FloridaMarlin

Ah, the old 'trickle down economics' theory. Sits alongside its brother 'Huge transfer fees don't really matter as the money stays in the game." Try telling clubs from the Championship downwards that transfer fees are not a problem. Most business (there are exceptions, J-Rod, for example) these days is done between Premier League clubs, or PL and foreign clubs. There is not much business between Premier League clubs and those lower down the domestic pecking order. The Conservatives try and make us believe that allowing the rich to get richer will benefit everybody. Can I just say at this point, that I'm not feeling that?

Philip Cocu. Doing a bang-up job at PSV. Cue the "Why would he leave a big club like PSV with Champions League football, and all, to come and manage Saints?" brigade. For the same reason Koeman left a big former European Cup winning club to come and manage a club in the Premier League. A chance to manage in the most-moneyed league in football (I'm not saying the best league in the world, best leave that to Sky who believe it their own publicity).

You're right, it is down to fine lines, and that's why things need to be put into perspective. We have been beaten just once this season by an in-form team who beat the reigning Champions today by putting three past them. Yet if you remember, in the Everton game, it was only a wonder save by Tim Howard that prevented us taking the lead. Had that gone in, who is to say Everton's heads would not have dropped amid thoughts of "here we go again," at a venue where they had not won since Noah was a boy. And yet they went down the other end and scored, giving Everton a boost and you could argue that Everton's season took off from there. Since then, we haven't conceded a goal in three Premier League matches. Somebody said that Everton defeat has caused us to go into a shell, but the alternative view is that we have learned from it and have tightened up. People on here are moaning about two successive goalless draws on the road. Sure, they were against teams we might have been expected to beat, but if you can't win a game, don't lose it. So there wasn't much creativity on offer today, but if you keep a clean sheet, you only need to convert one half-chance. I would sooner pick up two points from goalless draws on the road, rather than no points from hugely entertaining defeats. Ask the Bournemouth fans how much they enjoyed the defeat at Norwich today, where by all accounts they again played some lovely football, but left empty-handed.

Here's our man. And a native son, to boot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_White_(football)

I would like to see Gary Monk, as a former Saint, he would have the club at heart. On the assumption that Koeman is not going to have an absolute disaster over the next couple of seasons and get sacked, at lwast we have time to put things in place.

I'm sure they are two very different Rebecca Brooks. There was a Rebecca Brooks who was married to Ross Kemp, but divorced after she was arrested for assaulting him. Now THERE'S a story that never got into the public domain.

Until they **** off Israel. For all their talk and being in countries which share a border, IS has fought shy of threatening Israel as they know if they do, the Israelis will not muck about. Their disregard for world opinion and desire to protect themselves would see them roll in and mop them up. Meanwhile, back to the original topic of the thread. My understanding (and Jackanory may shed light on this) is that it is a mutual arse-licking fest. The story was leaked to The Sun first to give Dave's big mate Rebecca Brooks a big story on her first day back at the office, and in return the headlines and story portray Cameron as a man of action. The real issue is not whether a headline is offensive or inflamatory, or a potential recruitment flag, but how the proprietors of our national newspapers are hugger-mugger with political parties. Murdoch and the Rothermeres are already having one favour returned with the hamstringing of the BBC following their support at the general election.

Every time I see that picture I shudder with fear and loathing as to what the weasel on the left has got in that carrier dangling from his waist. Clearly they are clothes of some description, but what? Are there discarded undercrackers in there? If The Bag of Noxiuosness includes a t-shirt does he intend to put it back on? Surely any clothes in there will become even more fetid and rank with codensation.

Always had time for him. Polite and courteous, unlike so many professional players. A few members of his family (his brother and his dad, I think) were profoundly deaf and that dictated the way he treated people. Throughout his life he had to show patience and understanding, virtues that thankfully did not desert him. Unlike some undeserving arse holes who treated the media like carp in their playing days but had the nerve to go cap in hand for a pundit's role when they retired, Kevin always had time and deserves his chance.

