The Kraken

Don't get me wrong, I'm not at all disappointed with this season, just the opposite. I think given all that's happened to us, the turnaround in the club has been extremely impressive and I think AP has done a fantastic job. I said that it looks like the season will come up a tiny bit short, but only for what I HOPED we could potentially do, and not what I EXPECTED. At the start of the season the aim was certainly for the playoffs, but that for me was certainly more hope than expectation. Still, those hopes were there and in that regard alone we'll come up a bit short. However, in saying that, the team will certainly have exceeded my expectations. It sounds a bit **** eyed I know. Anyway, I certainly didn't mean it to sound critical of the team at all, as for me this has been a great season.

Of course there is. This season there was much division between expectations; some were happy with just survival, some expected mid-table, and some expected play-offs. I was in the "mid-table with a late play-off push a bonus" category, so can probably say that the season will end just coming up a tiny bit short of my hopes. But for next season there does seem to be a general consensus that the top two is not only realistic, but what we should be expecting from our current set-up. I do think that AP is the man to deliver that, and that the rumours I keep hearing of a change of manager would only be a bad thing for us. But I think AP knows that if he does not live up to all these expectations we will see the ruthless side of NC again, and probably with some justification.

Or they could have easily avoided it by staying put and simply not acting like a bunch of moronic knuckle-draggers. I'm still at a loss to just how utterly stupid you have to be to throw stones from behind a police line and think you'll get away with it when its patently clear the police will have a multitude of cameras and CCTV out in full force.

I find it impossible to have any sympathy whatsoever with someone who is, quite frankly, that f*cking stupid. There's naive, and then there's just plain brain-dead.

And it rumbles on... For what its worth, I agree with CB Fry. Putting on a sub and then taking him off 27 minutes later is certainly worthwhile asking the question to the manager. You don't see it very often in footy and it's a justified question to ask, given that James didn't seem to be injured. Where I think we've lost it is that a lot of people made a snap judgement about what AP was supposed to have said (and how he said it) without even listening to the interview! Ridiculous. I read all of these posts about how AP was out of the order, then found the link, listened to it and wondered what all the fuss was about. Talk about mountains out of molehills. When AP was asked about his thinking behind bringing James on and then off, his actual answer was to say the following: So he's already answered the question; there was an accusation from another poster on here that he hadn't even done that, so that's cleared up. In explaining taking james off again, the easy thing for AP to would have been to say "Lloyd had an absolute mare, he was even worse than Paul Wotton in the first half, so it clearly needed changing again, I'm only upset with myself that it took me 27 minutes to figure out". But he didn't, even though it was clear to everyone who saw the game that that was the case; he closed ranks and will obviously have had some harsh words behind closed doors. I still can't understand the outcry that AP's response received for this; it was a fair question that AP gave a swift but fair answer to. Move on...

Exactly right; far to easy to blame the ref. We had enough chances and on another night could have scored 2 or 3, it just didn't fall for us. I didn't think the players looked tired at all, that's an easy excuse to make when you don't win. I think we just ran out of ideas and our attacking ploy of hoisting it to the far post almost every time was meat and drink for their meathead centre backs. We needed a bit of something extra to break through, and on the night couldn't do it. It happens. And seeing the Oldham players high fiving and celebrating after the final whistle shows they got exactly all they came for.

Delldays and Dibden; there's a perfectly good private message system on this board which, as full members, you're both entitled to use. Any chance of the pair of you continuing your tiresome playground spat using that, rather than boring the rest of us mindless with your inane drivel?

This is exactly what we were discussing last night; you would hope, perhaps expect, that the wages we're paying are somewhere near being in line with alot of teams of Championship standard. And, Lallana and Schneiderlin aside, its unlikely any Prem teams will come sniffing for our players (though one or two may look at a cheeky bid for RL, he's under contract and we'd want huge money for him). So it's just a question of ambition really, and whether for the player taking your chances with a new team in the Championship is actually any better than playing for the favourites for the title in League 1 at a well established club that's well covered in the media considering the division.

I must have watched a different game then, as Harding played as a left back and left winger all game, His work rate was phenomenal and he kept running at their defence right up to the final whistle, while still doing his defensive duties. Lambert didn't look particularly tired, he just didn't get an awful lot of change out of two big, strong centre backs, and didn't get an real support from midfield. Tiredness is too easy an excuse when you don't win; you don't often hear it trotted out when you win 5-0 though.

Well said Wes; the continual sniping from both sides on here of late has become quite cringeworthy and boring.

Are you being deliberately obtuse, or just missing the point? Question: You brought Lloyd James on and then took him off, what was the thinking behind that substitution? AP: Well I don't think that's the right question to ask me, if I'm honest because its obvious that we're trying to push for a goal. Lloyd James came on to move the ball for us and then we had to take chances.. How is that not explaining it? He replaced Wotton with James as he thought that James would pass the ball better through the midfield. James had a terrible game, it wasn't working so he changed it again. I guess in the blame culture that exists on here you'd rather Pardew came out and said "Well, Llloyd James was awful, couldn't pass for toffee and was well below par, so I had to change it again". AP chose not to directly criticise his player, which is actually quite laudable.

