The Kraken

Walsall have 1 back. Come on!

Jesus; 9 pages devoted to a complete non-issue. I had to make do with watching the game on Sky (as I'm in France skiing). If anything the very light booing was taken very well by the commentators, as it came in the middle of a conversation between them about how Cortese may be being hasty by his criticism of Pardew; how footballing fortunes don't just immediately turn when you throw money at the problem; and how the criticism of the boss and the side could very easily be taken as a negative, as in the case of Sullivan at West Ham. Rather than the small amount of booing being seen as lack of support of the chairman, given the context it came across as support for Pardew, in that the fans think he's currently a very good job.

I thought Claridge's commentary was a disgrace actually. Leaving aside for now his obvious lack of talent in this department, his refusal to acknowledge a Saints comprehensive victory was just the signs of a very petty man. In you can't be impartial, then don't be a football pundit. I lost count of the times when describing a Saints attack he described it as "unfortunate" that we mustered a shot / goal, and he just sounded so utterly depressed to be doing the job. There's a reason that Soccer Saturday keep MLT away from Pompey games, its because Sky want to avoid accusations of bias. Just a shame the BBC couldn't show the same impartiality.

Exactly this; it would be a little ridiculous of him if he went over the top with his celebrations and was there gurning like a complete loon. This was a nice trophy to win but AP knows there are much bigger prizes to win than this. You can be sure that if he'd have gone over the top there would have plenty on here criticising him for putting too much stock into a tin-pot cup and not enough into the league....

FC, another good post. Unfortunately it looks likely that we'll fall short of the playoffs this season, and ultimately our form over the first 10 games of the season will be the cause of that. My hopes and expectations for this season were always one of consolidation; I expected a mid-table finish as a minimum, with hopefully a late season push for the play-offs. In my eyes the most important thing was for the team to have shown a significant improvement over time, with proper title-winning form over the last half or third of the season in order to provide enough optimism/expectation of that form from the start of next season (if we don't make it this season). If we don't make the play-offs this season but continue to show an improvement in our points per game ratio, then I'll consider this season to be a relative success. If we bring home the JPT then all the better. NC set a 2 year plan to get out of this division; to do it in 1 year would be a fantastic achievement. But there's nothing in recent results to suggest anything but the fact that, if we don't go up this year, we will start next year as overwhelming favourites for the title and a well-justified burden of expectation.

Indeed. And ss I said in the initial post, the whys and wherefores of the reasons for that have been done to death. We took some time to turn things around, which was disappointing. But the point is that since we turned things around, we've been producing title winning form. Its certainly encouraging for what will hopefully prove to be a tight run-in. But if nothing else it certainly leaves a huge amount of optimism for next season if we don't make it this time around.

OK, this is maybe one for the stattos amongst us. Although it will hopefully serve as evidence to some that we're not under-achieving as much as some people may think. It’s pretty much accepted that our performances started to turn around after the Bristol Rovers home game at the end of September. The whys and wherefores of the reasons for that have been done over and over again, so I’m not looking to get into that. However, it was widely agreed then that if we were to push for the play-offs we would need to produce title winning form from there-on in. And, having had a look at the stats, that’s exactly what we’ve done. In the last 5 years the League 1 championship has been won with 98, 82, 91, 92 and 96 points respectively. That’s an average of 92 points required to win the league, or 2 points per game (essentially win all your home games and draw all your away games). After 10 games we had 9 points. Since then, we have played 22 games and scored 45 points, an average of 2.05 points per game. Even our recent “blip” doesn’t look too bad when you consider the amount of away games played. Even discounting our excellent last two home victories, the previous 10 games before those saw us play 3 home games and 7 away games. From that we scored 16 points, exactly the number expected from winning your home games and drawing your away games. So, despite the fact that we clearly have some difficulties winning away on soggy, muddy pitches, the stats don’t lie. We have been producing title winning form since October.

That's perhaps true; although I seem to remember at the start of the season a quote that NC was shocked at how meagre our trophy room was and that we would therefore be looking to fill it asap. In fact, here's the quote.. So I guess the JPT was prioritised in this regard, as at that time it looked our most likely avenue for a trophy for this season. As for the FA and League Cup, while we were never going to win them it could be argued that maintaining a winning streak keeps confidence levels high, which is perhaps why AP didn't want to send out a severely weakened team only to see them get battered. Damned if you do and damned if you don't, really.

That's a quite horrific fashion combination of stripes and hoops you've got going on there.

I'm not sure how you define "success", but it must be very different to me. At the moment we are 10th place in the league. Even without the -10 penalty we would be 8th. That's not "success". What we are doing is showing the signs of turning the club around over an extended period. The last 2 games, while great to see, are no indication of "success". Neither were the lull in performances since Christmas an indication that Pardew was a failure. We are still very much a team in transition. There's a very good reason Alan Pardew asked to be judged after 18 months, as he clearly didn't subscribe to your definition of instant success and realised it would take time to turn things round.

