The Kraken

True. Also they loved the social side of life; Carroll loves a pint (allegedly) and I always used to see Beatts in the Rhino back in the day.

Just wondering, Wes. How do you equate our academy in recent years against the likes of the top clubs? The general top 4 clubs. How much ahead of them do you see we are?

Probably true. Quicker than Lambert, to be fair, and put more of a shift in. But his first touch was often horrific!! An absolutely superb header of the ball, to be fair. I said when we signed Rickie that he was the best header of the ball we'd had since Beattie. Just a natural instinct to know where the ball would drop and how to hold off the defender.

James Beattie is on Late Kick Off right now. Looking much thinner than he ever was with us! So, just wondering; while he was obviously good for us, he was also a bit "chunky" for a pro sportsman, wasn't he? And just like Rickie Lambert has improved his diet and physique to improve his all round game; how good could Beattie have been with us if he was uber-fit?

Ha ha ha. Seriously though; instead of the patronising attitude you should perhaps listen to exactly where some "rumours" come from. You make dislike some posters on here but they do have accurate sources, no matter how much denigrating them tries to shut it out for you.

Would have been nice if he could have done some relevant analysis on why "Welbs" and "Studge" deserve to be in contention.

I heard it on TalkSport. Adrian Durham said it was so

A certain di Manager got offered the job before the season kicked off, though. So the "final decision" was made way before that. A certain di Manager also got offered the job before MP, too.

Rog, if you read my previous post you'll see I prefer MP, and think most other fans do. I just have a bit of an issue with people making things up about Adkins performance here, and implying we were doomed to relegation until we changed manager. Its entirely incorrect.

Ronnie Savage is my favourite pundit.

Well he had us safe, and actually on the upturn before he left. We played Arsenal and Chelsea; should have beaten Arsenal and came back from 2-0 down to draw against chelsea. Those games were both in his final fling with us. He wasn't "out of his depth", he wasn't "tactically inept". If were either of those we would be down by now. He was a good manager, who perhaps wouldn't have taken us much further than Premier League survival, we'll never know. Your analogies need an awful lot of work, they really do.

Not good enough for a top ten aspiring Premier League team. None of them; not as first choice anyway.

I think your "sinking ship" analogy was utter nonsense, not "too strong". We've improved under MP. I think most people prefer him as a manager. But lets not re-write history to airbrush out and diminish our previous manager's achievements, shall we?

Exactly. You should heed little Jimmy's words and stop stamping all over people's dreams with your blatant lies of ITK truth.

How many times do you have to be told that Roberto di Matteo was not approached by Saints. No matter how many times you PMd me this news, it simply didn't happen, ok? Saints weren't looking to replace their manager; not at the start of the season, and not in December/January. Just get that into your head, will you.

Or alternatively you could look at Adkins record for the season; 22 points from 22 games. 1 point per game. MP; 12 points from 9 games, or 1.33 points per game. Maybe we can find a better terminology than "turned round a sinking ship". I think that's the point, really. 1 point per game would, by many approximations on here, have us staying up.

"Turned round a sinking ship". Adkins' last 9 games: 11 points. Pochettino's first 9 games: 12 points. That's some turnaround in fortunes.

A mate of mine supports Swindon and says that, predictably, di Canio is a complete egomaniac and will take credit for absolutely everything his team does, and will always try to make himself the focal point of attention. He also had control of absolutely everything at Swindon, in terms of management, signing of players, offering contracts and negotiations etc. Not sure how that will work at Sunderland; but they had to make a change, and he's certainly a "character".

It's quite funny the amount of people that are so quick to jump in and claim something as "bullsh*t" just because they don't like the content, or its source. And I think there are some who get genuinely angry that others get to hear snippets of ITK info. Its quite bizarre, but funny nonetheless. Edit: here's the link: http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?37998-Alex-Pearce-from-reading/page2&highlight=lard+alex+pearce And also funny to see precious little Jimmy D shutting it down as he didn't like the content!!

With Heskey up front; you're on. And maybe we could tempt Michael Owen out of retirement to make a dream team striker partnership.

There's simply no response to that. That was one of the best halves of football I've seen Saints play in a long while; let alone against the Champions League holders and 3rd placed side in the division. We had 60% posession and entirely dominated in every area of the pitch.

The next game. A win, and I'd suggest we're much closer to safety, especially if other results go our way. A defeat and some of the teams below us picking up points and we're right back into the dogfight. I'm adopting a rather boring "take every game as it comes" attitude.

Oh, Philip. You went and did it, didn't you? You went down the "Kieron Dyer" type of analogy route. The ability of the player is utterly key. Experience is simply another string to the bow, a nice to have, something that also qualifies the ability. You go for some players with experience because, quite frankly, they're much of a lesser risk that lower league or foreign players. Because their experience in the PL is a benchmark to use of their ability. Titf*ck Bumble FFS.

Well it may be this summer that if we do want a really good CB, we may have to prise them away with a top offer rather than going for someone who is more readily available for a cheaper price. We did with Ramirez; we may need to do it again if that's the priority. I guess we'll find out our priorities in due course.

BBC Sport confirming that Sunderland are to hold talks with di Canio.