Sheaf Saint

Would need to be bloody good fortune. Our deliveries into the box tonight have been appalling so far. No quality whatsoever.

Rooney totally unmarked there. Schoolboy defending. Very poor.

Yeah I remember that well... I went to that game. 'Arry was apparently under pressure from Lowe to pick some of the lads coming through from the youth team, so he deliberately picked a weak squad of youth-team players and reserve seniors (Neil McCann amongst others) so when they inevitably lost he could prove a point to Rupert. It still to this day boils my blood to think that this chancer was ever given the Saints job in the first place, and more so when I think about the disgraceful way he conducted himself during his tenure.

Not unless you believe people should receive the death penalty for robbery, no it is isn't. Of course he shouldn't have been robbing the place, but did he deserve to die for his actions?

http://www.jobhustler.com/jobs/new-york/General-Labor-Jobs/Earn-Quick-and-Easy-$20-for-an-hour-or-less-of-work.2:16.php Well fancy that - the denialist movement having to resort to paying people to protest for them.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/exclusive-billionaires-secretly-fund-attacks-on-climate-science-8466312.html

Just watched Samsara Absolutely mesmerising piece of visual art that draws you in completely, contrasting some of the most beautiful sights the Earth has to offer with the suffering caused by mankind. A stunning film that highlights, if you didn't already realise, how f***ed-up modern human society really is.

This post has articulated my feelings about the matter far better than I could have. All bragging aside, we are just a medium-sized provincial club with an average fanbase. To gamble the future of the club on some delusions of grandeur about regular Champions League football, as Cortese appears to be doing, is sheer madness. We only need to look a few miles down the M27 to see what happened last time somebody adopted this strategy. The reason I was in favour of keeping Adkins is because he was exactly the kind of manager that could maintain a stable team with realistic ambitions. We all point the accusing finger at the Pompey fans on the PTS thread about how they happily ignored the impending train-wreck in order to bask in the short-term glory, and less than a week after Adkins was replaced, I see a good number of saints fans apparently doing exactly the same. I really don't want to be the one to say "I told you so" when it inevitably goes horribly wrong.

Has it occurred to you that perhaps the players are actually sensible and mature enough to recognise that mouthing off to the press about the negative aspects of the situation would undoubtedly be counter-productive?

I agree with you. I'm not so naive as to believe that football is exempt from ruthless business decisions, but this whole episode is one step too far for me. I don't want to support a club that has a 'win at all costs' attitude. Look how that worked out for our fishy friends down the road. Winning isn't everything, and Cortese's delusions of grandeur (challenging the top six and getting into the CL) will only ever end badly for everyone.

Noodles, I was just about starting to see a modicum of common sense in your post, until I got to this bit... When? What credence does he give to the fans? He has shown repeatedly that he does not give a flying f*** what his paying customers think. Like pretty much all bankers, he is morally bankrupt: a phrase that many of us like to use when referring to our friends down the M27. Whatever good business decisions he has made, he lacks any integrity and therefore can never have my support again.

Is it really though? Maybe to you is is, but sometimes you have to stand by your values, cos if you don't then they're not really values at all - more just opinions.

Interesting you making the connection with our fishy friends there. If we've learned anything from the hilarity of the Takeover Saga thread it's that we don't want the same thing to happen to us. Many posters on here point the accusing finger at Skate fans for accepting what was going on at their club for the short-term glory and ignoring the glaringly obvious fact that it would only ever end badly for them. Are we to do the same? Sit back and say "oh well - if Nicola wants to spunk loads of borrowed funds and go for the glory then he must know what he's doing"? One recurring theme we get from our pet Skates on the PTS thread is that they would happily see the club fall lower if it meant they could finally get rid of the cancer that has been killing them for the last few years and start afresh with an honest club that they can be proud of. That resonates with me right now. Cortese has had my full support up until now. He's rubbed a few people up the wrong way along the line, and I always previously adopted the belief that you sometimes have to be a little ruthless if you want to succeed and didn't allow myself to be bothered by it, but not any more. This action he has taken today has left me sick to my stomach. EVERYTHING that Nigel has achieved here over the last two and a half years has come about because of the honest values of the man, the man that united the fanbase in a way that nobody has done since the days of Gordon Strachan. Far and away the best manager I have seen in my Saints-supporting life, and one that I really felt could finally provide us with the stability we have been craving since Chris Nicholl was sacked 21 years ago. His optimism and belief was infectious and there is no doubt in my mind he will go on to greater things. He brought a feelgood factor to SFC because of his integrity, and in one foul swoop today a narrow-minded, megalomaniac fool has wiped out all trace of that and turned us into Chelsea mark II.

Me neither. The rumours had been flying around for a while about his relationship with Nicola, and it was clear on the pitch that something wasn't right. Tactically he was a bit one-dimensional and although he laid the ground work in bringing some important players to the club and won the JPT, it was felt by many that he could not work with Cortese and had taken us as far as he was going to. Now I realise that there have been rumours circulating about Adkins for a long time as well, but the difference here is that he had reached a stage this season where things were really looking up on the pitch and showed that he had learned from his early-season mistakes and was growing in stature all the time with a team that looked confident and capable. I don't remember if there was a similar poll when Pardew went, but I'm betting that the percentage of fans on here who thought it was the correct decision would have been a lot higher than the 3% that currently think Adkins' dismissal was warranted.

Fonte and Guly are naturally Portuguese speakers, but it is very similar to Spanish and generally one can understand the other.

Regardless of my own opinion about his appointment and the sacking of Adkins, I believe he is doomed to failure. It will take time for the players to adapt to his style of play / management and that is the last thing we need right now. The 'new manager syndrome' is widely talked about in football, where the appointment of a new boss can give an immediate boost to the team and the results, but we didn't need that, so there won't be any immediate improvement. It seems that most of the fan base are against this decision so as soon as any cracks appear the crowd will be on his back straight away. The whole thing is just utter madness.

Thank you Nigel. Some other club will land themselves a top, top manager now that will undoubtedly go on to achieve great things. Shame it couldn't have been with us. Gutted.

Nicola you are an idiot. A grade 1, prize pillock. Utterly ridiculous thing to do just as things were really looking up. Bye by PL. Was fun while it lasted.

In fairness, all they are doing is regurgitating what has already been printed by the Daily Mail.

Not for me it wouldn't. Makes no difference who the new manager is, replacing Adkins now would be absolutely suicidal.

You never saw his tackle/assault on John Fashanu at Wimbledon then?

Who exactly is this Alex Crook?

Given how awful SDR has looked in his recent cameo appearances from the bench, I would much rather see Lee being utilised instead. But then I'm not the manager, and NA obviously sees them both on the training ground and has his reasons to not play him. Shame really, he showed a lot of promise last season. That goal against Derby was something spectacular that nobody else in our squad seems capable of scoring, and the way he set up Lambert to score away at Leeds showed he has a very good football brain as well as some speed and skill. I would like to think he can still have a part to play and I'm certainly not going to write him off until he has been given a chance to prove himself at PL level.

Really pleased for him but I hope this doesn't mean that there will now be loads more speculation about his future. The stream I was watching the Chelsea game on the other night, whenever the commentators mentioned him they were referring to him solely in the sense of being a prospective replacement for Ashley Cole at Chelsea. Made me cringe.