The Kraken

I was sat in the Chapel; the lovely Charlotte and Fenners were down in the Kingland/Chapel corner.

Over-reacting much? They are reporting on some transfer speculation surrounding one of our players. Big deal.

It doesn't make any sense for us to sell in January. None whatsoever. And especially not for £3m. Jonjo Shelvy has already been discussed, he went for £2m. And you only have to look at the like of Daniel Sturridge, who let his contract expire at Man City to go to Chelsea. His fee at tribunal was set at a total of £6.5m (£3.5m up front, £0.5m on 10, 20 30, 40 games, £1m on 1st England cap), so the tribunals these days are setting realistic figures for players. Everton will potentially have to shell out £1.5M to Leeds for Luke Garbutt, who had barely played for their reserves let alone their first team. And Leeds took £5M from Chelsea in an out of court settlement for those luminaries Tom Taiwo and Michael Woods. If we sold him in January it would have to be for much more than we'd get at tribunal in the summer. If he has another high scoring season I can see his tribunal figure being at least £5m in the summer, so we'd have to be looking at a transfer fee of £7m or £8m to make it worth our while.

I think this paragraph absolutely sums up my frustrations at our start to this season. It wasn't that the players looked grossly unfit; of course there were a few players who weren't up to scratch but it's not as if we had a team of lumbering fatties. It's just that we didn't seem to have any players who looked like they wanted to grab a game by the scruff of the neck and give it a relly good go. The Plymouth game on opening day was symptomatic of our malaise at the time; we battered them for long spells without putting the ball in the net, right up to the point when they went and scored, at which point we just let the game drift to its final conclusion. It was if no-one had the ability, on the pitch or off it, to get motivation levels going. The Brizzle game looked like it could have given the squad the confidence push they needed, but then the dismissal of Pardew and appointment of Wilkins pushed us even further into the mire. What Adkins seems to have done is get our leaders on the pitch playing like such again. Fonte was a shadow of himself in early games, he's again looking like the class act we know he is. Hammond was utterly dire in early season but again is starting to like a skipper. And Lambert on Saturday was much, much more like his old self where before he had looked utterly bereft of confidence and belief. The difference between the performances at the back end of last year and the start of this season were unforgivable. And they can't (as was tried at the time) solely be blamed on the departures of Waigo and Antonio, we had so many players that were under par right from the off. Thankfully NA seems to be rectifying that, and my confidence levels in this are back to where they were at the start of the season.

Another case of double standards? Why does the 4-0 result against Bristol not count? Or the 2-0 cup win against Bournemouth? Or the good performance against Bolton? Yet a 2-0 win against a truly horrific side in Tranmere does appear on your radar. Yet apparently a 1-1 draw against Yeovil doesn't, and neither does a 0-0 home draw against Colchester. Very odd. I'm happy that Adkins is here, and he has made a good start, no doubt. The game on Saturday was 100% better to watch than anything I saw last season. But lets not carried away and portray Pardew as the anti-christ. By the way, your last sentence brings up a conundrum. If the chairman truly didn't want us tainted with "that sort of football" then why wait so long to make the change?

In hindsight you're right, and in hindsight we'd all hope for that so that NA could have had a pre-season to prepare the players in his mould. That said, the fans or ex-players cannot be blamed at all. Cortese is well known to be a very determined man and is not influenced by "fan power" or the opinions of former players here. Cortese is his own man and while he will shoulder the plaudits for bringing in Adkins he will also shoulder some blame for the way it happened.

And Adkins is also benefitting from that financial muscle; in terms of the players he has on the books already, and that he has already brought in 2 loan players from the division above. I also fully expect the cheque book will be open for him in the new year. Pardew did a very good job here last season, despite what the nay sayers might try and claim. Adkins in turn has got off to a good start and also looks capable of taking us to the next level. Time will tell, but in my eyes we have replaced one very capable manager with another very capable manager.

Given that Pardew identified the need for a new CM, replacement for Antonio, and CF backup for Lambert all throughout the summer, my opinion would be that internal politics played their part and why the whole club, not just the management team, should be held to account for our lacklustre start to the season.

Then you're clearly hearing only what you want ot hear. Our style of play under Adkins is different to under Pardew. Much nicer to watch. However, there is also an argument that while Pardew's style of play wasn't too attractive, if was often effective. Hence the number of good wins last season, and why many people saw our early season form as a blip and not indicative of what would happen over the course of the season. But then it seems to be me you've made your mind up anyway and are just looking for another excuse to have a pop at a former manager, when what we should be doing is putting the past behind us and concentrating on the future with NA.

