VectisSaint

Unfortunately crystal balls are not infallible. You can only pick a team based on who you think will play

Nothing of any significance received so far, just a brief note from my broker to say the shares are no longer being traded, or something to that effect.

No, last season we had a dickhead of a Chairman who thought the only way was to appoint inexperienced foreign managers who had no idea how to work with young players, no idea about the English football league and no idea what it took to win games consistently. Playing youngsters was an option that was chosen, but was not the only option. The money problems became largely a consequence of this short-sighted pig-headed attitude. There are plenty of clubs around with less resource than we had who understand how to work the system getting in players on the cheap, and utilising the talents of young English managers who know the game inside out. Thank goodness the stench of last season is now long past and the fresh attitiudes of our new owners are showing what can be done without ridiculous spending.

Think Forecast will be on his way in January. After all it seems like Michael Poke is 3rd choice given that we would not let Torquay play him in the FA Cup.

On the contrary, one of Burley's smaller mistakes. The bit that doesn't add up to me is that his contract expires in Jan 2010, so expects to go out on loan. This is nonsense. If his contract expires he is a free agent, no-one needs to loan him out. Suspect he already has a new club lined up, otherwise he would not be stating the bits about going up north. I suspect that there will be several comings and goings in January - new RB, new CB, new MF and new striker as back up to Lambert being the priorities coming in, and several players moving on - Thomas, Saga, Lancashire, Molyneux, Pulis, Holmes, Forecast for instance. This is not due to their wages but because they are either not good enough (Lancs, Molyneux, Pulis, Forcast) or because they don't fit into AP's plans (Saga, Thomas, Holmes). None of them will generate any funds but will allow extra players to be brought in who want to play, are good enough and can be coached as part of a proper sized squad.

Everton have flirted with relegation on several occassions in the Premier League, but have often put a run together at the end of the season so that the final table would show otherwise. Under Moyes they have really only had one bad season (05/06 I think) but before that they finished 17th, 15th and 16th and in 97/98 they only escaped on goal difference. They do look vulnerable this year though, hopefully this will be the year when they go down, always disliked them

Think he also won the Norwich game for us, or at least made it into a positive draw :wink:

van Damme may be an international now and may have been then, but for Saints he was absolute ****, and I for one am very pleased that soppy old sod remembered him. I was beginning to despair that one of the worst players and nastiest pieces of work to ever don the red and white had almost been forgotten. As far as I can tell he is also no longer playing for Belgium - last appearance in 2008/09 season. Maybe even the Belgians have finally realised he is cack. Think it was a bit harsh to name Best though Soppy, poor lad seems to be forever hated because of his penalty miss, when most people realise he should never have been put in that position by our senior pros.

A welcome return from Dalek, no mention of Hod for weeks. I see he is being lined up for Reading.

Jesus was a legend from the day he joined us, not sure about from birth, I guess it was the hair. Who is he playing for these days?

Just a thought but Willo Flood is looking to go out on loan at least from Celtic. Signed by both Dave Jones and WGS, both reasonably shrewd judges. The guy seems to have lost his way a little and maybe the step down to a successful L1 side (or is it a step up from SPL?) might work well for him. Mowbray seems to be supportive of a loan move.

Rather play Colchester on Monday than have the match postponed and face them with Nobby Solano in the team in the New Year. Can't really see that anyone can be considering the state of the game in 6 days time. Even if there is snow around now it is likely it will all be gone by then according to the weather forecast. Unless the pitch then becomes waterlogged there is not much chance that the weather will cause a postponement.

How the hell did a baby Franny help your Mum? And why did you have a pram? Very strange. Did Franny have a tache when he was a baby?

