on the last day. Everyone holding out for the best deal.

And how far have you grown in 3 years (sic)

Ramirez needs a bit more class around him before we see him at his best, but he generally gets better nd better. Having said that, he suffers from the fact that our record transfer was pegged at£4m for eleven years. £12m is not a huge amount of money today.

To be fair to Ramirez, that is not his best position. Agree otherewise, Lambert playing deep to Rodriguez as a lone striker seems to bring the best out of both

What a load of rubbish. His weight was forward and he fell over. It was not a penalty and he did not try to cliam one. Just a strange decision from the referee.

Comparisons are difficult but I share St Charlie's opinion. And I've been supporting Saints 50 years. You can roll out statistics and some of those of other managers are indeed although financial comparisons are pretty menaingless because its a totally different game now. Adkins has shown ability to manage at different levels in the league demostrating his in depth knowledge of the game and how to play it at different levels. He has changed styles and formations to suite the league we are in. His background is a mixture of player, physio, phycologist and leader - qualities our other managers have had some of but not all. He has shown an ability to work with (allegedly) a difficult Chariman. Areas that I had my reservations on were his ability to handle big stars and how to integrate kids - areas where many of our fomer managers have shown a weakness. Above all he has shown resilience to work his way through difficult runs without ever doubting his own self believe. Above all that he is a nice guy, he handles the media well (without saying too much) and he is respectful to all in the game - a credit to the club. In my view he is up there with Ted Bates (not necessarily better but up there). To be fair, Hoddle is a bit of an idiot and clearly could not handle Le Tiss. Strachan got lucky with us and left because he knew he could take us no further. Nichol was good but was not an inspirational leader of the players and Ball was just a really likeable guy who could only really survive when things were going well. I doubt he would have lasted more than a season or two had he not walked out on us. It's all about opinions though isn't it?

The Echo is on its way out. Cannot survive financially. Their main source of income is advertising and advertisers are deserting them. They cannot afford to take on proper journalists and rely on desktop (aka google) research rather than traditional investigative journalism. So we are probably as capable of picking up the stories as they are. Actually some are clearly direct lifts from this forum! Given that they have spent decades scaring old ladies with bad news stories and knocking the club, it's difficult to have any sympathy.

That's just laughable. if they have that litle impact why don't we just sell them! The truth was we matched Chelsea for 40 minutes and folded on the half time goal. Game over. Chelsea were good but on our day, with all our star players on the pitch, we are capable of beating anyone. Sadly we are also capable of losing to anyone....

Assume away. I suspect you would be disappointed.

If I remember his Dad screwed his chances of coming here. Does seem to think a lot more of himself than others do though. We should not be looking to sign any player who is not substantially better than we have already. He's not.

Hardly anything to draw conclusions from but Villa 3 Chelsea 1 Everton 3 Man U 0 Wigan 3 Man C 0 Newcastle 1

Current squad good enough to secure 17th. Probably 15th. But with £1m + for every place in the league, strengthening the squad could almost pay for itself. And give the stringer players a chance to gel before the new season.

Actually we signed three keepers in the summer. Gazza, Boruc and Cropper who has done alright with the U21s. Looking better each game and commands his area well. Young but good prospect.

Given that Bale has successfully converted to a more forward position, I would reckon there is room for both Shaw and Taggart in a future Saints team, overlapping on the left. I remember David Jones started Wayne Bridge in left midfield before left back because he wanted him to understand what sort of ball a player wants to receive in that position.

And Gazza lost his place due to injury. Apart from that diddig got it spot on.

Kelvin may well have reached the endof his playing career but his value to the coaching team would be immense.

I think you will find all those players that were contracted to wear umbro boots have been sent replacement Nike boots this week (they now own umbro and are phasing the brand out). Owen tweeted something to that effect.

No way. Unless they offered Walcott back plus a sum to make up the difference. No. Still no way....

Selective memory loss or subtle sarcasm?

What an advert for premier league football! Great game. Saints took it to them and whilst 3-1 was a bit flattering at half time they were well worth the draw. Normally I would be ****ed off with a late equaliser but given the quality of the strike, I am not. Good points from today? The performances of j rod and Guly were much better than I expected. Nice cameos from fox and Richardson too. Puncheon is starting to be our most consistent high performer. Another MOTM performance from him. Happy with a point. Looking forward to the arsenal now.

Here's an idea. Why don't we stop making up conspiracy theories and recognise saints are pursuing a player in a position we all know needs strengthening.. Sounds like a good target o me.

He's both. The original question was about first teamers comnig from the academy. Stephens was signed for the development squad. He was promoted from the academy to the first team at the start of this season.

Really? Our cup games are already close to that target. Lallana, Shaw, Ward Prowse, Hoskins, Reeves and Stephens are all academy stars. Chambers too. Which brings me back to the original question about centre backs. Stephens will be one of our first choice centre backs in due course. Watching the U21s the other week I was hugely impressed by Turnbull too. Matt Young and Matt Targett good full backs too. Great promise for the future - and that's just in defence.

Very much doubt it as he signed a new contract at one in june

Get over it. It was time to move on three years ago.