The Kraken

I have no opinion on his wage; if his employer(s) deem it fair then fine by me. It will be interesting to see if there are a similar number of detractors to the Ceo's salary as there were to Rupert Lowe's performance based earnings when he oversaw a move to a new ground and finishes of 12th, 11th and 8th in the Premier League.

I guess it doesn't make sense if your exclusive idea of a top ten club is one that is not too far off tenth. Seeing as it obviously caused confusion I'll define my idea of a top ten club; it's one rather like Everton, who you'd expect year on year to finish inside the top ten. Some odd years they'll do less well, other years they'll do very well and even be capable of getting up amongst 5th and even 4th. So, answering the original question again, I don't believe our CBs give us that backbone. Forren we clearly have no idea about yet, and if he's one defender to come in and be better than those that have played for us so far then great. In the summer I'd still hope for(and I keep saying this) someone kin the mould of Hangeland, or Sol Campbell in his day, a real commanding CB but one who can also play (ie a Hooiveld but without the mistakes).

How on earth have you left Chaplow out? And Seaborne at front sweeper.

And you accuse me of only looking in black and white. Is that what I said? I even pointed out that Lowe got in Niemi and Crouch over the managers' heads, and that it can work. Odd comment. Many thanks for your gracious acceptance that I can have an opinion all of my own. But if you look carefully, I wasn't commenting on Cortese picking the team in that post, only on the he and the committee seemed to have chosen players seemingly without much managerial input. But if you choose to disregard the words said by Adkins and attribute a slightly alternative meaning to them of your own volition, then I of course fully endorse your right to hold that viewpoint.

i have to admit I found the moon landings tete a tete between you and Chaz rather amusing. More so that he could take the viewpoint of "yes, they did happen" and manage to completely balls up the argument. That and claiming that he spoke for the whole forum, of course. Not sure I got where he was going with the "Pulp" nickname he ascribed you, though.

You're up to 1,686 now. And Tokyos has been stalking you, too. I told you he was one to worry about.

Pretty poor challenge, that. Would never have been a red 5 or 10 years ago, though.

Nope, they're definitely stalkers. 1,806 posters have stalked me since I've been here, I'm that popular.

The last 10 posters to stalk me by visiting my home page on here were: DatSaint, Delboy Dave, Saint137, saintbob40, Saint Claude Van Damme, Saint Matty 76, Saint_Ash, SammyJ, Sleaford_Saint, Tokyo-Saint. I always knew Tokyos was a stalker.

:lol: Terrible penalty.

Radhi Jaidi?

Good finish from Tarabt. Wonder where he'll end up next year.

Clint Hill is an utter abortion of a footballer. Quite how bad Tal ben Haim must be to not be able to get in the side ahead of that complete donkey is rather worrying for QPR fans.

Fulham 1 up, Berbatov. Get in there.

Paul Merson got an "I 8 Saints" tattoo done when he was a Pompey player. That one really gets to me.

Sky do hate us, its true. But I find the best way to get beyond that is to focus all my rage on Mark Lawrenson. Lawro hates us more than any other pundit in history, its utterly infuriating, and I have set up a dartboard in my front room with his smug face on it to throw arrows at every time his hatred shines through in his match predictions or on Match of the Day. Its quite a handy stress tool, given how upset I get about it all.

Actually I think I can draw that conclusion. Cortese/Reed were in negotitations for Ramirez and Adkins plainly knew nothing about the player early on, or about the state of the transfer. His comments were something like "from the sounds of it he's a good player"; he'd quite obviously not been party to any detailed analysis whatsoever. I don't know why some people think that's an attack on the club that they have to defend. Lowe brought in Crouch and Niemi over his managers' heads, so it can work. Strachan didn't want Niemi (think he wanted Craig Gordon) but Lowe refused and got his man. It happens, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But its fair game to criticise when it doesn't work, just as one would citicise a manager for a poor signing.

QPR going down would make me laugh; as would seeing Redknapp completely under-achieve given how much money he's been given to spend. So I'm going for a Fulham win, even if it does take them further away from us.

Adkins said at the time that he knew very little about Ramirez and the deal that was being done to get him, indicating he'd had no input in the selection of the player. So its not exactly unknown for the committee to have made player choices over the manager's head. Nor with the previous regime either.

I must have watched a different game, he was absolutely appalling and achieved nothing, leading to him getting subbed for Steve de Ridder after less than an hour.

When we played Sunderland, and Mayuka suddenly was chosen to play up front. Now THAT was a completely bizarre selection that raises the odd question or two for me.

Pretty much that, really. Also depends on what the club ambitions are, but perhaps a top striker too.

I've heard that Cortese does still pick the team, but only for midweek games and Sunday kick-offs. The Chelsea game was all Pochettino's work. The plan is to integrate MP into the job gradually, so that by next November or December Cortese will only pick the team for one-off games of his choosing.

Only on Bournemouth's territory.

I thought that; given the whole sports science thing, it sounded really ignorant. As it did at the time , to some extent.