The Kraken

Marco; just wondering. You are aware that various other news agencies (local and national) were reporting on the training ground plans around the same time as the Echo went to print, aren't you?

Superbly put FM, and I wholeheartedly echo those setiments (pun entirely intended), especially this part: Spot on.

He sounds young, hungry, and is bound to improve.

Why are you swearing at me? There are many similarities between the Echo newspaper and this site. Particularly in that they represent news relating to SFC but are funded entirely separately, by their own means. Which means they are independent to the club (and should remain so too IMO). Your's is an interesting viewpoint; essentially you feel the club are right to have expected the Echo to not repeat news that's in the public domain. And because they did, you think the club are again right to ban all Echo staff from the ground and training ground, and refuse to have anything to do with them. Even now, years after the event. Fair enough, but I don't subscribe to that "logic". I believe its petty and vindictive, and shows exactly how Mr Cortese seeks (unsuccessfully) to dictate terms to the press. In essence he's actually missing a trick; by keeping the Echo close and giving them morsels of actual inside information he can control them much more effectively to his ends. Still, he's chosen not to do that so its a moot point. The Echo buggered up in their procedure, but their aim was correct: they reported the news that was out there. To have an accusation of unprofessionalism thrown at them for that is slightly ironic, as they were actually being the complete opposite, they were being professional and independent. If anything I believe it is SFC that have acted unprofessionally throughout this whole spat (though admittedly the Echo haven't helped themselves either).

No you don't. You simply don't; especially if you are to be seen as an impartial source of information. Ask Steve Grant how he feels about this site being totally independent from Southampton FC, and ask him why its important; then you might start to understand. There is a balance between being in cahoots with the club, and being supportive yet independent. pandering to the club's every whim is not independent, not in the slightest. The way the Echo published the training ground story was daft, but they simply couldn't just ignore it. If you think they should then you're on the way to a censored press, and good luck with that, its not for me. They should have printed a small story acknowledging the info but stating that a full, club-backed exclusive would follow in tomorrow's edition. You seem to think they should have ignored it and pretend it didn't happen, just to pacify the club. Nope, can't agree with that.

Look at the post above to understand the typical hyerbole: "the Echo....always trying to stir the pot and make the club look bad". Complete nonsense. The vast majority of the Echo's stories are on the positive side; anyone who disagrees with that simply doesn't read the paper, its glaringly obvious. SuperMikey saying the Echo lacked professionalism, when what they actually did was print a story that was already in the public domain and was already being reported by other news agencies. And yes, I've seen comments on here before where people expect the Echo to be totally aligned with the club and question the paper's motives when they publish negative news stories. If you think there are zero people who think this way, fine by me.

Daily readership of the Echo newspaper is mid 80 thousands. Sales figures are around the 30 thousand mark. That's not even taking into account how many people view the Echo website. Can't remember offhand the daily unique visitors to the SFC site, these are figures from last year, but they were far below 80,000. Its all available through google if you can be bothered to look for it, I can't right now.

I imagine that Saints stories are still fairly key to the Echo too. Bear in mind the newspaper still has a daily readership vastly higher than the number of visitors than the SFC website, which is the only medium for published news from the club (other than programmes on matchday). All the b*llocks spouted many that the Echo has undermined the club are just that; b*llocks. They're not a part of the club (in fact the club have made it perfectly clear how the relationships stands) and they have a duty to report all news, good or bad. Some of our fanbase seem to want the paper to only report on the good stuff and completely whitewash the bad (or at the very least put a positive shine on it). That's IMO naive and would be akin to censorship; the local paper should be free to report as it wishes and provide a balaanced report. Which, for the most part, the Echo has continued to do even since the petty and pathetic lock-out they've had to endure for essentially reporting news that was in the public domain already. Cortese needs to get his head out of his arse and really that his control freakery doesn't extend to the media (he should have learnt this from his emabarrassing climb down with the Sun). The Echo leadership also need to offer an olive branch of their own; this childish spat does no-one any favours. The Echo isn't going anywhere soon. Sales numbers are down but web hits are rising day by day which in turn brings in more advertising revenue. A local paper that reports on the club yet asks the difficult questions when needed is a good thing in my book. I don't really want to live in a nanny-state where the Echo has to gloss over the sh*tty things that happen at the club just to stay onside. Yes, some of their negative stories have been pretty poor (the ST idiots who got charged for parking, and the Arsenal ejectees recently being a point in case), but in its defence its a small paper that has zero access to the club and its players yet it still has to fill pages to satisfy its audience.

He really is quite precious about Rickie; its rather touching.

Unbelieveable. With a relatively talented Blackpool squad, in his 11 games in charge Appleton has an 18% win percentage. W2 D7 L2. 13 points from 11 games, really very average at best. At Pompey he had a 25% win percentage. W13 D11 L27. 50 points from 51 games. An even worse record. What on earth do they see in him? Then again, it is Blackburn. they're even more of a basket case of a club than Pompey.

Seriously, if we don't get anything from this shower at the weekend it'll be a travesty. Never seen such a poor Villa team.

I have no idea who you are. Sorry.

