Arizona

I think the Scooby appreciation thread has gone on long enough now.

I think Pearson is the only manager since WGS who has really taken our defence seriously. Sturrock sold Hall and brought in Yahia when we were already short of cover following Killer's injury. Wigley brought in Jackobsson, but never managed to sort out the defence. Redknapp thought Bernard and Davenport would sort us out at the back. Burley tried to start last season with Ostlund, Makin and Bennett as our only fit defenders (I still can't believe a so-called proffesional did that)

The HIV bit was in poor taste IMO, although none of it was particularly pleasant. Personally I wouldn't sing that to a player, however I do regard it as just part of football. If Campbell doesn't like it, he should just resign from his £90k a week contract and go and get a job stacking shelves in some Asda, far away from North London. As of yet he hasn't done that, which leads me to believe he can't be all that upset about it. You can't move from Spuds to Arse on a Bosman and expect the 'Yid Army' to send you flowers and Belgian chocolates.

I've seen the accounts and do not doubt that we're in trouble financially. However we seem to have a lot of this 'selective' money which can only be spent on unproven French teenagers and not proven 20 goal a season CCC strikers. Getting rid of our bi-poler strike force may well prove to be a huge false ecconomy. If we do stay up, the gamble will have paid off, but if we are relegated then things are going to get a whole lot worse.

Much like Crouch's "injury" at FP in '05...

Players, management and boardroom all equally to blame for this mess IMO. Perhaps more tragic that it doesn't have to be this way. If we had Pearson in charge, we'd kept Rasiak and Saga and we're shooting ourselves in the foot by not playing John or Skacel, we wouldn't be in this mess. Please don't tell me we couldn't afford to because it's bull. The increased gate receipts for a start would cover a lot of the cost and we spent a reasonable amount of cash on MS, not to mention loans/wages on Pekhart, Robertson, Pulis, Forecast, Dyer and Gasmi.

That's fair enough. However I fear however hard these youngsters try, it might not be enough. If we got relegated by say 2 or 3 points and didn't play Skacel, it will have proven to be a terrible decision as I believe he could well be the difference between win, lose or draw in a few games over the season. The, "they're still young and learning," line wont cut it forever. Sooner or later we're going to have to admit that several of our players just aren't up to it yet. Perhaps more worring is the fact that Saints have rarely improve in the second half of the season. I know we have a different set up to previous seasons, but our lack of spending in January has frequently left us falling behind. Season's midpoint - End of the season 07/08 - Midtable - Barely escape the drop. 06/07 - 4th IIRC - Scrape into the playoffs. 05/06 - Playoff outsiders - Midtable 04/05 - Relegation battle - Bottom of the League 03/04 - 4th at Christmas - 12th 02/03 - Top Half somewhere - 8th

Good grief, it's a one man sarcasm machine. How is that sitting on the fence? Neither the defence nor the attack are up to scratch.

To me Steve's comments would suggest that they were both equally large problems and I'd tend to agree. If we had been 2 goals better up front AND in defence, we'd have won 3-2. We're not going to win games this season only scoring one goal. With this defence, even on a good day, we'll need to stick 2 or 3 away on a regular basis to get any decent results.

If you call banging them in 2 goals against Exeter in the Cup, one against Cardiff and a penalty then yes. However he has only ever scored one goal from open play in the CCC.

T.B.H I've seen sunsets that were less predictable than that. A new defence for Xmas please Santa. P.S. Ruuuddiiiii!!!!

Surman our top scorer this season?

BWP - Wotton Pekhart - Lallana f*ckin' 'ell Jan...

Pekhart, BWP plus one to come on.

Ah okay, fair enough. In that case, I wont get p*ssed off until I hear the phrase, "Lallana makes a fingertip save to his right!"

James booked for a foul in our left wing possition. DMG playing someone onside for the second goal. Cross comes in from Lancashire. ... Do we have a f**king formation or what?

Well that's then.

In the playoff season nobody got more goals or assists from midfield than Skacel. Hope this helps.

With that, the missed penalty and Best being his usual self, we could easily have been 5-0 at half time.

How sh*t are we today...

Missed!!!!

Cov disallowed goal then DMG well wide. Penalty Cov... won by Best, oh the ironing.

Oh fook.

As long as no racism is involved, I really don't have any moral objection to people shouting abuse at players and rival supporters during a match. If anything it lets out steam and if all shouting and singing was banned, we'd probably have a lot more rival fans tw*ting each other in the nearest watering hole after the game. And yes, maintaining as neutral as possible a view on it, Redknapp is a f*cking hypocrit.

1. If you are refering to the Ipswich move, he was reportedly offered half his salary here and was far from guaranteed first team action. Would you take that move? 2. He was out for 2 weeks after a knock in the reserves. He has been available since then, but just hasn't been selected. 3. Complete myth. Skacel filled in perfectly capably at LB last season, supplying decent crosses and was rarely caught out at the back. He kept Vignal out the team for half a season and formed a decent partnership with Surman (before Burley decided Wright and Euell were a better left flank combination ) 4. A team of fired-up youngsters is all well and good. It's exatly what we have... and it's exactly what Crewe have. If we want to avoid the drop we are going to need a bit more than youthful energy. A couple of defeats and suddenly everyone will be moaning about why Pekhart is playing ahead of John, why DMG is a left winger, why BWP is on the pitch at all etc. etc.