The Kraken

Its proof of absolutely nothing, actually. Like anything else on here its an opinion (albeit likely a valid one). But if some sides of the debate are going to get lambasted for portraying opinion as fact then lets at least be consistent across the board. And the loan is actually secured against next year's prize money / parachute payments AND the assets of Southampton Football Club; you missed that bit out.

Therein lies the problem. We were crying out for a dominant leader of a centre back all summer long. Yoshida is better than what we have, but he's not dominant (in the sense Jaidi was for us) and he doesn't seem to be a leader either. Hence why our defence so often looks like the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing.

Why did you cut quite an important bit out from what Cortese actually said? Edit: what he said ^^

Are you missing the point on purpose? Of course its ok by the rules to do that. We're apparently choosing not to; which in turn limits the away kit to being able to be worn once or twice for the whole season, which is a frankly bizarre and stupid situation to end up in. And you can see both images because they're in your cache. But not in ours.

SF73; we know shorts don't HAVE to be the same colour. The point you've missed is that someone at SFC has apparently decided the white kit can only be worn in its entirety, or not at all. So your second picture (the one that actually worked) is irrelevant.

Has anyone got any spare tin foil? I need to make a hat.

Ha ha ha. So Liverpool away is the only definite time we'll wear it during the whole season. Potentially possible against Norwich, but why would we not just wear red??!! A monumentally ignorant, stunningly stupid kit decision. Made worse by the fact that the de facto away kit, the yellow one, isn't even on sale. Saints FC; take a bow, you utter clowns.

Um, no. I haven't noticed this To be honest I'm a little concerned with what I've kickstarted here, so I'm going to leave you to your anger and your conspiracy theories.

Well, until the move to St. Mary's, pretty much every season we nearly did go down. We were perennial relegation candidates at the Dell. Probably easier to believe in the whole BBC bias against us though, I suppose.

:lol: Pretty much the only times Lawrenson has been wrong in his predictions this season have been when he tipped us to win.

Is it that black and white? In your mind, can you not contemplate a thread like this after 10 games as a "where have we been, where are we going discussion??" Especially so since plenty of people before the season started were rightly saying "let's not rush to any judgements, lets look at where we are after 10 games or so"? Its most odd, coming on a discussion board, and suggesting others shouldn't discuss things until the season is over as only then will we have an accurate view of the season. This is entirely what message boards are for, to talk complete b*llocks with people as you would down the pub. Hypo raises a fair point; the thread title is pretty clear what the content is going to be, so its fairly easy to avoid.

Restricted view for the bargan discount price of £41.....

The insight in this post is thoroughly illuminating.

Oh dear MLG, I was being ironical.

The level of shouting down apparently being done on this board seems to be getting out of hand.

Well those would be interesting to know, but I'd imagine far less likely than finding out the terms of this loan. Everton's loan details (supposedly from a similar source to ours) were leaked/got out so its not a huge area of secrecy. I doubt we'll ever find out the full details; though if minimal details can be unearthed then the questioning will absolutely be worth it. I'd rather ask questions for myself than stick my head in the sand and assume our former banker chairman knows what he's doing 100% of the time and doesn't ever make any mistakes or ever act in ways which are damaging to the club.

I think you miss the point. By quite a bit. Portsmouth fans were rightly criticised for going along with their good times and not asking enough questions of where the money was coming from. There's absolutely nothing wrong in asking the same questions of ourselves; particularly when the chairman himself has previously suggested that he doesn't want/need to operate the company using money borrowed against future earnings. Yes, Cortese is a former banker and has a much better heads up on that arena than 99.99% of the population. The questions being asked are why are in we debt, why do we now need to borrow, how much have we borrowed, over what period, on what terms? Not unreasonable questions to ask IMO.

CB and LB absolutely need to be prioritised. and brought in as early as possible. I can live without a CM, partiuclarly if Jack Cork can come back and make the impact we all hope he can and will. A RW, well that would be nice, but I'm not sure if I'd prioritise that position at all. In the short term its the only place on the pitch that Mayuka is going to play. If Theo Walcott can be turned from a young striker into a winger for Arsenal, then Mayuka can do that for us this season as far as I'm concerned. If finances are an issue (as they surely will be) I'd rather spend money on just 2 defenders than spreading it round for 4 new players.

Michael Owen has gone to twitter about it: So I guess it may get appealed. I haven't seen it so I'm guessing; I'll have a look on MOTD2 later.

As boring as talking about our form at the start of last season; when we were top and beating teams for fun? Why does being in poor form mean it shouldn't be discussed, but it was ok then? I don't remember too many people then asking if it was boring to speculate on how high in the league we could finish, how long our run might last, whether we were good enough for promotion. And if people find it repetitive, why join in? Its pretty easy to work out what this thread it about. Strange.

Depends on the severity of the incident. 3 games is usually for violent conduct, if it was just a professional foul then he'll likely only get a 1 game ban.

He played 3 games in the Championship early in the season, was subsequently dropped after what I'm informed from a number of sources were pretty shocking performances, and hasn't featured in the league since. He's not considered good enough for a top 6 Championship side; as such I would suggest he isn't a piece in the jigsaw in any Premier league club other than one which is intent upon a return to the lower leagues. If we have to resort to Aaron Martin at any time, then my word we're in trouble.

No I cannot think of one player we should be looking to invest in; not one.

Apart from Rodriguez, I'd agree, and also with your summing of it up. JRod; I'm still not sure what he's about yet, except as backup and long term replacement for Lambert (in which case I guess you're right that he does make the squad stronger). We spent a huge amount of money; but the way we spent it meant that we strengthened in some areas and neglected others that IMO were more inmportant. £12M on Ramirez to "replace" Lallana (he'd been playing the number 10 position all pre-season). £7M on Rodriguez, who hasn't replaced Lambert. Plus £3M on Mayuka; to replace Sharp, maybe?? Clyne was a good purchase; but we didn't add a left back and are one short, and there's definite questions being asked of last year's two centre backs. Their replacement himself is a relatively cheap gamble from the Dutch league. It can/will be debated all day; i just don't think we set our transfer priorities right, both in terms of money spent and positions that were most important to bring in. How we've ended up with no proper LB replacement is shocking given that we spent £30M odd elsewhere.

Why on earth not? As I said on another thread..... Take a look at the relegated teams from last season. Norwich beat top 6 Newcastle and Tottenham, and took points off Arsenal and Chelsea. Swansea beat Man City and Arsenal whilst also taking points from Chelsea, Tottenham and Newcastle. QPR had a fairly dismal season but still found time to beat Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham and take points off Liverpool, Newcastle and Everton. You may not expect much, but QPR stayed up on the back of those results, Norwich and Swansea finished mid-table because of them.