So a 2-0 cup victory against high flying Bournemouth, a narrow defeat (and very good performance) against Premier League Bolton and a 4-0 away league victory mean nothing. Yet a 2-0 home victory against a team in the relegation zone is cause for a thread on how much better this new guy is. I'm amused by your double standards.

Not really IMO. It gives us more options for injuries/suspensions and we've been crying out for that since pre-season and beyond, but not sure if it gives us anything more than we had. Maybe Hammond's poor form earlier on accentuated a weakness in midfield, but with Hammond and Morgan back on form I only see that Chaplow gives us some nice options rather than a new dimension. In answer to your question; no idea if we would be better or worse off with Pardew here. I seriously doubt we would have lost 4 games in a row with AP in charge. I also seriously doubt that we would be playing the passing-type of football we are now, under Pardew. All in all, the most important thing is that Adkins seems to have the team playing the way he wants and performances are on the up again. My expectations of the season remain exactly as they were after the Bristol Rovers game; automatic promotion.

Picture from the article; who knew Wayne Rooney was a Saints fan with his own 125 kit?

I think that's the whole problem; the reserve league has descended to such a level that we were playing against the likes of Forest Green Rovers reserves side, so not really that far removed from what we have now. The idea of this new approach is that we can potentially be more flexible about the types of opposition we set up to play by setting up friendly games to fit in with our own schedule. It's a good idea in theory, but if in practise it means that we can only get access to games against the Nike Academy and such like, then I agree with you that it's a bit pointless.

We'll still get money for him if he goes at the end of the season. There's absolutely no need for us to sell him in January, it would be lunacy.

Exactly right; there is simply no reason whatsoever that Lallana would sign a new contract before the end of the season, it just isn't in his interests. Much better to take a decision at the end of the season when he knows which division we'll be in, and what other offers are on the table. And given that we will due a development fee for him, which will decide his value by tribunal, it's not completely imperative that we sign him to new contract. It is of course more of a risk in that his valuation will be determined independently rather than us holding out for a set figure, but a number of previous multi-million pounds development fees awarded suggest that we should receive a true reflection of his value.

What most impressed me was the amount of options the players created for themselves so as not to play the long ball. From goal kicks the full backs and centre backs were demanding the ball from Kelvin, and every time the defence were in posession there was usually more than one option for a short pass. Adkins has clearly been getting the message across of how he wants us to play, and the players are clearly taking it on board. I think it also will help our cause massively that, for all of October, we have no midweek games. That means that NA can spend the whole week reinforcing his ideas of our playing style, so hopefully we will continue to improve further. NA has also mentioned that Lambert needs to keep working on his fitness, so its more chance for him to do that.

Unfortunately this is painfully true. When Pardew arrived we had a training ground report, outlining how much of a tactical thinker AP was, always stopping play and telling players where he wants them to be, what he wants them to do etc. Roll on 12 months and apparently Pardew is tactically inept with only hoofball tactics. That said, I do think Adkins has that certain something about him, and the upturn in performances since his arrival is obviously noticable. Long may it continue, including a strong winning performance today please.

Lallana properly up top with Lambert would be my choice, with Holmes or Dickson coming in at LM.

Sky need a kick up the arse in terms of how much they charge to pubs, as they're pricing all but the larger chains out of having the footy. A mate of mine is the landlord of a local pub and he has seen annual subscriptions for Sky rise from around £12K 2 years ago to just under £20K this year. For smaller pubs, that just simply isn't viable, so he has had to shelve it, and many other pubs are considering doing the same. Especially as the advent of streaming games is growing, it's much easier to watch from home. But then Sky have such a monopoly and are so powerful I can only see this court case going in their favour.

Kasey Keller

There's a quote in today's Echo from Adkins, saying that Rickie obviously needs to keep working on his fitness and the club are helping him with that. We now have all of October where we have no midweek games. That means NA can get all the players up to the fitness levels he demands, and has all week to work with them to get his tactical ideas across. Give it a week or two and I would expect RL to be firing on all cylinders again, he maybe just needs another one from open play to really get him going.

Bless them. And what wonderful humour. "We've got more points than you", they sang. Brilliant little scamps.

Your first sentence makes no sense. But I have no desire to turn this into a Pardew v Adkins argument. We certainly tried to pass it much better today, and looked a much better team for it. Don't agree with punch for MOTM, though he was admittedly better than in recent weeks. Barnard was the stand out performer for me, followed by Lallana who just oozes class. Also hats off to Hammond and Morgan for controlling midfield so well, a completely different game to Colchester when they both got bullied by a blonde midget.

Seriously, does it in any way matter? Adkins was clearly the first choice, and as it turns out the right choice.

Absolutely right. Pardew would never have been able to secure a 2-0 home win against Bournemouth. Oh.