You've clearly moved on from commenting about games you never go to, to commenting on radio interviews you haven't actually heard. Bizarre. The link to the interview is in this thread; try listening to it and then revising your statement. There was nothing at all petulant about his response, he simply states that its the wrong question to ask as he brought James on to move the ball in central midfield better. That clearly didn't work (as James had a shocker) so he changed it again. No need for the manager to batter his player publicly, so credit for AP if anything for that. I suppose its no surprise that the usual suspects are on here blaming the manager again after a poor performance and result, just a shame when it's based on not seeing the game and not actually listening to his comments.

The referee was utterly dreadful I agree, but to even partially blame him for us not winning tonight doesn't really address it. We just had too many players who weren't up to it on the night, and our tactics throughout the game were just too predictable. All their centre-backs had in their locker was their aerial ability and we played right into their hands with far, far too many high balls hopefully lofted into the box. I'd agree with some of your player ratings, but I'll give mine anyway.... Davis: 7. Did what he had to do well. Semi: 5. Never really troubled defensively, but never really offered much going forward. Fonte: 9. Awesome, far too good for this league, the stand out player on the pitch. Seaborne: 5. Defensively sound but seems to think of himself as a defensive libero who can spray the ball about at will, needs to shorten his passes and simplify it, he'd look much better. Harding: 7. Defensively excellent and played as a winger. Some good moves that just didn't quite come off. Puncheon: 2. Thought he was dreadful and can't really see any positives to his game tonight, I was crying out for Antonio to replace him. Hammond: 6. Difficult as he didn't have Schneiderlin alongside but he had a quiet game, and certianly didn't offer enough going forward. Wotton: 2. Poor, and considering we needed more than a holding midfielder he was a fish out of water. Lallana: 5. The game was crying out for some of his inspiration but he wasn't on it. Lambert: 7. We relied on him far too much, and against two meatheads and out predictable game plan we played right into their hands. Barnard: 7. Thought he did well and was very unlucky to come off. Subs: James: 1. Looked even worse than Wotton. Poor decision from Pardew to go like for like with Wotton when we needed to be more attacking, but James looked utterly terrible. Almost gave a goal away early on and never recovered. Waigo: 7. I still don't rate him but at least he showed the desire to actually have a run and not just loft the ball into the box. Still not sure how he missed his chance though. Connolly: 4. Never really appeared in the game and, considering he's a poacher, didn't make the most of some potential chances. Ref: 1. Dreadful, really, really bad. Often bad for both teams but first half did seem like he was trying to prove a point about not being a homer. In conclusion, I think we were really lacking a creative spark in central midfield. A friends suggested before the game that we try Lallana there and I disagreed at the time as I thought he wouldn't offer enough bite. But we didn't need that tonight, we needed someone to play through and I think AL would have offered much more than the predictable loft into the box, which was all we seemed to have other than Harding's occasional bursts down the left. All in all, a disappointing display. But I don't believe the possession percentage stats I've seen, for the last 30 minutes at least Oldham barely got out of our half and hardly had a kick, I've never seen a Saints team dominate so much and do so relatively little with it. One of those nights, unfortunately.

Upandaway, thanks for the link and I've found it now. Not being a collector of programmes, I can't see what it was that Pardew actually said, only the Echo's reporting of it. If AP did actually say "the cups are more important than the league", then that is clearly disappointing. However, the quotes in the article seem to go against that, as he's saying: Any most importantly I would suggest... Again, without the programme itself it's difficult to categorise one way or the other. Either AP has been misquoted by the Echo, or he is doing some back-tracking for comments he really shouldn't have made. But its very clear from the tone of the direct quotes from the article that he was clearly targetting success on ALL counts, and not making cup achievement a more important priority than the league.

Curbishley is a decent manager, but given the run of form that we've hit in the last 2-3 months it would be an act of lunacy to destabilise the team and change manager now. I sincerely hope the rumours aren't true, otherwise we'd be taking a sizeable and unneccessary risk. Curbs for DoF? Perhaps...

OK, I'm still not buying in to this. I've yet to see a quote from AP anywhere suggesting that the league is out and we're only concentrating on the cups. I asked upandaway as he's quoted this a few times, yet he could only point me in the direction of "programme notes and the Echo has repeated it a few times". Well I've tried google searching it, and still can't find a quote attributed to AP that we were placing cup success ahead of the league. I'll happily admit I'm wrong if someone can provide me with a quote, but so far I'm yet to see one. I've easily found previous quotes from AP suggesting that both league and cups are a priority, and that we'll try to win every game we play. Maybe someone can provide the mystery quote(s) I seem to have missed. Edit: As for the "only woken up recently to possibilities in the league", well certainly Cortese doesn't see it that way. That pretty much says, in black and white, that AP went to NC to ask for funds for new players to mount a serious playoff push. It certainly doesn't say to me that AP asked for players becasue he thought we could win the JPT and therefore should neglect our league chances.