He really should make better use of commas and grammar. Pardew out ffs.

Frank's Cousin has it right. There's the typical tubthumping from either end of the spectrum; the "happy to still be a club and anything better than relegation is good enough" crowd and the "playoffs is the minimum expectation for the season" lot. The truth is that most posters fit into the middle ground, yet get continually accused of being in one of the aformentioned categories when they happen to disagree with one of the above. My expectation, and many others I'm sure for the season, has always been that mid-table is the minimum with definite signs of improvement in the second half of the season for a potential play offs push. If that happens then great, but the minimum aim was to start looking like a very good team in the latter stages of the season so that if we don't go up this season then next season there's no excuses. And that seems to be where we are right now.

You started the thread asking for opinions in the first place, precious. You really are a strange little troll.

Dull days in being wrong yet again shocker.

He's certainly a very accomplished WUM. Not yet in the class of NC but admittedly getting there.

You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that your continual stream of negativity is in any way interesting.

Are you really that fickle that you believe one result proves anything about a whole season? The only thing this thread proves is that you have quite an unfortunate habit in being unable to see the good in a convincing win and despite that can quite contentedly carry on being a persistent voice of misery.

There's no point reasoning with idiots like that. Given the propensity that "Cloughie liked a bung", it would only be a true idiot Derby or Forest fan that would classify as him as anything but an absolute genius and complete legend. Nobody is saying Lawrie is a flawless character; but it is thoroughly sad that such a trivial and inconsequential matter as an expenses account can mean more in the scheme of things to some people than all of his achievements for the club. Of course, it's obviously a bit more than that. And nothing to do with the fact that most of his major detractors seem to have been of the "Lord Lowe" persuasion; no, certainly not.

I had the good fortune of being in the Terry Paine Ambassador's Suite for the final day survival game against Sheff Utd. The Ambassadors Suite is like the regular corporate suites but ratcheted up a notch or two. As part of his duties at the time it was Lawrie's responsibility to host the day in the suite, usually accompanied by a few ex players. On this occasion he had with him Glenn ****erill, Jim Steele and Nick Holmes, and we were lucky enough to be on the table next to theirs. Now obviously the result that day helped, but I have to say that being there for that day, have the big man welcome us, chat amongst us, give a few speeches throughout the day, and hear the reverence with which Jim Steele and Nick Holmes spoke of him; it all added up to the best day I've had watching Saints. Ever. Lawrie is perhaps one of the most engaging people I've seen connected with the club, and talks about Saints with real passion and knowledge. I truly think the club are missing a trick in not having him continue in this role. I don't know how much the tickets cost in the Ambassador's Suite (mine were a gift from my parents but I've heard in excess of £200) but whatever it was for me it was money well spent. And if some of that money (expenses or otherwise) goes into paying the host for being the central figure in such an overwhelmingly brilliant day , then that's alright with me. I've got far better things to do than be bitter about the fact that our best ever manager continued to earn a living from the club he helped develop.

I didn't fancy this tie in the first place, and I can't see us beating them. 1-3 for me. Although it would poetic brilliance for their last game in existence to be getting turned over by their fiercest rivals, I just can't see it happening.

Why? You do know that the Premier League / Football League have no determination on whether a member club goes into administration, right?

Actually agree with pretty much all of that. Spending money to have the likes of Thomas, Jaidi, Perry on the bench doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. And while I think Morgan and Hammond are a very good partnership, I've never really rated James and certainly not Wotton in that position. I've really not seen enough of Puncheon to suggest where his best position is, but if it is indeed left wing it seems strange that he's come in to challenge Lallana who has been one of the season's best performers and who AP clearly rates very highly. I think Hammond has been a big miss lately and hopefully when he returns we'll look a bit more solid. But I agree, perhaps we could have signed 1 less CB to instead buy a quality CM box to boxer.

Lallana has scored 13 goals from midfield this season. And despite your continual criticism of him, I'm yet to hear a suggestion of how we should better line up without him. I don't think I'll ever understand your problem with Lallana and Schneiderlin, I have no idea why you single those two out for so much criticism. Still, its your opinion, not mine.

As much as I think our current badge is a bit amateur looking, it is certainly unique and has become instantly recognisable as Saints. The original design and the various modifications here, while nice looking, really don't say "SFC" to me. For better or worse it's a simple design and has a good reflection of the club and the area. So I'd probably opt for something like the centenary badge with 125 instead of 100.

Dear God; how much lower do that rag have yet to stoop?