RinNY

I'm not sure how you can ask if you are alone in this assessment, when Pardew has stated his clear aim, all summer, to sign at least one more striker to compete with/back up Lambert! We might want to recall, before getting too impatient, that the transfer window still has weeks to run, that Lambert played the first match of last season for Bristol Rovers, that Waigo and Antonio didn't come to us in July! In other words: don't worry, this is a matter that is being worked on, as Pardew has repeatedly reiterated. A new striker will be signed. That said, quite a bit has to go wrong before we will be in trouble in this department as things stand: Lambert (30+ goals last season) would have to suffer serious injury; Barnard (just under 30 goals last season) would have to suffer serious injury; Connolly (a class striker at this level) would have to suffer a recurrence of his injury problems; and Lallanw (20 goals last season) would have to fail to overcome his knee problem. Could all those things happen? Well, yes. Is it likely at all? NO. So chances are, we'll be fine even as we are, though an additional striker will obviously provide extra security in the event of a couple of those eventualities arising.

I think you'll find that over the past 15 to 20 years, no-one playing in Serie A has been caught offside more times than Pippo Inzaghi. Of course, no-one scored more goals than him either. Getting caught offside is something that happens to strikers: they spend the match trying to time their run just right, while the defenders are trying to put them offside. Certain players, because of their style of play, are more prone to becoming victims of the offside trap than others. The key is not whether a striker gets caught offside, but whether he scores enough goals to justify the mistakes. Waigo scored goals, not in the league of Inzaghi of course, but then we're not in that sort of league either, are we? As long as a player like Waigo pops up with the sort of important goals he popped up with, not to mention the odd assist, not to mention worrying the opposing defense into leaving themselves vulnerable to our other players: well, he's worth the offside decisions that go against him!

A simple point: if Cortese has in fact already decided that he is going to sack Pardew by Xmas, regardless of the team's results and position ... then he is an unmitigated and totally clueless, idiot. Which, without knowing anything about him beyond what is publicly known of his career so far, I just do not believe he is. Why do I say this? Because if Cortese really wants Pardew out and has decided to sack him, Pardew would be out and sacked now! A new manager would be in place, making the player decisions (both signing and releasing), preparing the team for the new season. To let Pardew shape the squad, prepare the squad, manage the first (and very important) part of the season when you don't believe in him and have decided to sack him would be more than foolishness or idiocy: it would be downright lunacy! What an utterly absurd rumour. In your place, FF, I would have told the informant in question to his (her?) face that (s)he was full of sh*t!

The translating system is crap: the head line of that article reads "Papa Waigo: Non tornera al Southampton", which means: "Papa Waigo: I will not return to Southampton". So if that's a true quote, that would seem to be that.

It says that, having returned from loan to Southampton, Papa will want to know what his future is, and that the most likely hypothesis is Fiorentina buying out Genoa so they can sell Papa to Saints. Doesn't say, in other words, that Fiorentina actually plan to do this, or that Papa wants this; it just offers a theory based on ... who knows what?

Pick a side to go to, be decisive, concentrate on hitting it hard and on target, don't look at the keeper. You have to consider the keeper irrelevant: your task is to plant the ball as hard as you can to one side of the goal or the other. If the keeper saves it, so be it; if you hit it hard and true enough, he's not likely to get to it unless he guesses right and moves well before you strike the ball, which is against the rules but most keepers do it & get away with it. And again, if that happens, so be it. The cardinal mistakes are to tip off the keeper with your eyes or body language which way you're going, or to miss the goal, or to hit a weak and indecisive shot. Mostly what English players seem to do is combine two or more of those: they don't strike hard, they tip the keeper, and/or they miss entirely. And that's all mental. Capello should have accepted Le Tiss' offer to help.

Little playing time due to injuries would be a concern, a serious one. As to wages though: what high wages? I'm puzzled that people don't seem to understand the principle of being out of contract & released: it means you have NO wages. Finnan, as it stands now, will be earning precisely nothing from July on. What sort of wage he might attempt to demand will depend on what level of team might be interested in signing him, and how committed he is to continuing to play. If (quite likely) no Premier League team is interested, he will not be earning a huge wage. If Saints do develop an interest, and he is willing to enter talks, you can bet the wage offered will not be massive. In sum: too high wages are only a factor for players who are under contracts that must be honored; it does not apply to players out of contract.

