The Kraken

Yep. Every single one of them.

Yep, good points. For the bit in bold: I suspect it would only be a Saints relegation, or offer from a top club that would do so. I don't see Lallana as good enough for a top 4 or 5 club, so relegation is probably the biggest factor. Selling him in January wouldn't make much sense IMO, even for an inflated fee like £15M.

No. PKF can't just decide to "sell" Fratton Park for an arbitrarily low figure. Portpin hold a charge against the ground, and until the court decrees otherwise any offer to buy must meet their own valuation/agreement.

Excellent, another low risk target with bags of proven Premier League experience.

True story. He was worth £7.5M plus various potential add ons.

I was there (Archers terrace) when Nicky Banger scored a hat-trick on his debut.

Well, Matt Jarvis is a mere left winger. Adam Lallana, on the other hand, plays on the left AND he plays on the right. Also, his general play puts the overall performances of Argentinian maestro Lionel Messi in the shade. Given all that; £5M? £55M wouldn't be enough FFS.

Sorry MLG, I went out to dinner and missed your post. My answer to your question should first be phrased by pointing out that I agree with you to a certain extent and have commented before as such. Luke Shaw needs to be developed and his progress could be put back by not having a route to the first team. That said, you completely missed the points I made, in that at 17 he is still developing and through his ups and downs in form he is likely to also be as prone to injury as he'll ever be. And as Turkish said, should we really be placing such a burden of expectation on someone so young? It's a big risk. I think his progress has been brilliant; will it last? Your idea of letting him get on with it leaves Dan Fox as our left back if Shaw isn't there in case of injury, loss of form, whatever. My view is this; that situation simply isn't good enough. Especially when you yourself suggested previously that spending £10m on squad players was a decent business model.

All entirely correct. Also, with Shaw, he's only 17 and his body is still developing so he's going to be more succeptible to injury. So along with completely understandable fluctuations in performance there is no way we should plan the rest of our season around him playing 90 minutes in every single game; its extremely unlikely to happen. Think David Moyes with Wayne Rooney; in his early years Rooney was nurtured and held back for his own good. Moyes quite rightly didn't have him playing 90 minutes every game, it would likely have quickly burnt him out.

A bit low (if true) that the club did absolutely nothing for him, to be fair. Saints Foundation and the club have normally been pretty good in the past, even dealing with gift requests from other charities. Doesn't take much to just let him and get a picture or quick tour. But then this is Neil Allen, who has a rather strange relationship with the truth when it comes to the south coast divide, bless him.

Sorry, what?! I didn't see the game, how is this actually possible?

There was also no need for us to have a fan-owned club. In fact the one time we got into massive financial trouble stemmed from having a couple of fans in decision making positions, rather than a detached figure such as Rupert who for the most part kept us on an even financial keel. I truly don't like the idea of fan ownership; and certainly not majority ownership. There's too many egos, too many of the same old faces at play vying for a place at the trough and their spot in the limelight, its a model that (here at least) has been proved to not work. Also, we were NEVER in real danger of going out of business. As fans we raised thousands of pounds in the SOS campaigns but that just went to paying the players obscene wages. They didn't take a hit, or defer, so fans understandably got fed up with lining their pockets. And if we'd have been in genuine problems then could have gone down the wage deferral route that Pompey did, or even sell off one of the players we still had on our books (Schneiderlin or Lallana alone would have provided a decent cash boost in addition to the £3M we did get from player sales). Markus' Liebherr's bid was there before exclusivity was given to Pinnacle, and it was there (thankfully) after that was proved to be a hollow bid. A benevolent Swiss billionaire always in the background, yet we should have gone for fan ownership? That's Pompey logic. Pompey NEED fan ownership. Even if it is destined to failure. They've had all sorts of shysters and crooks involved with them for generations now, finally they have a chance of ridding themselves of that. Sadly their fans don't seem to grasp that not all clubs have been historically run in the same shameful way that they have. Not all clubs are crying out for a bunch of amateurs to usurp Hong Kong loan sharks and Russian gun runners. They're a unique sh*thouse case all of their own, and they'd do well to remember that before trotting out the "you did nothing to save your club" complete tripe.

Do catch up, Dig Dog. http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?41585-Saints-pay-least-to-agents It was even on the first page

Indeed. They did it at Reading away last year too; that and actually having more than 2 or 3 serving staff behind the counters. It worked a treat. The St. Mary's system is catastrophically slow in comparison; especially in the Chapel where they seem to only use the slowest, most dim-witted of staff (and often only 2 of them at any time serving).

Its Decathlon, who are sponsoring the ice rink at the German Market.

Benitez has said that Ashley Cole is on his way out to PSG, if not in January then definitely at the end of the season. And Chelsea don't really have a replacement lined up for him unless you include Ryan Bertrand (which I don't, not for a top 4 side). Would Shaw get into their side? Perhaps not now, but at the start of next season with a load of games behind him, you just never know.

Don't f*ck about with Milton. He's just threatened to smash my face in on PM. I think he's a bit loose.

How do you know we aren't difficult to deal with? At all? Seems like an assumption to me.

Not really. You're the current incumbent, it would be thoroughly out of order to go in above your head.

I've already written for you before Col. All you've gotta do is ask if you're feeling the strain. #justsaying

All I'm hearing is excuses

Such a maverick.

Such a maverick.

With Colin's attitude and disparaging remarks to his target audience I can see why he doesn't get invited to the freebie evenings. He seems to be a bit of an SWF renegade.

With Colin's attitude and disparaging remarks to his target audience I can see why he doesn't get invited to the freebie evenings. He seems to be a bit of an SWF renegade.