The Kraken

You're trying far too hard now.

The thing with that statement, and basing on a supposed track record, is this; of all the players we are (supposedly) tracking, none of them have a track record better than players we have now. Out of Maynard, J-Rod, Sharp etc, in terms of track record and divisions played in, Connolly comes up much better. Barnard and Lambert have comparable scoring records, albeit they've rarely played higher than League 1. But you wouldn't hold that against Rickie right now, he's one of the first names on the team sheet, so by that logic you shouldn't hold it against a new signing. Yes, we should sign players better than those we currently have. Of course that's right. But knowing just who those players are, and how much we should/could pay for them is a lot more diificult. You could argue that Rodriguez is unproven, as he's still young and hasn't done it over a number of seasons. Yet he would cost more than £6M, and it would still be no guarantee of success.

Or it might me that you are massively tedious, as well as being abjectly dull and incorrect.

Please say it isn't so, that would be utterly tragic.

Which made it all the more preposterous. We needed to drastically cut back on expenditure, yet we lashed out huge sums on such a badly thought out notion that you couldn't make up the sheer absurdity of it all. Woodward allegedly on £1M per year, Clifford by his own admission on £300K, God only knows where else we threw money down the drain while neglecting the area it was really needed, on the pitch (£90K on Fuller was all we spent during that summer if memory serves me). The post-Strachan era at Saints under Lowe was just a complete catastrophe: Sturrock binned, the Wigley debacle, the whole Redknapp charade, Woodward and Clifford, Poortvliet, Wotte. Disaster zone.

Stalker alert.

There's no doubt that Bassett and indeed Redknapp were set in their ways and completely resistent to change. That said, what Lowe tried to push through was complete lunacy. Think about it, he was trying to promote a management duo who had zero experience in professional football. Zero. And he was seemingly prepared to allow carte blanche to a rugby coach having a play around with football, and a guy who made his name adopting a system of soccer schools for 10 year old children. Of course Bassett and Redknapp were going to resist what Lowe was forcing on them. And knowing how confrontational and arrogant Clifford is, you can bet that he was busy undermining the work of the coaching team for his own self-promotion and benefit. say what you want about Redknapp (and I'll be happy to say plenty about his time with us), he has a decent track record in football by doing things his own way. To force this comedy duo onto him was a moment of madness from Lowe and was destined to failure right from the very start.

When it comes to his constant rhetoric about all things Hoddle I do the same, as his argument is as thoroughly boring as it is ill thought out. Originally I hadn't realised that same undercurrent of banality existed throughout the rest of his posts; you soon learn though.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest they wouldn't give a flying f*ck what is being sung about them in an already sh*t song.

Pinch of salt time, I'd suggest. Clifford is one of the biggest self-publicists there is. The whole Woodward episode was just stupidly bizarre from start to finish.

Danny Fox

On the issue of transfers this summer, you have been a stuck record. We should have bought in early June, repeat ad nauseam. Judge the transfers made at the end of the transfer window. I have no comment to make about your Hoddle-weirdness, because its as boring as it is irrelevant right now.

Brilliant! That was a good one, well done you.

And yet again you entirely miss the point; it seems you want signings just for the sake of it, regardless of quality. It's been said before, it'll be said again. Sometimes the right signing just isn't available in early June. We'd all like transfers to be completed by then, but often it just doesn't happen. If we have to wait until late August, but by waiting it ensures we get a much better quality of player, then we'd be complete idiots not to wait.

You keep telling yourself that you're right, you tedious bore.

Posession: Southampton 51%, Millwall 49%. Have another go, genius.

Always thought Kasabian's "Shoot the runner" would work quite well.

I'm guessing Bobby was being just a touch sarcastic.

Yeah, I think we'll see a fair bit of the barrier this season. With the likes of Leeds, Millwall, Cardiff, Pompey of course, and a couple of notable others I'm sure the Police will mob well up and be on their toes.

At The Den it is aboslutely true; there is a huge amount of policing and if you use the tube the fencing arrangements and police barrier mean that you are kept completely away from the home fans all the way to the away (enclosed) turnstiles. Same treatment for the way out and you're pretty much escorted on to the tube, you can go the whole game, before and after without brushing shoulders with one home fan. For our home games the police are on top of their travelling support with escorts from the station etc. You can expect to see a vastly increased police presence throughout the city tomorrow.

That is true now, but there is still a stigma attached which I also believe may put some people off. I think it'll be less than 25K.

I'm Brian and so is my wife.

Jesus, you know things are bad with 'elf and safety when the police have to get involved over a big bit of cloth.