With Otsemobor, Murty, Thomas, and James all gone we have no right back of any sort in the first team squad. I assume that means we really will be signing Calderon, but we must be in the market for at least one more RB, and perhaps a CB who can also cover RB if necessary, sort of like Seaborne can fill in as an emergency LB. Certainly with just Jaidi, Fonte, Seaborne and Martin, we must be looking for another CB anyway. Interesting times ahead, clearly, signing wise. I trust, btw, that we'll be losing one or two more: surely Pulis & MOlyneux, for example, will be let go in one way or another ...

Probably want a better rb than Otsemobor, & a younger & fitter one than Murty: I expect both of them to be let go. Perry's too old, Thomas not really good enough, Poke likewise not good enough, same for Pulis. Should keep Waigo & Antonio if possible; worth giving Connolly another year; too soon to give up on Lancashire imo; McLaggon has real promise; Bialkowski likely to be out keeper of the future: keep them all. Gillett is a question mark, I'd say. That'd be 6 released, 4 to 6 retained; & one questionable. Seems about right: Pardew was saying he expected about 5 or 6 to go the other day, apparently.

I don't see that we "deserved" a points penalty: the club was being operated in a proper, responsible way; the main debt was due to a new stadium, which had to be built in order to try to compete fiscally in the Prem. Relegation was a misfortune that fatally impacted our ability to handle that debt, and the international economic crisis caused the bank to look much less favorably on our overdraft and pull the plug on us. What's in that to "deserve" points penalties? Unfortunately, the rules dictated that we should be hit with one, but that's got nothing to do with desserts; nor with spite on the part of the one you obsessively hating types can't ever seem to stop going on about -- who was after all just trying (unsuccessfully) to protect his own money!

What are you looking at? Only Norwich's form was superior to ours over that stretch, and they won't be around. Only Millwall's form was equal to ours, and there's a good chance they won't be around either. Every other team was significantly worse than us since September, and that's in spite of significant patches of inconsistency on our part. Doesn't mean we'll walk the League next season; does mean that if we can sustain that form over the course of a whole season, we should go up in one of the automatic slots.

Clearly right: those are the two teams we'd rather not have to deal with in L1 next season. Not in the least worried about any of the other teams, nor about the likely relegated teams.

I don't think anyone much thinks that we WILL come up with a 7 game winning streak: it's just that such a thing is possible and that possibility has to be taken into account. When I look at our 7 remaining fixtures, I don't see a single one that we could not win comfortably with the team we have. Of course, Wycombe & Tranmere looked like they could be comfortable wins too, and we got a draw and a loss: hence no doubt your skepticism. But as long as there's a chance, why is it unreasonable to speculate about that chance? We've passed MK Dons; we can pass Bristol if we beat them (i.e. that's in our own hands); and Colchester are on such a horrendous run of form right now, that catching and passing them looks more likely than not so long as we continue to play hard and get results. That just leaves Huddersfield. To be safe they need to get more than ten points from their last 6 games. I think that's a hard get for them: they just aren't that good, especially away from home, and they still have to play one or two good sides (Millwall, notably). Will we catch them? Probably not, we'll likely mess up one or two games somehow. Could we catch them and end up 6th? It is still a real possibility.

What have Huddersfield done in their last six? Three wins, a draw, and two losses. If they repeat that same form over the next six games, which is not at all unlikely, they'll pick up 10 points. Turn one of those wins into a draw, and they'd have 8 only, and that too is very conceivable. The reality is that Saints cannot afford to drop any more points; but if we somehow should manage to win all oufield and Colchester are stioll very ctachable, and 6th place is still on: because if we do that we'd have 78 points, as would Huddersfield with 3 wins a draw and 2 losses -- and goal difference would see us through. So ... Until our next draw or loss, let's not give up hope!

Will we be signing players to play in L1, or in the CCC? So long as there is still some faint hope of promotion, it's too soon to decide what players we might want to or be able to sign ....

Seems to me you want to be certain what division we're going to be in before deciding this sort of thing. So long as there's a faint chance of promotion, it's too soon to say who stays & who doesn't ...

Antonio's a no-brainer, but I'd keep Waigo too. He makes intelligent runs, doesn't give up on the play, and that's why -- like today -- he's so often in just the right spot when there's a ricochet or fluffed clearance or whatever, sothat he can pop the ball into the net. An invaluable talent.

