angelman

If we were easy pickings, this take it or leave offer that was supposed to have been on the table from Liverpool re Lallana, would have been taken. The issue should not be clouded by RL's £4m departure. As for the figure of £4m, unless either club (but mainly Saints) come out and say what the actual agreement was, I won't bother getting too excited.

Haven't we already moved on? I didn't even bother clicking on the link - no interest in Spurs. As MP is their manager, no interest in him either. Do people search out Reading and Newcastle's websites to see what their managers are saying?

The players sold a lie? Not sure that they really looked too far past their pay packet. NC might have had a dream of being top 4, but no one is dumb enough to think that that was going to happen within the next couple of seasons, and if the players did think that, more fool them. Football's one and only God is MONEY, of which the unhealthy pursuit of brings out nothing but the worst characteristics in people.

The thing that annoys me the most in all these transfers is when the excuse of a change of personnel is trotted out. Ashton wrote "claims the changes to management have also affected his decision". Well, moving to a new club equals a change of management, the same as us getting a new manager. Why do they have to be disingenuous with their reasons of wanting to leave? I also am finding the leaking of details to the press every 5 seconds somewhat distasteful, but I guess that's the way football is these days if players/agents don't get what they want. The problem does come when only one side's events are reported because we all know the old cliché of their being two sides to every story. Our silence, or relative silence as the board has come out with a couple of statements, is the proper way of doing things, but does make them appear to those not ITK a little shambolic. I suspect that it is deeply frustrating for the board, and as far as I can remember, there might only have been one "leak" from them which was the apparent preparedness to triple MP's wages up to £6m. I thought that quite clever, as if (and I know that might be a big IF) there was any truth in it, then it either was big enough to tempt MP to stay or more, a message for other managers that they would be hugely well remunerated for their services. That's maybe why we have been inundated with enquiries. I also think it quite nice that certain people at the club recognise our frustrations, and let slip certain bits of info (eg Guan's posts - and I wish he would post more!!). I know people aren't naive enough to not accept the situation with all of our players who want to move on, and that it is just frustration. Benali is right - get rid of those that don't want to play here. We are now at a cross roads whose direction might be out of our hands. We can either try and push upwards and onwards, but with the core of the team wanting to jump ship, that might seem unlikely or we can stay and accept that football has become such an uneven playing field, that we have reached the end of the line. This is why I say I love Saints but hate football. At the moment my love of Saints is stronger than my hate for football, but it is a close run thing.

At this rate the new manager is going to have a transfer kitty of about £150m.

you know what, I really couldn't care a jot. He is part of our past and I am looking forward.

As we all know, emails are not considered to be a legal document. Faxes on the other hand are.

Seems that with most bookies, Mancini has now replaced Cowman as favourite.

Young, up and coming, played Champions League etc = Zinedine Zidane

But at Fiorentina and Lazio he did OK while having to sell every one.

Well, one thing is nice, is that we are being linked with more than one attractive (on the face of it) proposition.

BUT........how long would he hang around for should he get a better job offer (eg Spurs)?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/worldcup2014/article-2654989/England-stars-braced-poor-playing-surface-World-Cup-opener-against-Italy-pictures-Manaus-venue-emerge.html Pitch not looking that great....!!

Not that I think he would come here, but can someone tell me what Mancini is like as a coach? He seems to be a good manager - by that I mean with established players, rather than a coach bringing through players.

Do you think that might be only because you take an interest in it? Do you consider West Brom's situation being a circus? They sacked Mel on 12th May. As Les Reed said, it's only been 2 weeks since MP left, so WBA have been manargerless for twice as long.

As I wrote, while it is unfortunate it was not said with any malice. I realise that the criticism being levelled at him is due to people thinking that he has a somewhat self-aggrandised view of himself, but which PL footballer doesn't? (Well, I don't think RL does, but it was a generalisation) And in his defence, he gets taken there (not voluntarily) and gets asked a question. What was he supposed to say - something esoteric? Maybe he said the first thing that came to mind without really thinking about it. Maybe he meant to say it differently. Isn't it a bit of a non-story? He may well also not know the link between the favelas and football/sport and that Brazilians already have many (sporting) heroes - is that really basis for criticising him? And I hardly think that he meant to come across as being the character portrayed in Huff's subheading that says "To be around me may be a life-changing experience for you." Anyway, I consider actions like Liam Ridgewell posting photos of himself wiping his butt with £20 notes or Phil Bardsley on the casino floor covered in £50 notes is worse.

It worked with Poyet @ Sunderland, so why not Brucey?

LOL - I'm not that much of a sesquipedalian.

I'm not, so the rest of what you write is irrelevant. But why not try and grow up a little rather than post puerile invective?

I think that a fair few would feel like that, but when it comes to earning two or three times more elsewhere, I am not sure that we can approach it very objectively unless actually being confronted with the offer of £100k a week.

That does seem a lot, but it is 7 jobs since 2000. What is the average PL manager's tenure? Googling it, the Mirror in December 2013 states it's now 1 year (down from 2.07 according to a BBC article from 2011). In a Ralph moment of positive thinking, maybe the Cowman hasn't found the right club. Certainly some clubs don't suit managers (Hodgson & Liverpool, Moyes & Man Utd), so maybe the converse is also true.

Something to do with losing our stripes.

To be a laughing stock, people would actually have to give a damn about us.

I know we do, hence why I support Southampton. My point was about players who play for the club they support and trying to get that team to the top, rather than jumping ship to a team that is better equipped (ie financed) to do so.

Yup... Koeman has dropped out of the running to be replaced by Toshack with Gerry Francis as his assistant - currently negotiating around whether his mullet can come. Well, I think that's it.