Alpine is my favourite, if for nothing else that the person he most winds up is himself. I'm always amazed and humoured by how much angrier and angier he gets when his catastrophically idiotic doom-laden forecasts get utterly picked to pieces and he loses it in a flame of keyboard thumping rage.

I really think PKF could be up against it here. They are the administartors, so they are the ones charged with ensuring the club can be run solvently. If it can't they have a duty of care to liquidate; they haven't done that, yet the club continues to lose money almost a year to the day after going into administration in the first place. PKF have made all decisions regarding player recruitment and overspend, its ludicrous that a court appointed administrator could allow the club to hoover up all working capital yet still operate at a loss and have to be propped up from hopeful outside investors. I think Chinster could have a real case here; PKF have done an awful job. The first task of an administrator is to level off the finances, they have singularly failed to do that until very recently and even that has been prompted by the creditors "exerting pressure" on the administrators. And that's even before we get to thinking about the multi-million pound fees that they continue to accrue. Money for old rope.

Just to clarify; a couple of soundbites from PDT bod Ashley Brown. Ashley Brown‏@AshBeen23 The administrator is forced to cut costs due to pressure from his creditors. Ask yourself who they are? Ashley Brown‏@AshBeen23 PST deal is still on track and the only deal that allows PFC to survive. Keep the faith and back the bid

The football is better than under Strachan, that's for sure. But Strachan's teams were very effective at times, if not wonderfully pretty on the eye. Under Hoddle we did play some decent stuff too though, although to be fair he was probably also noted for us for making us very defensively sound (was it 7 clean sheets on the bounce?). The transfers; yep we know there's a committee but in the scheme of things a manager will often stand or fall by the transfers that come in, and how he utilises them. Fair? Perhaps not, but it's what happens no matter how much we would wish to alleviate him from much of the blame (and I certainly do). I certainly hope NA is the manager to take us forwards. He has the right outlook on the game, he's very bright (despite his numerous repetitive cliches) and having met him once he's a thoroughly and genuinely nice bloke. As ever the results will dictate it; hopefully NickG's form guide is an inidicator of an upturn in our fortunes. As I posted earlier, the next 6 games are absolutely vital.

Until he gets us a top ten finish in this league; until he gets us to a cup final; until he gets us up to 4th place in the league around Xmas time; then I can't go along with that I'm afraid. NA may well turn out to be brilliant; at the moment he is a good manager but one who has overseen a summer transfer spend of the 7th highest in europe yet still has a team hovering around the relegation zone and with one or two serious squad deficiencies that need resolving in the January window.

The window closing at the end of August makes little sense to me. It serves almost as an "oh f*ck it, I forget to get that centre back" type of opportunity. And I'd say it probably encourages overspending as a last minute roll of the dice for clubs; better to be safe than sorry and get an extra player in, just in case. Get it closed by August, that's plenty of time for clubs to get themselves sorted. It also stops any last minute poaching of players and one club being up the spout after a whole summer of preparation and then one of the big boys swoops in last minute for a their star player.

Its the Pompey definition of "competitive". In the world of PFC being competitive essentially means winning. It looks like Nick has applied that definition here.

I'm far too dumb to be a WUM; these mad ramblings truly are what I think.

Good stuff. Shows how criticial the next 6 games are. 2 "mustn't lose" away games against Villa and Wigan, plus tough games against Man United, Man City, Chelsea and Everton. Its very unlikely we'll get anything out of United and Chelsea away, plus City at home is an almighty challenge. Really need to capitalise with the other games; if we lose points to either of Villa and/or Wigan it'll be an enormous blow.

I imagine a lot of the cost cutting has been done as PKF realise they could be seriously in the sh*t if they continue to run a loss making business. They've clearly already hoovered up whatever working capital there was and the club's very existence is reliant upon HNW contributions, so they're pretty much insolvent without that financial backing. Tricky Trev is on shaky ground there, if he's allowing an insolvent business to continue to trade, PKF could find themselves in serious hot water. Especially so as the PDT are not necessarily the only game in town; Portpin haven't (yet) failed the Owners and Directors Test so they're still a potentially viable prospect. Trev has given exclusivity to the PDT at the expense of the financial sustainability of the club; that's a huge thing for a court appointed administrator to do. And if the creditors (i.e. Portpin) have now exerted pressure on Birch to prove that the club can be run sustainably, or they'll object to the ongoing administration (which I imagine they will do/would have done in court) then Birch has a sudden problem on his hands as to how to fiddle the books to show the club can be/is on an even keel. If Portpin can/want to argue in court that the club should be killed as there is no way of salvaging it, I think Trickster might have a very hard job convincing the court that they're wrong, or that he's done a good job with his £3M - £4M expenses clocked up to date.

Poorly executed WUM. Zero subtlety. Registered since 09 but hardly posted at all until recently. Only 4 posts in total; 2 separate threads dedicated to RDM being appointed. Obvious WUM is obvious. Come on pal, you're not even putting the effort in.

This is incredible. There's genuinely going to be no-one left! Connolly must be looking around wondering where everyone went!!