Ken Tone

Fannythorpe?

Sunday times had a piece quoting Adkins clearly saying 'we don't want to sell' etc, then the article ended with, 'but he did not confirm that Chamberlain was staying'. What does the bloke have to say? Elsewhere on the same page it said that Chambo was expected to move to Arsenal or Man U by the end of today. Either the papers are all together making this up, or someone has really been feeding them a line. Why? Who? ...His Dad to boost Chambo's wages. Saints to boost a transfer fee? Deliberate tapping up by the big clubs? Dark forces undermining the club?

The first thing to look at when any research is publicised in the media, is who paid for the research. In this case it was the girls day school trust, an organisation that has a vested interest in 'showing' that girls are better taught separately. It's like the old milk marketing board saying that milk is good for you, or the tobacco companies trying desperately to prove that smoking does not kill you and trying to show smoking as sexy when it is the biggest single cause of impotence in young men. What does this research show? Oh gosh, that it might be a good idea to put girls and boys in separate classrooms Well there's a thing! Maybe if they let the girls who go to these independent schools wear trousers instead of skirts as part of their uniforms, they'd be happier learning in colder classrooms?

Lallana can play either side,and will be back soon enough IF Chamberlain isn't going this window. If he does go, buy/loan someone else.

Here's another possible interpretation for you to consider: Adkins is broadly happy with the squad, especially he has now made permanent the 2 loan signings he had and fixed Lallana's contract (...and is keeping AOC???) He's made a few offers for relative big names, but we're not prepared to pay silly money, since we don't need to ..(cf he's happy with squad as it is) However after deciding that Puncheon had lost his bus ticket, he's signed this fella on loan to give short term cover for Lallana ..and who knows maybe he'll turn out to worth keeping, in which case great. If not ,no loss. that is why it is a loan not a permanent deal.

I'm more worried about peterborough catching us. They have a game in hand and can overtake us, so automatic promotion is no longer in our own hands as it briefly was a few games back. We now need others to do worse than us.

Only fair because where I sat in the Dell you literally could smell the embrocation on the players. Setting the stands back further from the pitch as they are at St Mary's and every other modern stadium a) increases safety, b) protects the poor players from the crowd (Beckham reputedly hated the Dell where he could actually hear the insults!), and most importantly c) allows more spectators to see. If the stands were right at the pitch edge and went up at the same angle as now, they'd be considerably smaller stands.

It's not a running track, but I swear there are a couple of bus stops on the Itchen side, near the dougout, just outside the building.

Irritating yes, but when you look at it dispassionately, it is good for us. The more the public believe we have a great academy and that our 'graduates' go on to great things, the more likely it is that promising youngsters will come to us in future years.

Presumably some git in the media will now start a 'younger Oxlade-Chamberlain to Arsenal' story. I've never seen him play but I reckon he's worth £14 million easy.

Hmm. He says he's 6'3" whereas other sites say he is 5'10". Doesn't give you much confidence in the rest of the report goes it?!

(My italics) So doesn't all this constitute illegal 'tapping up' of our player by Arsenal?

More importantly he fits the strategy of buying the opposition's best player. Peterborough have games in hand on us and can overtake us if they win them. We need them to tail off a bit, so nicking their goalscorer seems a good way to do it, and it would **** off a Ferguson - always a bonus.

Are you Puncheon's agent or something? He's got a history throughout his career of things starting out well at clubs then going sour. The common factor is all those recurrences is .. Puncheon. As for him covering 2 positions etc against Blackpool, what game were you watching? I saw the usual Puncheon .... lots of bits of skills spoiled by lots of bits of rubbish, beating his man only to pass to the opposition etc, and some shockingly poor shooting. I never boo any of our players and have never booed Puncheon, but frankly I would be perfectly happy to see him go, especially if we can sign a decent replacement as cover for AOC and/or Lallana.

I presume Atkins is the bloke we've signed as cover for Adkins? Nigel must have a secret injury. Why haven't we been told? And people mock those that say we need more cover! Apparently the reserve chairman, Corteze, is still on the bench though.

I'd interpret that as "Yes it is ok as far as we know, but we are covering our backs in case someone points out something we haven't thought of". The 'not withstanding' clause is a catch-all 'not our fault if this advice is wrong guv, so you we won't be able to sue us for compensation. You're on your own mate'.

If we are in a pedantic frame of mind, may I just say how much I hated hearing the song lyrics, "If I just lay here..." ? Every time it was played, I wanted to shout, "If I just lie here! You lay a table, but you lie down! And anyway, it probably would be better expressed as 'if I were to lie here'." (Please note the correct use of 'and' to begin a sentence.) Strangely, I did not find my popularity at the time increased to the degree that I felt this valid and constructive criticism deserved.

This. In fact 'French captain' is ambiguous as it could mean he was captain of anything, from a boat to his club team, but happens to be French. So 'France captain' is preferable for clarity of meaning because it can only mean captain of a national team representing France, even though it sounds wrong.

Fair point, but once we stop buying top scorers there is plan B where we buy every other club's captain ...cf Hammond, Seaborne, Wotton (?), .... Obviously the ideal transfer target is a rival L1 club's top scorer who happens also to be captain.

I'm not an expert but I think you are underestimating just how screwed their real (as opposed to football) creditors were. The cva has started; they have exited admin via a cva. It's just that the cva is so lousy that they can easily vary the repayment schedule within it.

Ah yes, an interesting, but debatable, use of the collective singular which grates badly. It's almost correct, if you squint a bit and have a following wind.

You people just don't get the strategy do you? We should simply buy the top scorer from every other team in the division. Not only would that give us extra 23 squad members we need to be safe, but we'd be weakening the opposition at the same time. It was after all pretty much the strategy we started last season .... Lambert, Barnard, Puncheon were all their club's top scorer weren't they?

I think everyone else already knew that! Now, may we get on to the misuse of 'accept', when 'except' is meant please?

PS in fact the only link for N'Lundula from google is to a PSG fans forum where one of them has spelt N'Lundulu's name with an 'a'. J'ai lu l'article sur N'Lundula sur "espoirs du foot" et lui a déjà passé pro c'est trés bien ! També aussi chez nous, et alors le Kebano est-ce qu'il est encore à Paris ? ..which I think means something like I read an article about N'L as one of the hopes of football , and he's already signed a pro contract, then goes on about other players.

Do you honestly believe that someone from Saints putting a name of a triallist on twitter will be that accurate with spelling a foreign name? Half our own fans still seem to think our manager's name is Atkins. You'll be telling us next that you use the definitive Dave Merrington guide to the pronounciation of footballers' names. In all fairness (copyright DM!) it could be that there is also a N'Lundula as well as a N'Lundulu in English football, but it brings up nothing on google.