VectisSaint

Doesn't say much for Tony Mowbray then if a PC Warrior could achieve what he couldn't. I was not surprised that WGS could not achieve much at Boro last season, I thought he would need a preseason to instill the fitness and work ethic into a side. But he does seem to have lost his way now. We look back on his time at Saints with rose-tinted specs because we were moderately successful, but I suspect it was all unravelling at the time he left anyway. I enjoyed his time with us, but I suspect he was in the right place at the right time and is really very one-dimensional and has been found out.

http://www.nike.com/nikefootball/academy/about?locale=en_GB Details of the Nike Academy can be found here (took some finding Google came up with a aite that was crap, but eventually found this link on about the last page). Academy is for unsigned aspiring young players, supported by Nike and Premier League. They played several games last season and now a new intake is on board and hoping to impress. By the way they lost one game 8-1 last season so perhaps 7-1 isn't the walkover we think it is. Some of the players earned pro contracts last term. Profiles of the players involved can be found on the site, and it is all headed up by Huw Jennings. Wouldn't surprise me if Huw hasn't recommended us to look at one or two of the youngsters.

These things tend not to be back dated, it would be silly to include orders from a game last week in stats from 2008-9 season.

Gone but not forgotten or perhaps forgotten but not gone would be more accurate.

Well done to KD, deserved. Now Fabio, how about Brett Ormerod

What a great idea. Drop Lambert after he scores 2 pens. Lets try our other strikers, Connolly injured, Barnard, maybe doing time, Ryan Doble, well he has been selected for the Welsh squad so must be ready to lead the line. Any more bright ideas? Suppose we could try playing Butters up front after all he did score a hat-trick for Palace once.

He left, but not soon enough either time.

We definitely replaced some of the medical team during the summer, possibly not the fitness coaches, but not sure. Also Lambert;s fitness during last season was clearly improved (but then he was seriously overweight when he joined us). Thats not the same though as putting a whole team through pre-season. I stand by my opinion.

Au contraire, more likely that NC will see that he did exactly the right thing by replacing Pardew when it was clear that the players were in poor shape after pre-season. NC's only regret will probably be that he was distracted by the untimely demise of Markus and should have done the right thing sooner. I liked AP but can see now that he was lacking in the area of fitness and conditioning, in a similar fashion to Burley, and like GB he was going to cost us dear. Adkins clearly is turning things around and will not be found wanting in the area of fitness in the future.

Still runs his Sports Shop down the road from the County Ground in Swindon. Best of my knowledge he never played for us. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Rogers_(footballer) Steve Williams nearly came back after we sold him to Arsenal, was given a trial by Branfoot but nothing materialised. What a waste of talent, was probably part of best midfield ever when paired with Bally.

Looks like your memory has given up completely, are you sure you're on the right board? Manny Andruszewski made a brief return after his time in the US Iain Dowie - was an associate schoolboy and returned 8 years after he was released Jon Gittens - nuff said Pulis also returned, wonder if he will ever appear for Saints 1st XI

Just reinforces what I always thought about him, the guy is a ****, one of our worst ever signings, now Wolves get a taste of it for themselves.

6-2 win at Chelsea, same season as they beat us 5-3 at the Dell (67/68 IIRC)

Gin gang Guly Guly Guly Guly gin gang goo gin gang goo

Never forgive him for introducing the world to the Osmonds.

Article on this on the Guardian from 2007, evidently Raymond Goethals is arguably the most successful (who? never heard of him). Bruce Arena was also a keeper. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2007/sep/19/theknowledge

BBC ought to watch their own footage, this is from their match report "Rickie Lambert ran at the Wednesday defence before sliding in his strike partner Barnard to slot in the winner. The two combined time and again, but home keeper Nicky Weaver was on hand to keep the Owls in the game." It clearly was not Rickie, Spiderman it was.

Apart from the Stadium, a squad of good L1 players, membership of the FL and TV money occassionally from Murdoch. And you call other people loons LOL

Watford a fortnight ago

The original statement was about having the best squad NOW, whether we will have the best squad end of season is irrelevant to that discussion (though clearly very relevant to what we achieve at season end). Clearly we didn't have the best squad start of last season either, but with some good signings we certainly did by the end of the season, with several options on the bench available to change games. As things stand now we are hard pressed to name 18 players for a Saturday game. We were alo fortunate with injuries, only Murty was out for any serious length of time. Also we had a good squad because the players brought in during the season were committed, technically good, enthusiastic and fit (at least fitter than the ones we already had in general). Agree with much of what you say otherwise, but I would question whether the 11 on the pitch so far this season have been good enought, taking out Richardson, Lallana, Barnard & arguably Lambert who is clearly not playing the way he did last season, almost certainly due to injury, means we have had arguably only 7 of our first chocie players. Not everything is down to the manager, but in our case a lot is, as I said before from the fitness side of things. Even WGS could not instill stamina into a team mid-season, it has to be done pre-season thus why I have concerns whether NA can turn this around, he has many talented players (over-talented for this level perhaps) but it is difficult to get this change of attitude and mental sharpness once a season is underway. Hence the need for the manager to freshen things up with a couple of inspired loans/fre agents to bring competition, fresh enthusiasm and motivation.

Must be the Alpine air, currently in northern Italy :-)

I think your assessment is slightly wrong. We do not have the strongest SQUAD in the League, patently. I think I could argue we have the strongest 1st XI, but the squad lacks depth, especially in creativity in midfield and also up front. This weakness has been cruelly exposed so far this season with the loss of Richardson and Lallana, the suspension of Barnard and the clear fitness issues with Lambert, he seems still to be suffering from the groin injury, or the after effects. We have players to replace most of the above (except Lambert) but they are not of the same quality (of course that would be difficult). I don't subscribe to the idea that Antonio and Waigo are such big losses but have to admit that both could come off the bench and make a big difference. The other major issue for me is player fitness. Clearly our preseason planning went awry and, rather in the same way that Burley misunderstood about preseason fitness conditioning, stamina training and so on, it now seems Pardew was almost as inept in this area. I have misgivings in this area that Adkins can put this right, since stamina training is almost impossible to add once the playing season is in full swing. Stamina training makes players tired/heavy legged and they would not be able to perform as well as they should if this sort of training was introduced now. This was not so much of a problem last season for the simple reason that nearly all of our outfield players went through preseason at other clubs. Even so I was not over impressed by the fitness levels last season among some players, we mostly got by because we were technically superior to most teams, but came unstuck on heavy pitches when stamina was required. I don't think AP leaving has knocked the stuffing out of the players, sadly the Rovers result may have been a fluke, we got early goals and by the time fatigue set in in the 2nd half we were already out of sight. Adkins can only address things in my opinion by bringing in a couple of new players on loan (or free agents), preferably ones who are fully fit and have had a proper preseason.

Unless Crosby was not registered as a player at Scunny then he cannot play for us. As a player he would still be subject to transfer rules. I note from the Scunny site that he has not played this season, so maybe he has retired as a player. All references on OS are to him being assistant manager only.

Best squad in the league - you are having a laugh. Best 1st XI, when on form and fully fit, definitely. A squad consists more than 11 first choice players, need 20 players able to come in and do a job, change things round, cover for injuries, loss of form, suspensions. We don't have that. With AL injured and LB suspended our bench is **** poor. I still think we have a better 1st XI than last season, but thats not the point, we need back up, after all Waigo and Antonio were never regular starters.

Top post, nice to see some balanced, reasoned thinking on here.