He told you West Ham only deal wit Willie McKay? The same Willie McKay who was declared bankrupt last year? https://www.thegazette.co.uk/notice/2315151 He's clearly got good knowledge of the game.

Our sales in recent seasons have made it an easy perception for lazy journos to conclude Saints are a selling club. It makes for an easier life to just go along with that perception without asking the sort of questions journos should ask. The tag of being a selling club always carries with it the hint that players are being sold for some dark, devious scheme, in other words, the owner is creaming off the proceeds of the sales. We clearly know that is not the case, so they question the should be posing next, is: "If they are a selling club, which we journos have decided they are why are Saints selling these players?" They won't ask that question as it carries an awkward answer; That players are being tapped and unsettled by other clubs, with the assistance of a media which feels all the best players should be with four or five clubs. To answer that question truthfully would lay open their own complicit role in players being unsettled and their heads turned. So just go ahead and dub Saints a selling club. It's much easier and saves a lot of bother with awkward explanation as to why they actually sell their players.

I was shocked and amazed at what some women are prepared to do and go through to be with professional footballers. Also frightened at the naievity of said footballers, given the prospects of the women going off to sell their story to the tabloids, although there were handsome whip-rounds afterwards (that doesn't sound right, does it?)

Er...no. Tales I was told of some of the sexual exploits on a Saints pre-season a couple of years ago would make your toes curl. The main mover and shaker (excuse the pun) has since left the club. And his ID would shock and surprise you.

The cost of paying over the odds for the PL contract is hurting them. They are looking at any means of cutting costs, which includes scrapping a lot of their magazine-style programmes, such as Tight Lines (fishing), Boots n' All (rugby) and others, which. I've got a few mates who are broadcast freelances and have been told their services are no longer required. Some of them have worked for Sky for 10 years or more and although they are freelance have, until now, been guaranteed work. They effect of the eye-watering contract may even be creeping into other parts of the NewsCorp empire as The Sun and The Times have also slashed their freelance budgets. Now it may be this is all coincidental and Newscorp is carrying out efficiency measures. But all these cuts coming in the wake of paying so much for the PL contract, does make you wonder. Newscorp does still make healthy profits, but somewhere within the organisation, there is concern about their bottom line.

Not so, in my humble opinion. What you see as problems are based on the assumption that the top clubs would act in the interest of the common good, or of their supporters, neither of which are high on their agenda. 1) Who decides who plays in this big league? The clubs themselves do. The G14 might have disbanded in 2008 to be replaced by the European Club Association, but that was only after the G14 wrung huge concessions from a frightened Fifa, who agreed to compensate G14 member clubs for players participating and getting injured in World Cup matches. But the G14 haven't really gone away and if somebody waved a big enough cheque at them, they could reform overnight, get together, and form a cabal that would walk away from their respective domestic competitions, taking their best players in the world with them, and straight into the welcoming arms of a broadcaster who would bankroll their breakaway tournament. 2) Away day travel would bankrupt most fans. Sorry to disillusion you, but the only reason the TV companies want big crowds is as a backdrop to the games. Fans won't really figure in the bigger picture. In fact, as the income from TV money has increased, clubs have become less reliant on the numbers coming through the turnstiles. Gate receipts are still not an insignificant source of income, especially when you pull in 75,000 every home match like Man Utd, but Premier League clubs' survival is no longer predicated on them. Clubs count the TV money first, and then see how much jam the gates put on the top. The model for that is in The States where there is little or no tradition of away support. Tampa Bay fans don't travel to Seattle, or New England fans to San Diego. It's too far and expensive and they are accustomed to watching their team on the road, on the box. Not only will fans have to get used to not following their team away, but the only way to see their team on the road would be by taking out a TV subscription. Extrapolate that, and fewer fans travelling=more TV subscriptions=more TV income, so it would actually benefit clubs for their fans NOT to travel. Besides, why do you need to consider fans' travel costs when your main market will be the untold millions of the Far East. 3.The Premier League would lose all interest from major TV companies both here and abroad. Do you think many people in Spain or China would watch a league being fought over by Saints, Stoke and Everton? With no money, the new Euro League would just buy anyone remotely decent from EPL. I think you have partly answered your own question here. People in China aren't interested in watching Saints, Stoke or Everton at the moment. The PL know that, and just as importantly, the top clubs know it as well. In 1991, the big clubs even then needed the smaller clubs to break away from the Football League to form the PL, and they got them to do that by a collective agreement over TV monies. But that collective agreement is now a millstone around the necks of the big clubs, who know they would do a lot better for themselves if they broke away and hived off all the money. You are right, a Premier League with Saints, Everton and Stoke is not as appealing to your Far Eastern audiences as a Super League with Man Utd/City/Chelsea/Real Madrid/Barca/Bayern/PSG/Juve would be, so scrap the English Premier League and make it better by bringing the top European/World clubs on board. I don't see what you describe as problems, being that. They would be problems for us, because we would be on the outside looking in. But in the ruthless cold-hearted business world of football and broadcasting, what you see as problems are either minor hurdles to be skipped over, or as in (2), things that don't really concern the big clubs or broadcasters. My humble opinion is that over the next 10-15 years - possibly even shorter than that - we will have to get used to watching our football in a completely different way. The best players will head to the Super Clubs in the Super League, and our top domestic league will be like the Eredivisie. There will be some TV money because people like the BBC and ITV will find it within their compass to deal with clubs who have been shorn of their best talent, and are keen for any income. There are those who say things will be better if the top four/five went off and did their own thing, formed a Super League and left the rest of us to it. But clubs like us, Everton, Spurs (who wouldn't get into an Super League) would face a bleak future. It would be like going back to the 1950s and 60s in some way, as clubs would have to survive on their wits, recruitment talent, and gate receipts, but always with the knowledge that no matter what they do, they will always be second best.