You mentioned this on another thread, and I said then that I hadn't seen anywhere where Pardew has said this. Can you provide clarification of it? As I mentioned on the other thread, the only time I have seen Pardew mentioning priority of any competition is when he said this: That's not prioritising the cups at all; simply stating that we won't devalue them and will put a first choice team out for every game we play. Which is an excellent attitude to have, IMO, as I think trying to blame poor league form on cup success in our case just doesn't add up.

It's a completely redundant question as there can be no proof either way as to whether the cups increased or diminished our promotion. You're suggesting that the cups were responsible for us not winning some subsequent games. But conveniently forgetting that we only played two league games at home (won 1, lost 1) following a cup tie. So in effect you're either criticising the team for not winning all of their away games, or for losing one home game, which is a frankly bizarre accusation. In any case, if you do blame the cup input for losing some subsequent games then you must also give credit to the cups for inspiring: Going on a 3 game league winning streak after beating Torquay; Going on a 3 game league winning streak after beating Northampton; Going unbeaten in January while beating Luton in the FA Cup and MK Dons in the JPT; Winning 3 out of 4 league games after an excellent performance in the Portsmouth FA Cup game; The benefit or downfall of competing (and competing well) in the cups will never be known, and analysing only the next game is far too simplistic an approach. On the flip side, how much benefit the team will have gained from putting away the likes of Norwich, Leeds, Ipswich, MK Dons just cannot be quanitified by any accurate method either.

Just finished sticking in my first £10 worth of stickers; can't rule out the possibility that I may walk down the shop later on and buy some more. I'm 35 for goodness sake, perhaps I need to grow up a bit....

That may be true, but to just take the ground to 40 - 45K it would be much more cost effective to just expand one stand at St. Mary's. From memory I believe we can add 8K new seats to the Kingland, 4K to the Northam and 4K to the Chapel, at a cost of £3k per new seat. So whacking in an extra 12K would take us to 44K capacity at a cost of £36M. But I agree it's not something that should be rushed into; even at SMS we only got as high as 22 or 23K season ticket holders and for a stadium expansion like that I would expect to see that figure to have to rise quite significantly. Not beyond the realm of possibility though. * Edited for poor adding up skills....

All we have to do is get back to the Premiership and we'd be on a par with Birmingham. they're having a bit of a one season wonder but in terms of size and potential they're still pretty limited. If you're saying it's take 5 years to get that far, then fair enough. But I think if/when we get back to the Prem we will see the type of backing that we never previously had with Lowe at the helm. Think back; we used to sell over 30K to games against the likes of Fulham, Bllackburn etc. and that was with, lets face it, a quite average side who often punched above their weight. Against the likes of Man U, Liverpool, Chelsea etc tickets were like gold dust. For those games 40K would be an easily achievable target, something that Birmingham could only dream of. The catchment area we are in is absolutely huge for the floating and corporate fans; we're seeing at the moment our core fanbase averaging above 20K in the 3rd tier of football. The potential for growth with the type of financial backing we've been seeing is really extremely encouraging. I very much agree with SRS; it's a very exciting time to be a Saints fan right now.

Great news, a real sign of intent of proper long term planning. Very happy with this appointment.

Well I'm sorry but I've never see a quote from Pardew where he has placed cup priority over the league. He's said this before: That's not prioritising the cups at all; simply stating that we won't devalue them and will put a first choice team out for every game we play.

This isn't a dig at your non-attendance but I do think you need to have been to games to fully understand just how much the club has changed throughout, from the team on the pitch, the management, the ownership structure; all this has completely filtered through to the feelgood factor amongst fans and therefore the atmosphere at games. The difference between this season and and the past 2 or 3 is like night and day. Has it come at a financial cost? Of course? Has it been worth it and "value for money"? Yes, ten times over. Promotion is still on this season, and what a cracking month or two we have in store. But even if we don't go up many fans will be able to look back on the season as one of the most enjoyable for a long time. The most enjoyable thing about football is going to games and having a good time; good results often go hand in hand with that but there's more to football than just the league table. And AP (and his spending) have more than contributed to that.

That's all well and good on the rare occasion, but you only need to look at David Sullivan at Wet Sham to see how the chairman consistently giving the football team a verbal kicking can actually have a negative effect on the team, rather than positive effect he wants it to have. It becomes a media circus and arguably puts even more pressure on the team. Like you say, no manager is going to get it right all the time. But unfortunately we live in a society with instant news whereby after any bad result the manager is going to get some stick from some quarters, whether it be the media, fans, or the chairman. I just happen to think that a football club should be seen to be working together rather than creating the image that there is a rift between the team and the management (which has had to be vehemently denied by NC at SFC), and any criticism of the manager by the chairman should be done in-house. That's not to say that AP or any manager for that matter should be beyond criticism, simply that there's often no need for the chairman to do his dirty washing in public.