the mick channon windmill

personally i think bart should be our first choice keeper

i feel sick....... going to take me a long time to get over losing to them. I hope we havent kickstarted their season, I hate them so much

I remember that game clearly as well, was absolutely gutted when they equalised. Similar thing had happened the season before against Luton and happened again a few years later against stockport. All quarter final games that we should have won but ended up getting beat in replays

i third the request. Please someone do it for all us saints fans currently living outside the uk.

If he is as good as people are raving about and potentially premier league standard why are Plymouth loaning him out and looking to sell him??? Did he play at the game at St Marys? I can't say i can remember him standing out that day if he did and unfortunately i couldnt make it to Milton Keynes for the cup game. I'm sure judging by the reports and what people on here are saying about him he is a very good player but i cant remember seeing him play. Why would Plymouth be wanting to sell him though???

I will not be buying the Echo until they appologise or there is a change in their management. I refuse to pay money and support a campaign that is out to damage the football club that i love.

Yes we do have a free press in this country but that doesnt explain why the local southampton paper is printing stories giving reasons why our striker should consider joining Newcastle. And there is no excuse whatsoever for the way they have chosen to report this story about cortese. I do get your point about freedom of speech and it is a very valid one. With that in mind however the Echo has the freedom to print whatever they want but they choose to print stories that are at best negative about saints and at worst potentially very harmful. The echo has gone too far, Southampton FC do not need the Echo, the fans with all the alternative media options available these days do not neeed the Echo. The paper should have been reflecting the mood of the community in rejoicing about our new owners but they have chosen to go a very different route.

Cortese is a man with a vision for Saints, there is no doubt about that. Personally i believe that vision could be higher than any of us dare to currently imagine. He has been extremely successful in everything he has done and the signs are that will continue with saints. He is a very smart man and i think he realises that with the infrastructure and fan base that we have this club could be massive. The talk is of 5 year plans to get back to the premiership and how we will spend appropriately for whatever level saints are at. I dont want to think too far ahead or dream too much but with saints back in the premier league and with ML's financial backing, a full st marys stadium again, i can see the stadium being extended and Saints being taken to a level that we should have been taken to after we won the FA cup and were signing two times current european player of the year. I have thought for a long time that cortese was virtually 100% responsible for bringing ML onboard. It appears to be the dream partnership and i still have to pinch myself sometimes to make sure this is all actually happening. I am so grateful for what Cortese has done for us and he will probably never realise just how much what he has done means to me and the many thousands of saints fans in southampton and around the world. Without doubt my life has changed beyond belief since he and ML came into the club. For many years i watched rich owners coming into other clubs and investing huge sums of money and watched on enviously. I was always confused as to why southampton was overlooked given the huge fanbase that we have and lovely part of the world the city is in etc. I am sure the sense of achievement that Cortese would feel from taking saints from league 1 to the premiership and beyond would be almost impossible to match in any other business venture. I am so pleased he has come out and made this statement as i was very worried after reading the reports yesterday. I couldnt care less that Cortese has fallen out with the Echo, yes it would be nice if they got on but to be honest the Echo as a newspaper has been going rapidly downhill over the last few years. The Echo is supposed to support the local community and should be backing this regime 100% but instead they are out looking for sensational stories and it really annoys me. Yes of course report the truth but it appears the Echo is quire happy to print stories that harm our club. I think people should boycott the Echo as the paper is now getting petty and some of the rubbish they are printing could damage the club. Cortese as stated earlier is a very successful man and has hardly put a foot wrong since walking into the club. I would back his judgement to make the right call and back him in whatever he does as he has not only saved saints from going out of existence but we are hopefully at the start of a journey that will take us beyond our wildest dreams

The game between charlton and orient is pretty much irrelevant to us. Due to the impact of the -10 and team building that was going on at the start of the seaon teams such as charlton built up a gap that was always going to be too big for us to catch by the time our form picked up. Our form since the start of October has been very very good in both league and cups. The reality is though that no matter how good our team now is we can realistically only hope to finish 5th or 6th now. That is still possible this season no doubt about it but its essential we beat huddersfield, swindon and mk dons. These teams will drop points in other games and they can be caught. The gap between ourselves and 6th spot at the end of September i believe was around 18 points so we are closing in on that gap and will continue to do so. The only teams we need to be focusing on are those teams likely to be a threat to us for 5th or 6th spot ie huddersfield, mk dons and swindon. It would be better for the likes of leyton orient, southend, gillingham, oldham etc to beat these teams even if it means we temporarily drop a place or 2 in the table.

Sorry, yes you are right......... i meant to say United Kingdom instead of Great Britain.

Correct its not difficult........ Northern Ireland (Ulster) is part of Great Britain. Republic of Ireland (Eire) is not British. Roy Keane is from the Republic of Ireland and therefore not British. Whereas George Best was from Northern Ireland and really was one of the greatest players to come from Britain. Colin Clarke and Ian Dowie were also from Northern Ireland, not quite sure you would put them in the same bracket as Georgie Best however!!

