sandwichsaint

Wot a golden thread! Have to fes-up that I do the whole 'Wwhhhooo?' thing, but I'd like to think that I do it in a self-aware and slightly ironic fashion, call it panto if you like! In fact I do it in much the same way that I booed NC's picture at the JPT - there I've said it - forget this Mexican wave balleros - FACT, NC was booed at the JPT final and I was one of the ones wot done it. Singing about Boscombe's 'cup final'? ... now that IS fecking embarrassing!

That shirt's still not doing it for me (I was quite keen originally but all badged-up and with the 'sash' just stopping square at the shoulder it looks like a right dog's dinner ... incoming!)

You missed out 4th - Complete risk assessment and check for equal opportunities and disability compliance - no wonder half time is creeping towards 20 minutes in some games !!!!

Which Lord was reputed to regularly meet the wrong Lady at the Royal Hotel in Deal?

I think you forgot TV money!

If it was SRS who got clobbered you can bet he went down in instalments.

Did you have anyone particular in mind?

I thought the 1-1 at Yeovil meant our season was over?

I'm not sure that even NC will be doing anything quite as extreme as this. Adkins picked up an unfit, unmotivated squad, possibly one containing one (or more) subversive elements, and one that was massively under-performing; furthermore there is no indication at the moment that he is to be given 'any' reinforcements at this stage. Any improvement, from where he started, is a good improvement. I happen to think he is a really good manager and he is already (after a couple of weeks) starting to make a difference. Any manager taking over a losing side has to 'stop the rot' before he can do anything else and that means tightening up massively at the back - here we have clear signs of improvement with no goals conceeded from open play in 3 games, and the only goal against a soft and apparantly needless penalty.We have avoided defeat for three successive games, our best run of the season so far! Adkins is starting to coax performances from Hammond, Harding, Seabourne and perhaps now Guly too, he also has Lallana to increasingly throw into the mix. The problems are plain for all to see and as ever they come back to not replacing Ant and Dec who were massively under-rated by some last season, but who's absence haunts us every single game! FFS why are we not getting in some alternative firepower/pace on loan? Every one of these dropped points pushes us further away from where we want to be - come on Nicola, Adkins is clearly the man for the job so let's back him while we can still go up this season.

Thought he was awful last season, his jumping lacked timing and his headers were usually fairly weak and fairly random in direction. He also seemed to lack experience at CB (didn't he mainly play LB for Exeter?) and was often a yard behind situations rather than a yard in front which often left him turned and having to defend facing his own goal. On the plus side he is reasonably athletic for a CB and but he needs to learn to start 'punching his weight' in physical situations. Have to say I saw a degree of improvement at MK where he was one of our better players on the night. I think we are fairly well covered in this position if he is our 4th choice CB and he has every chance of improving under NA's expert tutelage - fair play to him and well done on Saturday (by all reports).

Call me old skool but I regard Brighton as more of a derby.

Agree to differ! He was never going to the best RB due to lack of pace, a lack of positional awareness and a lack of a decent tackle but despite these obvious limitations he regularly DAJFU in that position, and on that basis I'm not sure Otsemobore was very much of an improvement. I never really saw him play particularly effectively in CM and saw him have some complete mares in that position (Leeds away was one). As others have said he had a decent delivery from a set piece and that is a specialism every side needs (how many corners have we wasted/hit straight out of play so far this season?). Given all that he was an honest jobbing professional who was clearly committed to the cause, who improved massively over 18 months, and who the other players clearly respected, and who it was often commented on that the results seemed to go up in down in relation as to whether he was playing or not. He was clearly not (yet?) good enough for the 'next level' (nor are we at the moment!) and he was probably not good enough to be a regular starter in our full-on 1st X1 but he def is/was good enough to be a squad player in this league. I would have kept him for one more season, he prob wasn't on big money and would be a versatile option from the bench, in terms of where he could directly come on and DAJFU or where he could come on and free-up other different players for the tactical switches that NA appears to want to employ.

Don't think so .. in the context of the original post the poster referred to Everton 'as being the next longest serving club' which I took to be the one immediately above Saints on the 'longest serving' list and which I CORRECTLY identified as THFC... you have also missed Liverpool and Man U off your list of long-servers who both go above Spurs. HTH (if it doesn't bike sheds at 3.30 and my dad is massive).

think you will find it's Spuds, HTH

Does your dentist charge for parking?

I parked to the North of the ground outside a snooker club on a mini industrial estate last time I went - paid 2 or 3 quid (which i got refunded on an hours snooker!). Clean, safe, and gets you out of the city centre traffic and back to the M1 M-Way in about 15 minutes. You walk down a long hill to the ground about 10 minutes and past a big fan-friendly, mixed pub halfway down on the right hand side (can't remember what it was called but lots of Saints in there, decent garden out the back and a little bottle'n'cans cubby hole straight into the beer garden). S6 1JF‎ if that helps?

As posted on the 'no forwards' thread: none or limited loan and transfer activity and we can start to think the worst – the money has either run out (unlikely in my opinion though it starts to look like it) or, as alluded to above, NC spent more than he wanted to last Jan and needs to keep the purse strings tight for the next twelve months? If this is the case I think it would be a major gamble from NC and the club – we have a good squad and an excellent manager and still have all to play for this season, but we are desperately short in certain areas -what’s the point of saving for a rainy day that never comes? If we don’t get the personnel in to kick start our season while there’s still time we will effectively condemn ourselves to another year at this level, with the strong likelihood that some players will want-away in Jan or at the end of the season, leading to a possible downgrading of the squad that has been assembled at considerable (in Div 3 terms) cost. In my book NC has redeemed himself somewhat with an excellent appointment in NA, now he needs to back him with a decent loan or two to give the team and the fans a lift. If we really can't afford one or two decent loans then it just might be bye-bye new Saints, welcome back selling-club Saints with NA stuck in the old sell-to-buy routine?

