Golac's Cunning Stunts

What exactly is the "Southampton Style"? Getting dicked 6-1 at the Arse?

Next 2 games don't look easy. Villa beat a good Swansea side today and Everton look to be a very good side, particularly at home - they have the players who could easily rip us another good one. Goodison Pk has been the scene of some bad days for us. Personally, I think we will be ok but we have some rough times to get through right now.

Seriously though, I did read through that missive and you seem like a reasonable bloke. However, I think you are very wide of the mark "I'd stick with Adkins regardless. Even if it went wrong, wouldn't it be nice to be viewed as a patience long term club". Well, no actually, I don't really care how we are viewed, I want to be a top team handing out 6-1 defeats, not receiving them. So if Cortese feels a change is needed I will back him. He picked the right manager to get us from L1 to the Prem and I'll trust he will do the same in picking one to get us to the next level if needs be. I also think you have your rose tinted specs on when you say nobody moaned about Widdrington, Ormerod, Claus etc. They did moan, don't you remember?

Can you or somebody else please do a management summary of this? I can't be arsed to wade through it :-)

As much as people say it would be crazy to sack Nigel after a few games, I think it is highly likely that the pressure will come to bear very quickly if we have a run of 2 or 3 more poor results. Football is tough and everybody wants results yesterday. A hell of a lot of money has been spent on the squad and NC will want a return on that I am sure.

The pressure will now build on Adkins and the players. Need a big performance against Villa now or we could be in deep do do's

He had his chance to act in the summer. Now it's a case of lying in the bed he has made. Agree with people that we look to have some good attacking options, but any team in this league is going to fancy scoring against us. Going to be a long hard winter methinks.

Great player for us. Was upset when he left and particularly so that it was to Brighton who don't deserve him. **** of a manager and fans who big themselves up as a team that is bigger than they actually are. Best they can hope for long term is championship mediocrity.

Is that "Son of Jocky Wilson" bottom right?

I love the way everyone wants to blame his dad. He only advised on the matter. Final decision was to down to the player. He very arrogantly dismissed our club when he left thinking he was better than us. BTW are you sure he is already better than Walcott? Hasn't been very impressive when I have watched him.

Rose tinted glasses I'm afraid. In this league you get punished for defensive slip ups as is already evident in our first 3 games. You an get away with it to an extent in the championship but not in the prem. As for Seaborne, I saw him against the Nidge and he was torn a good one by average L1 players. God help us if he ever has to fill in because of injuries.

What, you mean these ones?

As Dean Smith, the Walsall manager said recently "There'll be eyebrows raised by a lot of clubs at the calibre of players they are signing and what they're earning. I don't think they've been shopping at Lidl's"

Don't think Silvestre would be better than Fonte, but do think he would be better cover than Seaborne who really does belong in L1

My my how things have changed. Reminds me of that quote "Be nice to people on the way up the ladder because you will meet them again on the way down" Eat **** Storrie!

How exactly would Cork sign for Newcastle outside of the window?

Not being unfair. Our current defence is plainly not up to it and we also lack strength in depth. Other Prem teams will all feel confident they can score against us.

Agreed, but of course, there are still lessons there. There are actions that can be taken to prepare for all of the eventualities that you mention.

My fault for being unclear. I would expect NA/NC to learn the lessons regardless of where we finish at the end of the season. Why are we left short of quality at the back? Didn't offer a good enough deal? Didn't have a good list of targets? Not good enough at negotiating? Didn't go after the targets early enough? blah blah blah WHat ever the reason, learn from it and do it better next time. Not rocket science.

Hmmm. Don't follow your reasoning. We obviously will have a finite budget as we don't have an infinite amount of money. Therefore priorities are needed. "Get a new left back" would be high up the list. And surely this wouldn't mean, try and get a new left back, if you fail, give up and buy a creative midfielder/winger? When I say the "goals we will inevitably concede" I base this on 3 games, one of which was Wigan to whom we conceded 2 goals at home. And apart from 2 of the worst pens I have ever seen, the goals against column would have been 2 higher. So yes, hopefully Ramirez will help us score more goals than we will inevitably concede in the games that count. If we do lost too many games and get relegated, I would fully expect NA/NC to learn the lesson for next time.

Given a finite budget and finite time, you cannot just blandly improve the club "in all areas". The list of improvements must therefore be prioritised. I would say priority should have been the oft quoted LB\CB\GK positions. We got in 1 CB and I don't think that's enough. Fantastic ambition to go for Ramirez and all that and I do hope he enables us to score more goals in some games than we are inevitably going to concede. If we do get relegated this season and it is because we let in too many goals, I think you would seriously have to question Adkins / Cortese and their strategy for this year, or at lest hope they learn a lesson for the future.

Yep, agree. Is there a list of out of contract CBs and LBs anywhere? Edit: I see there is already a thread for that!

I would rather have seen Billy coming off the bench than JRod yesterday. He would have given an already creaking Vidic and Ferdinand something to think about.

The other thought I had on this is did you all see how unbalanced our bench was yesterday? Loaded with attacking options but only Richardson and Seaborne as defensive replacements. I have no problem with Richardson, but Seaborne? He was continually getting done up like a kipper by a L1 striker last week. Wouldn't have fancied seeing what he could do against RVP.

Completely agree and this is actually a good one to discuss. I can't get my head around how many clubs seem to leave buying players until the last day of the deadline. If you look at someone like Fergie, he tends to have his targets and on the whole wraps them up way before that.