Were you born in Southampton or did you grow up in the city? Neither of which is obviously a requirement to be a saints fan and indeed its great to see saints fans all over the world, many of which have probably never set foot in our fair city. However if you did not grow up in Southampton you cannot really understand the depth of feeling between Southampton and Portsmouth. Its not just a football thing its far far deeper than that. Hyperthetically speaking it wouldnt matter if we played a team like Reading, Bournemouth or Aldershot season after season in the Premier league, Pompey would always be our rivals even if they were playing non league. You mention in an earlier post that you thought it was childish that saints fans were gloating about pompeys current situation. Of course saints fans are happy, i would have been shocked had Pompey fans not had been gloating when we were in that situation as well last season. I dont particularly care if other teams in the region are doing well or not, i have no depth of feeling either way for the likes of Aldershot, Reading or Bournemouth. What i do have is a love of Southampton and a hatred of Portsmouth and that will never change no matter what the circumatances.

You could argue he was one of the best British midfielders of all time when you consider the fact he is not British.

i'm sure he doesnt give a **** about us either but there was no need for his antics the day we got relegated from the premier league. Emotions were running very high that day and he was out of order.

Should not underestimate the support that carlisile would take for the final. They do get small attendances in this league like most clubs do but they have quite a large supporter base and have proven they will take around 30,000 in previous finals. Carlisle is a similar size town to burnley, blackburn or bolton etc who are all currently in the prem and they would get similar size crowds as these clubs if they were also in the prem a bit like oldham did a few years ago

shut up idiot

My thoughts exactly...... infact i guess most saints fans will be hoping for these players

Danns would be a top quality signing and is just the sort of player we need, he was superb when he was at colchester recently. I really hope there is truth in this rumour and we can pull it off

i would be absolutely devastated if this happened as he would be almost impossible to replace....... i really cant see him leaving though. The manager and chairman will know just how important he is to us, we dont need to sell and im sure rickie is more than happy to stay here.

I agree 100% both men are saints through and through. Both have made mistakes and i was absolutely devastated when Lawrie left southampton in 1985 but the reason it hurt so much at the time and left me hurt and angry for so many years afterwards is because he achieved so much at southampton and was almost impossible to replace at the time. Anybody fortunate enough to have met either Lawrie or Leon in person will confirm their true love of the club. And of course you are right that we are in dreamland at the moment with our new owners and it appears we could not be in better hands.

This statement is all very admirable from the ticket office but why the hell are they making it so late?? The decision needs to be made tomorrow as to whether or not we will take the extra allocation. This announcement should have been made weeks ago and much more publicly (provided of course this isnt fresh news to the ticket office also). We are clearly going to sell these 1,700 tickets which will mean hundreds of fans will be left disappointed. The club should just take the extra allocation if Leeds are backing them into a corner. It seems that the club has made the decision to only take 1,700 tickets and then when there is a fuss later when we have disappointed fans without tickets they can say they made this announcement and fans were made aware of what was happening. Most tickets for this game would have been sold in the last week before the game, its just the way it is, people plan to go but dont buy tickets until the week before. It wasnt like this when demand was high when we were in the premiership but fans have become used to knowing they can get tickets fairly easy with many going and paying on the day. In all honesty Leeds are being unfair in putting us in this position as they dont need these tickets for home fans as the game will not be a sell out. They simply dont want to give us these tickets as they dont want to give us any advantage. Saints fans have been great all season both in numbers and noise and all things considered we should take this extra allocation as our fans deserve them and we shouldnt back down to Leeds pressure tactics. As i said though whilst this announcement is a positive step from the club in many ways its far too late and they have failed the fans as we dont really have time to respond to the announcement.

good tune this, i hope it catches on

yes, its a refreshing change to have such an open and honest manager who talks sense. i have been very impressed with pardew since he came to saints, i have to be honest and say at the time of his appointment i wanted keegan or strachan back so whilst not a bad thing when he got the job i was left feeling a little bit flat. i thought pardew had the potential to be a really good manager for us but after what happened at charlton and the end of his reign at west ham i felt his appointment was a bit of a gamble. i wouldnt swap pardew for strachan or keegan now though and i believe he is the right man for saints. i like his style, his words, the way he is turning this club around, the mentality he is installing, the way he seems to be getting the players motivated and wanting to play for him and saints. its very early days yet but i hope he can keep it going, which im sure he can, and i hope he sees his future here long term, again which i think he does. i have not known southampton fc to feel so united in my 30 years following this great club as it does now, the players, management, and fans have a togetherness and belief that something special is happening, a very large part of that is down to alan pardew

would have prefered hereford at milton keynes but the important thing is we are at home

i have a spare available, if you still need one please PM me, its all unreserved seating at orient so sitting next to your friends isnt an issue...... i wont charge you £50 either, £30 and it is yours