Ken Tone

The Radio Solent presenter then went on later to say that it may have sounded like Corteses had arranged a private flight but it was in fact just tickets on a scheduled one. No idea if this morning or yesterday, but dount we'd pay for hotel as well as flights. I presume it was more that Pardew meant Cortese agreed to the expense of a flying. There are some clubs in this division who'd have to go by coach today, with just an hour or so warm up before the match after a cramped 6 hour journey, never mind private planes. This is the third division when all's said and done. K.

I was pretty much alongside in the kingsland and was actually shouting at Waigo ..oh no you're offside again you *****, before the whistle went. I cannot understand how a player of his age can be so poor at this basic tactic. Don't run offside! It's really not that complicated a concept is it? K.

But since we didn't play 'hoof and run', your comments are not relevant. It was just one of those games. I was at the game but my son watched on Sky. He tells me the TV stats showed us to have had 69% of the possession in the second half and the commnetators spent time praising the Brighton keeper's role in keeping us out, which fits with how it looked to me. At times it was like a practice game, attack v defence. We'll be fine this season. This game was bit of a reality check ,that's all. You really can't win them all. K.

Which he is/was originally at least, but the commentator also implied he was the crane-firm Liebherr, ie his brother, as opposed to the 'common rail diesel' firm Liebherr. Re; Scummers' >>>slightly less surprised that they didn't know James' preferred position is central midfield. Am I the only person who thinks never what his preferred postion is, he is actually better at right back than central midfield now? k.

LOL Only if you pedal fast enough. Now if it were a BBC B or even a BBC master ........ K.

You can't make someone redundant if their job, or even one damn near the same, continues afterwards. It's the post that is redundant - not the post-holder. Technically when someone is described as being 'made redundant', they are actually being 'dismissed for reasons of redundancy', ie because their job has disappeared. So if there's still the same job there, then there is no redundancy. If you want to get rid of someone and employ someone better you have to sack them for incompetence, and take the risk that a tribunal won't agree they were incompetent. So if a shop assistant has been made redundant as such, the club cannot be employing a new shop assistant to replace him/her, unless the post is substantially different. This must be a reducation in the number of staff in the shop. K.

£500k is a huge amount for a largely untried L1 player. *If* Reading don't have him firmly in their plans for the future I'd have thought £200k or £300k was tops. This is the third division we're in now. Antonio has indeed made a difference when he's come on, but he's very raw. Most of his game is simply "push it past the defender and run like hell", which with his pace is effective at this level, but he'll need more to his game when we get promoted. Let's not forget that we have Kayne McLaggon recovering from injury, who to me at least, looked just as good (and as fast) last year at the higher CCC level. If he does return to full fitness and form, he will be excellent in L1. So personally I'd be happy to see Antonio's loan extended and/or him to sign for a modest fee, but not £500k. K.

Everyone thinks that whatever their own management style is, is the the one that works. It's like the way that everyone thinks they are a good driver, when demonstrably most of us aren't. Well let's be honest; what I really mean is most of you aren't. I'm just trying to win you over by phoney empathy ... another good management tool that the OP's boss seems to have perfected ;-) I've seen and experienced management by fear and by positive motivation ...'love' for short. Both work actually. 'Love' works a bit better than fear, but it's harder to achieve. As to Saints, yes Pardew will have his own style which will suit some more than others. When *the* overall boss of an organisation changes, it causes changes all through that organisation. Some workers adapt .. others leave. K.

Me too, on both counts. For the first few games of last season I was amazed at how well he had the youngsters playing. Yes he was limited and knew very little about English football .... he definitely had to go .... but most of the problems we had last season were out of his control to be fair, and he seemed a decent bloke. K.

And if there is an age problem, you can (or certainly could ..haven't tried recently) pay *in advance* to upgrade a kid's ticket to an adult for the one-off game. Sensible approach on the part of the club and no one defrauded. K.

It's never a nice day in Oldham, at least not at the football ground. Haven't been there for donkey's years but when there was a big open terrace for away fans the wind blowing down that slope was the coldest in the league. Bitter! Segregation wasn't too good either, especially since they habitually opened all the gates 15 mins before the game finished so the home fans moved into the away end looking for 'fun' if the away contingent was small. No doubt it is now all-seater with central heating. K.

No attempt to belittle coming up from me, everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but we played 4-4-2 against Bristol Rovers. So many attacks from them came down our left becasue Mellis wasn't there to stop them in midfield. The problem with our recent play has been that whoever is supposed to be on the left of midfield, especially when it has been Mellis, has constantly drifted infield and left Harding exposed at left back. He can't mark 2 or 3 players at once all by himself. Personally I think Harding has beeen a revelation at LB: an excellent signing. As to the ballboy rants that others have mentioned, I agree it doesn't look too savoury, but they do need sorting out a bit. One lad in front of the kingsland is often too busy texting to respond quickly to the game. It must be frustrating as a player running to the line to take a quick throw in, to signal to the ballboy 2 or 3 times that you want the ball, only to be ignored. K.