The woggles are a give away

If he is god, or even God, knowing how to spell his name would be a good thing. It's MarKus :mad:

Bizarre, he played almost the same number of games for us as he did for Forest, and I think won more caps when he was with us than he had previously - partly because up until he joined us he shared the keeping responsibilities with Clemence. I also don't get how you don't think of Shilts at Stoke and Derby, yet recall he made 34 appearances for Plymouth in the twilight of his career - 34, less than 1 season. Lets not forget his time at Leyton Orient as well, 9 appearances that took him past the magic 1000 appearances. Brilliant keeper, best we ever had by a mile (with due respect to Niemi) and possibly the best keeper in the world ever (at least close behind Banks and Yashin). On another note, I was shocked the other day. Remember that I live in Wiltshire, went to get a haircut and was chatting to the young guy cutting my hair, keen Liverpool supporter. Got chatting about Saints, and mentioned Mick Channon. He said, I know that name isn't he the race horse trainer? I laughed and pointed out to him that he was previously one of the best footballers in the country and played 46 times for England. The guy was amazed, genuinely. Its shocking the lack of knowledge of yongsters about football and especially loacl players.

Probably one they stole from Wembley, bloody Germans, they should give it back

Having a break that includes Christmas/New Year would be mad. It is very seldom that we get bad weather in late December, and quite honestly its not that bad now for much of the country, its only because its around London that everyone thinks its bad, soft Londoners/Estuaryites. Have a break now and when the bad weather comes in late Jan/Feb there would be fixture chaos. The argument about players needing a rest is also overdone in my opinion. The last thing players need is a rest, injuries will occur when they come back because they have not been training properly. The only ones who argue for rest for players are those that think the international game is more important than club football. Club football is far more important for the vasr majority of people, internationals are usually a waste of time, resting players so they will be fit to meet the mighty Andorra, complete rubbish. Premier league teams are always banging on about resting their players, then they take them on gruelling tours of the Far East, total codswallop. Even the Scots have done away with the mid-winter break again, because there just aren't enough midweek slots to get the games played. The last time there was serious disruption to fixtures in this country (and I mean serious) was 1963 when there were no games for weeks, since then its been realtively easy to get games played.

Must be you then. Alpine has always spoken a lot of sense, but some people don't like it, or the way he goes about it. Doesn't always put things in the right way, but 9 times out of 10 he is proven right.

9 behind Millwall at the moment as far as I can see. Unless BBC table has not been updated correctly. OK, BBC had not refreshed, sorry

Originally Posted by SuperMikey I know that Saga isn't in the plans, but I still think he's dangerous. He's not a Poland international for nothing! Connolly can't always play 90 minutes, and we still need a 'fox in the box' striker to come off the bench and worry the defence. Someone said about Papa Waigo and Lallana being strikers too, fair enough, but they are starting. I'm talking about having a fresh pair of legs to come on, and not to reshuffle the team. I still think we need an out and out striker on the bench, and Patterson and Saga are just rotting in the reserves. Agree about what we need, but we were talking about the bench today nit in the future. Saga will not play for us again, and Pato is really no better an option than Gobern or Antonio (though I think he will be one day). Fact is today that we have 4 strikers starting, and they could be reshuffled if we need to go more defensive. Think the team is very attacking which is a bit worrying, but without Spiderman is the best available.

Out of interest what striker would you have put on the bench? We are playing 4 strikers (including Waigo and Lallana), and have Antonio on the bench. The only other options are Saga, who has not been used for ages and is not in the plans) and Paterson. To me the bench looks about as strong as we could muster, most of the players have played quite regularly, except perhaps Gobern. Does illustrate that we need another top class striker brought in during Jan though.

Ah, comprende now. Still if thats the case we could do a lot worse than Bassett, knows the game and especially the lower leagues inside out.

Not just snow on the ground, I recall driving through what seemed like a blizzard, my old Mk3 Cortina GT was struggling to keep the white stuff off the windscreen. Me and 3 mates drove up from Reading, ****ing cold in the open corner, great game (I think) and horrible journey back but made better by a swift pint or 2 in Wakefield?). Hope everyone gets there and back safely today, and we grab 3 points.

Unlikely to be scouting if he was at St Mary's, unless it was a match day. If you are scouting you would normally go to Staplewood. I can think of worse people to have as Sporting Director, as long as doesn't get involved directly in the coaching side of the game. If Pardew is happy with Bertie then thats all that I care about, because it is their relationship that would be vital. Stilll think we could have done worse than stick with Wise and Bertie a few years back, we probably wouldn't have gotten into the mess we did, then again, we would not no be rid of Lowe and owned by a decent bloke and winning games again.