Alain Perrin

When he was good, he was very very good, when he was bad he was awful. Yes he scored some great and vital goals in his early years, but in his later life at the club he was a waste of space. All except for the 20 mins or so and his goal vs. Pompey. IMHO we spent too long waiting for him to get fit and that was very disruptive at a crucial time. We'd have been better of getting someone else in and saving his wages because he was a right malingerer. We made a similar mistake with M. Svensson - albeit his injury was genuine.

Redknapp is a broken record. He tried the same "no depth" line when Saints lost to Mansfield. Basically he just wants the owners to dip into the transfer market so he can buy Rosie a new collar....

PR plants would use paragraphs. Fact is Nigel was out of his depth at the beginning of the season but, like many of the players, he was learning to swim. He made mistakes, like many of the players, but the fundamentals were (in my opinion) sound. If you believe in happy endings, he would have probably got us to where Cortese wants to go but not half as fast as Cortese wants to get there. The one area I think NA was lacking was one that he couldn't learn - and that is international profile. Do you think Pep or Jose would know of 'our Nige' - unlikely, and the same would be true of players we were trying to attract. Having played for Argentina and managed in La Liga, Pochettino at least has that. Spending big is a way of getting there faster. And say what you like about NA, but his signings were typically English and from the lower leagues (understandably). Cortese probably thought, loyalty, schmoyalty - I want results. As an afterthought, I do wonder if when Nigel took the job he was told that it was to get us to the Premiership and then Cortese would reassess. Hence the emotion after promotion last year - that might be reading too much into a highly charged situation, but if he thought his job was done (or uncertain), would explain the comments. It is far to early to say whether MP does the business, but is probably better placed than NA to do it quicker; but that depends on us staying up. p.s. If there were big rumblings from the players I've not heard of them (at least not before the sacking).

With respect, I think you're seeing what you wanted to see. That was a NA team putting in an NA performance - plus extra effort/bite from Ramirez and Guly. It will take time for the manager to make any noticeable difference but I think we'll see more aggression than with Nigel. I have a lot of time for NA and will miss him, however I also recognise he had some shortcomings. Some he couldn't help (international profile etc.) and some he could (sometimes he was a little too nice, and that rubbed off on the players resulting in last minute equalisers etc.). Poccy (I'm not sure I will ever learn to spell his name) will have shortcomings when compared to NA - but hopefully will bring positives over Nigel too.

Player in proving knee-jerk forumentalists wrong shocker.....

I broadly supported Lowe for the same reason I originally started supporting Saints. I like the underdog. One thing I like about Cortese is that he doesn't care about anything but success. Loyalty would have kept NA on to the end of the season - but loyalty would have delayed the project by 6 months. NC doesn't care what the fans think because he knows that a few wins and all will be forgotten. And if it all goes tits up NC can just do a Lance Armstrong on whoever South Today's equivalent of Oprah Winfrey is. It's a win win.

Did I see you in the Echo ripping up a season ticket over the parking charges, or was that someone else? I support the right to protest but my issue is that the mob take over and it rolls into the next game, and the next game, and the next game.... The Lowe era shows this club does 'toxic atmosphere' very well and I worry what that means for this season. Everyone wants success, and none more so tha Cortese. Unlike the fans though, Cortese's time horizon for achieving success is much shorter (I doubt he will still be here in 5 years) and because of that he sees replacing Nigel as needed. Your average fan would be satisfied by the success that NA was delivering, but Cortese wanted more. Time will tell if that is greedy or inspired. I suspect that Cortese needed but a few of his player negotiations to break down because of "Nigel who? I want to play for a bigger name", before he decided NA wasn't the man for the next phase. I support Saints, whatever, whenever.

I don't think that the issue is that we had gaps, I suspect it was how/ with whom we chose to fill them. Adkins' first direction was to sign young British talent from the lower leagues OR people he had prior experience of (Gazza, Jay R, Hooper, Forte etc.). I'd argue that that approach works well in the lower leagues, less well in the Premier League. NC wanted marquee signings, Adkins didn't mind - but that wasn't his instinct. NA was probavly too nice - preferring to keep faith in Kelvin than get a new Number 1. Gazza was a classic NA signing (all except for the British bit). Nigel was neither a big enough 'name' to attract big players, nor did he instinctively want them. Cortese is a man in a hurry, and he seems to have a plan that doesn't want to be slowed by loyalty. He wants results quickly. Too quickly? And what does it mean for SFC if the plan doesn't work out? Time will tell. No-one though can suggest that NC shirks unpopular decisions in puruit of what is his goal. The easy ride would be to keep NA, but that wouldn't get you there faster (nor perhaps at all).