Well yes it is, unless the police say there is a crowd control/safety issue (surely not for this game) or the TV people dictate (also not for this game). K.

I think the club has shot itself in the foot here. It has forgotten how many fans travel a fair way to games. I'm sure I'm not alone in finding it just about impossible to get to a 7pm k.o. after work. Even 7.45 is difficult with end-of-rush-hour traffic down the A34 and M3. In effect the club has decided to make it 'take the little kids' evening for only those people actually living and working in Southampton. Fair enough, but I hope later stage games in the JPT are at normal times. Will be the first home game in any competition (as opposed to friendlies) that I've missed n about 12 years. Give them a shout for me. K.

I have no idea about this partuclar issue in the Itchen, but I echo the praise for Luker's responsiveness to supporters. I wrote to him this morning complaining about tuesday's unannounced late closure of car park B and got a reply within minutes, followed by further communication from a more appropriate employee. Personally I've got him on the "one of the good guys" list. K.

Don't think anyone really knows why they sing it. It goes back many years. Bit like Stoke and 'Delilah'. But to be fair they do sing it loud ....drowned out the northam from where I sit in the kingsland, and not just when they scored. K.

No. Trust me. It'll be a 0-0 draw at full-time, exhausting extra time, lots of injuries, then a close defeat for portsmouth on penalties. Carlisle emotionally and physically drained for saturday. Portsmouth humiliated. Ok? ;-) K.

You're assuming that Pinnacle ever really had any backers. Lynam's public statements on here were self-contradictory ... a consortium ,1 wealthy backer, the bloke from the London semi, a consortium again... Try reading his posts again. They're quite amusing in a sort of gallows humour, Walter Mitty, sort of way It seems very likely that, whoever they were, Pinnacle would in effect have been borrowing to buy us, so in effect the club would have been still pretty heavily in debt, as Pinnacle would have had to extract from club income enough 'profit' to cover their debt re-payments. So no mortgage as such , but loan repayments instead, albeit for a lesser amount than the old club debts allowing for the cheap purchase price. K.

Surely this shows a lack of understranding of how fans behave? If you think about the move to St Marys' no one designated the home bit of the northam as the main noisy home fans section. The police dictated that the away fans had part of it, and the home fans who like to be close to away fans therefore went there. We already have the whole of the chapel end as a 'home end'. It's just that the noisy fans choose not to sit there. IF the police agreed the necessary physical gorund alterations to put away fans in the itchen north -- the only possible alternative in terms of crowd managment to and from the stadium -- then the northam could indeed be given over entirely to home fans. But the reality is that then the current itchen north home fans would be just as likely to go to the itchen centre or south, as close as possible to the away fans. Why would the directors etc want to be in between away and home fans, and why would anyone buy an expensive box above away fans in the itchen? Or if (very unlikely) if the police agreed to put away fans in the chapel, all that would mean is that the noisy home fans would sit next to them there instead of in the northam. K.

Thanks Difficult to decide what is deliberate. Some handballs are in effect self defence, to avoid being hit in the face (or worse!). Deliberate, but ........ I suspect the one on Saturday was pretty much accidental, but he did seem to 'bat' the ball away a bit. K.

Where in the rules does it say a handball has to be deliberate? This is serious question. Some commentators talk about hand to ball, or ball to hand, as if that matters. Others talk about whether the player gained an advantage by the hand ball whether it was deliberate or not. As far as I'm aware, handall is handball. We lost a penalty last season when McGoldrock protected himself in the wall. Btw I saw it clearly hit his right hand and said in a bitter tone, "and that was a handball" thinking the ref had missed it, so was delighted when the lineman had the bottle to give it in spite of so few shouts. K.

The club's motive is presumably to make it easier/more suitable for young kids to go. I can't see any other reason for the change apart from an assumption by Saints that it'll be a young kids' night out rather than a normal crowd. Otherwise they'd move all evening games to 7. K.

Surely it was Strachan that was keen on yogurts? Remember the classic Delgado quote? "I've got more important things to worry about. I've got a yogurt that goes past its sell-by date today." K.

Doesn't Frannie hold some sort of saints youth scoring record, playing as a striker ? ...which made his 1 goal in a millenium at first team level even more remarkable. K.

You mean Trevor Hockey, aka 'the werewolf' ? Now there was a player. Saw him playing for Norwich once many years ago when I was at uni there. Sent off in the first few minutes. As to this thread, the set up at Saints now seems excellent, the squad pretty strong (and will be better when Holmes and McLaggon are in it) and if I hadn't seen most of the games with own eyes I'd assume we'd have won 3 or 4 by now. How we've gone 6 league games without a win with this team in this league is beyond understanding. K.