Two years ago I would have said a European/World league, underpinned by mega TV deals and involving the big glamour clubs, was nailed on. And its format would be very much NFL - 20 teams, forming a cartel, pulling up the drawbridge and no prospect of promotion or relegation to break into the top table. It would suit everybody (except those clubs not in it). Those clubs in the Super League (or whatever you care to call it) share the money between themselves, and the TV companies get top games every week and don't have to try and sell Stoke v Norwich to the Far Eastern scarfers and shirt wearers who only want to see Man Utd/City/Arsenal/Real Madrid/ Barca/Bayern/PSG/Juve. And if it was/is going to happen, it would be need to be soon, with Fifa's stock at an all-time low, it would be a good time for the TV companies to sign the world's top clubs up to form a Kerry Packer-style unilateral withdrawal and form a pirate competition off the grid and stick two fingers up to international football (which the big clubs don't really like, in any case). But I think BT Sport coming on to the scene has changed the picture and dynamic. Murdoch would have been the prime mover and shaker with his TV networks throughout the world, and really doesn't give a tinker's cuss about the structure and state of the game at large. All he and the other networks want is to sell subscriptions. But their position of power had suddenly been undermined by BT Sport, who not only panicked Sky into paying way over the odds for their Premier League coverage but are nibbling away at their portfolio of other sports including cricket and rugby. BT have the financial wherewithal to blow Sky/Newscorp out of the water, and their main reason for suddenly appearing on the sports scene a couple of years ago is play the long game. They know that in 10-15 years we won't be watching TV as we know it, but that everything will be via broadband. I currently pay £70 a month for my Sky package (yes, I know, I an idiot) but as a (long-standing) BT Broadband customer, I get all the PL football 'free' as part of the package, and only have to fork out another £5 a month for BT TV which gives me Champions and Europa League. Now BT Sport have snaffled the cricket, I am getting to the point where I am questioning whether I need my full Sky package. Now, of course, there's no reason to suppose that BT Sport would not underpin a breakaway European/World/Super League, but from what people in the broadcast industry tell me, BT are a bit less venal than Sky. In fact, BT still regard their sports coverage as something of a loss leader, with the greater aim of getting people to sign up for broadband, which is where the really big money will be in 10-15 years time. In the same way Nick Clegg says the Lib Dems were an ameliorating influence on the coalition government and stopped the Conservatives from introducing all their nastiest policies, so the presence of BT might be a calming influence on Sky, who suddenly realise they do not have things their own way. But while BT's presence might at best prevent, or at least delay, the formation of a Super League, they are still as guilty as anybody else in pumping large amounts of money into football, which will retain the current status quo of the biggest clubs maintaining the gap between them and the rest.