I'm not so sure Colchester will be reaching 80 points or more. They still have to play Millwall, Swindon, Charlton, Huddersfield, and Bristol, and given their recent dip in form I could seriously see them losing every one of those. At best, I'd think they'll do well to come away with 3 or 4 points from that lot, unless they have a major revival in their form. We probably still won't catch both them and Huddersfield, because in effect we'll have to win all our remaining fixtures, but if we were somehow to manage that, I think those are the two catchable teams.

Last year Lambert had a great season with Bristol, but that was one season: who knew whether that would prove to be his high-water mark? This season he has been even better for us, and proved definitively that he is a class above L1 standard. Given the type of goals he scores -- the free kicks, the long range spectaculars, as well as the poachers goals and penalties -- I wouldn't be at all surprised if a lower level Prem team in need of scoring (a team like Wolves, if they beat the drop) signed him for something on the order of 3m (good business for us, after all, we can sign another lower league hotshot to replace him, & we have Barnard still); I will be very surprised if Lambert stays. We'll most likely lose Lallana & Schneiderlin too, as others have pointed out. Unless we pull off the miracle of winning promotion this year; but since that'll pretty certainly require us to win all ten remaining matches to even have a chance of it, don't hold your breath on that!

I've noticed one constant in some 40+ years of following the Saints, and that is a simply maddening inconsistency! Since we followed up thrashings of Walsall and Huddersfield by losing to Tranmere, and a sweet victory over Leeds with a bitter defeat to Swindon, I think you can count on our latest comfortable 3-0 win being followed by a dud defeat to Hartlepool. This is Saints ffs: you can count on it ... alas.

I could see them going 5W, 2D, 5L with that, for 17 pts. That would be doing quite badly, yet would put them on 80 pts, which we are unlikely to match. If they really implode, and we win consistently, we could catch them ... but I wouldn't count on it!

We don't need Bristol & MK to have bad runs: on current form we will pass them and pull away, because after games in hand they are only a point or two ahead of us. We do need Millwall & Huddersfield to drop points, which they will. Problem is, every time we drop points our chance of catching either or both of those teams goes down; and it's just so unlikely we'll get through the rest of the season without dropping some points here & there ...

I'd take that outcome right now, but I suspect your predictor won't come out. Seems to me, and I think this is obvious, that we can get to 8th very easily; after that we have to catch 2 out of the 3 clubs 5th-7th: Swindon, Huddersfield, Millwall. Of those, Huddersfield actually look the easiest to catch. If we win the games in hand we have over them, we'll be within 8 points of them; and with a loss by them here, a draw there, that's not too hard to make up -- so long as we keep winning! We need to put together a real run of wins, obviously. But catching Millwall is going to be harder: we have to make up 11 points (after we win the game in hand), and we don't get to play them to help out in one of those "6 pointers"; plus their form is pretty good! Swindon will be even harder: we have no games in hand on them, so they are a genuine 16 points ahead of us. Even if we beat them when we play them, therefore, there'll still be 13 points to make up: that's a big ask in just 14 games! Our best hope, I reckon, is to pass Huddersfield and then hope Millwall slip up just enough, while we keep winning, to catch them at the end, perhaps by goal difference. It's conceivable, but probably not likely, unfortunately. All those draws are going to keep us in L1 for another season ...

Chainrai has been a creditor all along: he lent PFC 17 million during the Al Farraj regime to cover various costs, loan secured against FP and against Farraj's 90% share in PFC. He only took control by seizing Farraj's shares when he wasn't getting his loan repayments. That made him both creditor and putative owner. How his exact position, including his transfer of ownership of FP to himself in settlement of part of the debt owed him, will be viewed in any administration/liquidation process will probably be for the courts to determine. But he has certainly been a creditor since at least last November.

I can't believe that Chainrai taking possession of the ground is being presented as him doing the club a favor by reducing the debt to him by 10 million (still leaving PFC owing him 7 million, be it noted). What he has obviously done is, seeing liquidation around the corner with likely loss of pretty much all of his money, moved to secure what he can while he can. Now, if/when PFC are liquidated, he'll claim "Fratton Park is mine, I just lease it to them" and try to walk away with the land; just as Gaydamak will be walking away with all the land around the ground. What price the conspiracy theory suggesting that the whole PFC mess is a swindle to get hold of the land for redevelopment? It's actually starting to look plausible. It's just unbelievable how the Pl and the FA have just sat quiet on the sidelines watching this unfolding. Obviously the PFC mess discredits the entire structure the PL/FA have in place for assuring only "fit and proper" persons run football clubs, and that clubs are run in a fiscally proper manner.