It has worked really well for Chelsea's home form....... And FACT it will change **** all.

I can see this as a completely plausible reason for NC to meet with him.... to sound MP out about Coutinho?

Snow day. Kids at home. Sneaky one off the wrist and then post crap on the internet..

I may being a tad suspicious but whenever I read this, I read it as, "I couldn't make a decision between Google Translate or Bing Translate so I picked one and polished it to make me sound like I can read [insert language here]". That said, if you can speak Norwegian, good on you. Useless for business, useful for picking up "tibud" (as they say in Estonia).

Details here

This thread has gone downhill since it was unstuck. Nicola out FFS. On the Liverpool trial front I suspect it was less about trialing him, more about selling the club to him. It is stated that he wants to be starting / close to a starting place and Liverpool are only really in the market for a squad player (Skrtl and Agger being their vowel depleted first choices). I suspect they wanted to get him over and try and sell it to him but, when the offer came in from Saints, there didn't seem much point - he'll be much closer to first team action at SMS. If it was a straight choice between Liverpool and Saints, I suspect most players would chose Liverpool.

Telfer: Hod-carrying golf driver or Under appreciated utility player (then reuse for Jermaine Wright)

Adkins also said he had never heard of Yoshida....

I think Saints' business model is more sustainable than most. We have a strong academy production line which, to some extent, is self sustaining (the more good players we bring through, the more attractive we are to young good players etc.). That production line provides an income stream that other clubs don't necessarily have (at least consistently), it also means that we should have lower salary bills because young players cost less. Investing in the squad now is key for several reasons, not least because it helps retain our Premiership status which is good for revenue, academy player attraction and young player retention (the longer we keep players like Shaw, the more he's worth). I'm no expert, but I look at Everton and I see they have the drain of high salaries, a stadium they need to replace, an academy based more on luck than judgement and (as far as I know) have significant debts to service. Structurally I'd much rather be us; that said if Everton make the Champions League anytime soon then they may find a route out - but that depends on continued qualification which is a risky proposition. With Saint's stated aim of 50% academy products in the team we should have a model that is potentially more sustainable than Everton's - but it still relies on success on the pitch and in the academy.

Linked to Belgian international "Mboy" according to a poster on the Sky transfer clockwatch; they said it was reported in Belgium. I assume this is Mboyo - who has a contraversial past to say the least.

It's a well known fact that NC is half Italian, half Swiss and half Brazilian - therefore clearly he is behind this signing.... I'd argue that a wide forward is just what we've been after (hence pursuit of Matt Phillips)

Sorry that just isn't true,. He was blinded for the second and it went through someone's legs. Many a keeper would let that in - and those that didn't would have just got lucky. I don't think he's the best keeper in the Premiership and agree he doesn't control his box well, but many a team has struggled against the strength of Stoke up front - that's what they're good at.

It's certainly not an IQ test.... Seriously though, what did you expect? An unbeaten run that propelled us to the Champion's League? If you did, sadly you are deluded - forget what the club said about pushing for Europe, that's all about building confidence, this season was all about building a Premiership squad (and surviving). Adkins made significant changes to the team this year after being promoted ahead of schedule. For the starting eleven this has effectively meant two changes to the back four (Shaw, Clyne, Yoshida) and two changes to midfield (from Punch, Gaston and Davis). That's pretty major surgery on what was a League 1 side promoted ahead of schedule, and, after a bedding in period, they seem to be playing well together. Are we the finished deal, no. Will we get there? It depends on the January sales and injuries (including Lallana's). Has Adkins done everything right, no. Could you have expected him to? No. He's learning like the players and has and will make mistakes. His mistakes so far: - Not signing a Keeper when he clearly wanted one. - Persisting with Fox when he had doubts (hence trying to sign a LB in the summer - fortunately Shaw has stepped up) - You can point to subs and tactics but generally his tactics have been pretty good (foiled by individual mistakes more than anything) I really don't think you can expect much more from this season than what has been achieved.

This is clearly unacceptable. They should have had someone in monitoring the server logs 24/7 for errors over Christmas Day and Boxing Day to prevent these technical issues from occurring. To pay for this additional support I am sure we will all happily pay an increase in the ticket tax....

Sounds like the system had a problem on Boxing Day and no one has fixed it yet. I doubt very much if your account has been wiped. Suggest you report it to the club and hopefully they'll fix it. HTH.

It may not bother you, but I've not been impressed with the quality of the football since we moved to the Amex.