I don’t really buy this ‘Pardew prioritised the cups’ business, for one ‘why would he?’; he was in a supposedly secure job and a key part of a five-year plan, what motivation would he have for flying in the face of the owner’s and his boss’s direct instructions as to what his priorities were? In my view AP, whatever your view on him, did a pretty tidy job last season – on the field he turned round a wreck of a football team, built a decent squad, won a lot of games, and delivered the club’s first trophy for 35 years. More importantly he restored the spirit and the belief around the club and the fans – call it the feelgood factor – and he put us in a position at the end of last season where we were justifiably favourites to go up this season, the second year of the 5 year plan…. job done! Of course we might have gone up last season but it’s all ifs-and-ands now; most reasonable people would have taken two years from where we started from and the outlook for this season was at that stage very promising. AP had built a decent squad but appeared to have that knocked from under him, or he thought he could do better than Antonio/Waigo but the money was not forthcoming, or he, or somebody else(?) thought a new LB was a priority signing? What followed has been nothing short of a disaster on the pitch and off it. A shoddy attempt to palm AP off at the end of the season, players let go and not replaced, a shambles of a ST sales, a really poor pre-season, poor player morale (before and after APs sacking), a series of misjudgements and PR gaffes from the chairman, all underpinned with the loss of our dear saviour. Hopefully now we will stabilise under NA and I just hope he is given the time to do the job he is clearly capable of, with the very restricted resources he currently has. We are desperate for forward options with none of our three (!) established forwards currently in the best of shape or form. Guess the next few months will tell us what sort of club and what sort of team we are going to become….. None or limited loan and transfer activity and we can start to think the worst – the money has either run out (unlikely in my opinion though it starts to look like it) or, as alluded to above, NC spent more than he wanted to last Jan and needs to keep the purse strings tight for the next twelve months? If this is the case I think it would be a major gamble from NC and the club – we have a good squad and an excellent manager and still have all to play for this season, but we are desperately short in certain areas -what’s the point of saving for a rainy day that never comes? If we don’t get the personnel in to kick start our season while there’s still time we will effectively condemn ourselves to another year at this level, with the strong likelihood that some players will want-away in Jan or at the end of the season, leading to a possible downgrading of the squad that has been assembled at considerable (in Div 3 terms) cost. In my book NC has redeemed himself somewhat with an excellent appointment in NA, now he needs to back him with a decent loan or two to give the team and the fans a lift.

Suprised you could heave a Party Seven of DD quite that far ....

Were you there last night? I went for the first time this season and was horrified by what I saw! I am fully backing NA but clearly in terms of timescale and budget a complete rebuild is impossible at this stage but on last night's showing I would expect to see several changes for Saturday, this team is in urgent need of a shot of footballing Viagra but where we get that who knows?

What an absolute shocker! First game I’ve seen this season and I don’t think anything I’ve seen or read on here had quite prepared me for how poor we were. Call me naïve but I was expecting to see some sort of ‘new manager reaction’, I’ve seen a dead cat bounce higher. All the usual factors were there in spades: lack of FITNESS, lack of pace, lack of desire, lack of leadership, lack of communication, lack of cohesion. An absolutely clueless, rudderless performance and we looked genuinely nearer to relegation than promotion on that sort of form. Shocking legacy from AP and NA clearly has his work cut out and I just hope he is given time to do the job properly. He had absolutely nothing to work with last night, the players he has inherited are not fit and a lot of them look completely disinterested. I’m not sure when the loan window opens or where we go from here but I would expect some big changes on Saturday – Dickson surely has to play LB, Harding very poor (again) and seems to have, unsurprisingly(?) completely lost all confidence since we bought Dickson. Centre-mid was a disgrace yesterday, we barely won a tackle all night, created nothing, and both their goals started from mistakes in that area of the pitch – hopefully we will have a look at Guly in there and spin a coin as to which one of the current misfits goes to the bench. Oxo did OK for 20 minutes but it was real men against boys stuff and he was constantly hassled out of things, needs to be coming on from the bench rather than starting. I didn’t think Punch was as bad as some people said, he looked reasonably mobile and willing but often let down by his decision making and his final ball – is this the same player who took Huddersfield apart last season? Maybe Holmes left side if fit and Punch to strengthen the bench options? Front two were **** poor from start to finish, Connoly huffed and puffed but never looked like scoring, Lambert didn’t even do that! Lambert needs to come out of the first team until he is physically and mentally ready to play for us, whether that’s 2 weeks, 4 weeks or 6 weeks, and if he’s still not up for it after that then we need to get shot in Jan and start again. NA has got a massive job on and he knows it, Pardew’s complacency culture and his old pals starting X1 is now broke and completely unfit for purpose and no amount of ‘we were unlucky’, ‘we only need a break’, ‘win the next one and we are X points behind’, will fix that. Hopefully NA can get it fixed in time but don’t hold your breath – on last night’s showing ‘events’ have pretty much wrecked the 125 party season before it’s even begun – shame really.

Two closely related areas he needs to get to grips with asap are the state of Lambert's groin and the size of his gut. On these two animate objects rest about 75% of our promotion chances.

Good of him to leaflet the neighbourhood with copies of his new contract before he moved out ....

You forgot to mention those, it's probably the same people, who said we would 'easily' replace Antonio and/or Waigo, they weren't that good, and there would be plenty of opportunities to buy or rent suitable replacements. That's turned out well too hasn't it?

started with a 3-3 H v Ipswich IIRC?