The Kraken

One national newspaper had Saints tipped to finish the league lower mid table. The NPC is much, much more open that the PL. West Ham were tipped by pretty much everybody to literally run away with the title but have found it a bit harder than that. Reading could easily win the league but wouldn't have been in too many bookies top 3 predictions.

A lot of what you said is true, because for teams like Wigan, Blackburn, Wolves etc etc, survival in the PL is the be all and end all. They regularly put aside progress in the cups to focus on staying in the league, and 17th position each year is a thoroughly acceptable outcome for some clubs. That sort of mediocrity goes hand and hand with the money on show at the top table, but it removes a huge amount of ambition from the lower lights who just know that they just cannot complete with the top few sides. It also leads to massive impatience on the part of chairmen; Warnock's treatment at QPR after everything he did for them is a point in case. I just hope that, if we do go up and then struggle a bit, our chairman will have a little more patience in his manager than at Loftus Road.

Of course we should be aiming to get to and compete at the highest level. But it is a weird one; I've deifnitely had more fun at games in the Championship and League 1 rather than when we were in the Premier League, and have been to comparitively far more games since our relegation from the top flight. But the aim is always promotion. It would actually be different to see a Saints team in the top flight giving it a good go. So many times in the PL we took a very pragmatic approach; and had a team of work-hards rather than a team who could outplay others. Adkins doesn't strike me as being too safety-first, so perhaps a PL Southampton under his stewardship would give us somehting we haven't seen for a while. Of course, we have to get there first....

Fox is a waste of money, Tandoori Lee was a stupid risk to take, , Hooiveld is terrible because he couldn't get in the Celtic team, and Guly is **** because he's black. The unerring opinion of some of your fellow SainsWeb posters.

Yep, you're right, Rickie Lambert deserves praise too.

Nothing to do with the football manager then? Or all of his staff? The whole ethos of "together as one" deserves a bit more than praise of just 2 men.

Now you've done it. Don't ask him if he ever served. It's a bit like asking him why as he never goes to Saints games he still feels the need to pontificate on all things Saints from a distance with an air of ignorance and beligerence.

Don't lie. It's because he's a darkie, isn't it?

How have you even got a clue it is racist from even one of them, let alone all of them?

Statement from Trevor Birch: You're all great. You're all brilliant. You're all so wonderful. I love this club. By the way, I'm bringing Chainrai back......

Dalek will be delighted. Or he would be if he wasn't a spamming moron.

Personally I never needed "closure". I'm not even sure what it means. I didn't like getting relegated from the PL. I didn't like struggling and then getting relegated from the Championship. But, we were in League 1 for 2 years and I'll be damned if I look back on those times as anything but a really good time. I went o more games per season than I'd been to before; I went to grounds I'd not been to; I mixed with some proper, real fans of decent clubs; and we won a cup and a promotion in two years. If you can't find fun in supporting that then there's something wrong. The Premier League is where its all that, no doubting that, and the objective is to get back there as soon as possible. But I'll never try to erase or diminish our achievement so far in falling from grace, and then rebuilding ourselves. And the fact its been such an enjoyable ride makes our slip from the top a little easier to stomach.

I think the Skates have washed their hands of him after he upset the delusional few by asserting that they had cheated their way to the FA Cup. They don't like a healthy dose of reality down that way, apparently.

Adam Lallana seems to disagree with you. From his twitter feed last night: "Away win, Lambo on flames! Injury not bad at all! Away end sold out again #COYR"

According to that Manish guy, Claridge was "out of his seat" for the second goal. Definitely a closet Saints fan.

It really is.

We are.

I would say its almost impossible that the two haven't crossed paths before, being as Birch conducted the due diligence for the sale of the club to CSI. As such I'm sure he would have gained a working knowledge of everything that has been going on at PFC, and probably how AA has simply been acting as a puppet for Chainrai. Its an obvious act of desperation from AA; whether a complaint can actually ensure that Birch is removed from the post, i don't know, he's been appointed by a court of law and short of an appeal directly to that court surely a complaint can only be some form of mud-slinging exercise. But then I'm clearly no legal-eagle, so what do I know?

That is indeed unforgivable. And while Nick Illingsworth has indeed done that in past, in his guise on Solent he is simply representing himself as the editor of online fanzine The Ugly Inside. And he is very welcome to his voice in that guise IMO.

Exactly right. WBA may be paying wages but there will be additional coasts to Pompey involved; travel expenses, living expenses, even his training kit etc, its an additional cost, however large or small it may be. So the first thing they have done since enerting administration is to increase their costs. Brilliant. Insolvency laws in this country surrounding football clubs really are an utter joke.

I think it more likely that they simply haven't tried hard enough. Even if they loaned out and paid a large percentage of Tal Ben Haim et al's wages, they would save themselves thousands of pounds per week. The simple fact is they saw that as too hard a decision to make and opted not to do it. They had interest in their players from Ipswich, who of course baulked at the wages, but there was never any discussion to come to an arrangement over it. Thankfully the national media have now cottoned on to the sheer absurdity of it all and are more than happy to point out the cheating nature of it all.

Definitely!!!!!!! I would ROFL all over the floor if I saw that!!!!!!

I thought there was a payment plan for season tickets this season? Or have I imagined that?

Not for you, Limpdick, I imagine the P45 will be in the post very soon.