The Kraken

No idea actually, I think the Morgan one was posted either in this thread or on another one by ladysaint. Maybe Opta?

What's clear is the Shay Given has suddenly had a talent bypass. He was awful for a terrible Villa side.

Well at least we'll have got there by lack of talent, rather than lackof signings. We need at least a fighting chance first, if we can't compete after that, well then questions will obviously be asked and decisions made on the back of that.

I don't rate Morgan as high as a lot on this board who think he's the next Premier League star in the making. I think he's accomplished but often too casual and gives the ball away too much for a player in his position. I also think he's sometimes too ponderous in his play and we lose the initiative going forwards with him in posession.

Our "best shot" surely involves signing the players the management have identified we need. Currently we haven't done that, not even close, so its perhaps no surprise we're struggling.

I would of bought this up earlier myself.

Wes, there was a stat that Morgan covered more ground yesterday than any other player in the league. So he put in a shift. I don't agree it's just a lack of effort we're missing out on. It's a lack of creative play, it's a lack of stretching the play, and it's a lack of ability to change play and do something different IMO.

I'm going for (f) 1 or 2 new players and claim that's all we were after / all we needed in the first place

It's getting a bit ridiculous now. We started with NA wanting up to 5 or 6 more players (and signing 1 in Gazzaniga), and saying we'll have some before the Man City game. That's since been downsized a little bit; we're apparently no longer after a left back, its gone eerily quiet altogether on another keeper. We know we're after a winger of sorts with the previous interest in Ramirez, and who knows exactly what's happening with a new centre back (Alan Nixon is tweeting that we haven't got a clue which CB we're going for, which doesn't sound overly optimistic at this late stage). I was concerned when this thread started, and my overall wish was that we avoid the kind of last minute Jos Hooiveld deal that we had to make last season, a last roll of the dice gamble that may or may not come off. I'm absolutely sure we won't hit our original target number of players, right now I feel I'll be utterly delighted if we get 2 more new players in. And lets remember, being as we keep getting them highlighted as a benchmark, in the transfer window last summer Norwich brought in 8 new players and Swansea 9. We so far have 4.

That may be part of it. But the simple fact is that, at midday today, the online system showed that zero seats were available in blocks 1, 2 and 3. And onlt a handful of available seats in the Itchen stand lower. Yet come gametime in those areas there were various big areas of empty seats, far more than just one or two here or there. I'd estimate there were actually only around 27K - 28K people actually inside the ground today, nowhere near the actual figure published. But then the club do have form in publishing attendance figures which could be construed as dubious (particularly when records are at stake); so who knows?

Of course, that must be it. Another one to add to the list. Good work.

Too many ***** to be clear. How many home fans did we have today? Its quite simple, you take the number of away fans in attendance from the total number in the crowd. Also, how many Man U/neutral fans will we have in corporate and home ends, as you suggest? If you could provide those numbers, that would be great.

There it is!!!! :lol::lol::lol: Oh Lard, you're so desperate to be proved right this time, aren't you?

Can you talk us through those numbers please? How have you arrived at that notion?

I don't doubt it. SFC seems to think that marketing involves putting the prices on the website and simply waiting for people to call and book. No external marketing, little effort in attracting new business, alienating local companies who previously bought corporate boxes and no longer will, it all adds up to empty seats. The spat with the Echo is a case in point, needlessly banning the local paper from the ground and training ground and thereby negating the possibility of countless free advertising. You couldn't make it up, really.

You don't mean to say our wonderful marketing department let themselves down, do you?! :lol:

Hallelujah.

Sold out weeks in advance for pretty much every game, apparently. Tickets were like gold dust. Simple piffle such as the recession and increased prices wouldn't make a difference to us, we are Southampton and we should be building a bigger stadium right now. I'm sure he'll invent some complete different nonsense as to why he isn't completely full of sh*t, but the lad has been exposed as a sham.

His argument seems to have changed since the season started. Check the bit about "Give it a few years and if we are mid table/upper half the matchgoing fanbase for games vs Wigan will grow." The bravado and bullsh*t of "build it now" and all the references to historical sell-outs has diminished, unsurprisingly.

This exactly. Guly is no right winger, J-Rod is no left winger, our players do not fit our shape. We need to either find some that do or find a shape that fits our players.

They look thoroughly comfortable playing a 4-3-3 formation they've played for years; we've got players playing out position to accommodate ours.

I think that's all we'll get, but earlier statements were for more than that. Then again, Nigel also said (in late July) "there will be new additions before the end of the transfer window and before we play Manchester City", and no-one actually came in. So the transfer committe have already failed to meet that particular target.

Don't know where the link is, it was widely reported at the time, after signing our first 3 players. He said he wanted "1 or 2 goalkeepers, 1 or 2 centre backs". He also separately said a winger, and the interest in Buttner suggested a left back. There's 6, whether Ramirez was included in that or not, who knows. I don't make these things up.

Nigel Adkins disagrees with you. Still missing at least 5 from the list he has said he wants/needs. As for the frustrating part; yeah, we get it. That's why there's been concern we haven't done anything for weeks despite the number of players we're still outstanding per the manager's own benchmarks.

If that's the case I'm intrigued what the delay is for bringing these players in. Why we haven't made the decision yet who we want and gone and got them (we've said we want 2 CBs). I'm sure we've made plenty of enquiries and whatever. Our failure to thus far get over the line is what concerns me.