I'm not sure he will be fuming. Most managers these days know - that unless he is at a top four PL club or one of Europe's elite - that his players are likely to be prey for a bigger fish. He has worked within those parameters before and unless he does go on to manage Barca, it's a situation he and the vast majority of other managers have to live with. Most managers have an intimate knowledge of players, and not just their own. After all it's their job to do so. He would have known before he came here last year which players at the club would be likely targets. If names like Schneiderlin, Clyne were unknown to him while ne was at Feyenoord and before he arrived here, he would not have been doing his job properly. I'm not sure I would ascribe to any view that Les Reed would have sold him a bag of magic beans in his interview, regarding the club's ambition and that suddenly Ron is shocked and surprised to find his best players are being sold from under his feet without his say-so. No manager would be entirely happy at losing his best players but he is a pragmatic realist. His previous jobs have also been under a European-style management system whereby the head coach has very little say in the recruitment of players and his role is to build the team with the players with which he is provided. The payers would not have been sold without his endorsement. Les would have said to him: "We have received an offer for X, for £25m. Are you happy we accept it?" I'm pretty sure he would have the final yea or nay, otherwise Wanyama, Mane and Rodriguez would be long gone by now. There is also the considreation that most managers have a huge ego. They don't walk out or crumble at the first sign of adversity or a percieved insult. They see these as challenges and their professional instinct is to stand and fight and show they can come through them. That's how managers progress on to bigger and better jobs. Prospective employing clubs are not impressed by managers who throw hissy fits. A club is unlikely to think well of a manager who resigned from his pevious club on a matter of high principal. He might do it them. And what was it about Ron and what he did at Feyenoord where he lost his best players, which attracted Saints to him in the first place?

Interesting story. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/34019997 This is what real fans do. They don't expect HNW individuals to dip into their pockets to outstrip the rest of the division in terms of players' wages and fund a desperate promotion drive.

It suits Sky's purposes on so many levels. Sky don't actually control deadlines, they are set by Uefa in conjunction with all the domestic FAs. But turkeys don't vote for Xmas and as long as the major paymasters love it, the PL will not be pushing the FA or any other governing body to change it.

It's letting somebody else take the risk. Rather than spend £12m on an untried player who might not make the grade in the Premier League they are happier to pay double that for a player who has had a season priming and proving himself in the league. It's not a good business model, and it's lazy in as much as it's letting somebody else develop the player and take all the associated risks. If Mane had been a busted flush, we would have wasted £12m, which is a lot of money to us. United wouldn't be wasting £24m, thanks to us. But they can afford to do that.

I think you'll find I'm keeping across the latest sports news stories. The comments on the Chronicle website under the story are hilarious. This will be their Ted Statue Saga. One suggests putting a cowboy hat on the statue as it looks like Woody from Toy Story.

..what happened to the original Ted Bates statue. It looks as though it was melted down for this. http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/alan-shearer-statue-way-newcastle-9859791 Newcastle have obviously pushed the boat out for Al, with a statue made in China, although supposedly made by a Morpeth artist.

So Poch will find that at Spurs under Levy, he has little or no input into player signings, but that he will carry the can for the performance of players he had no say in.

Sky Sports making it crystal clear where the blame lies. They've clearly had complaints so are lumping the blame firmly on the club. Embarrassing. So the policy persists of shooting all their wad on an over-extended and bloated playing budget at the expense of facilities. If they can't use the camera gantry in the stand there is something quite seriously, structurally wrong. It's astonishing how that stand passes any H&E inspections. There are places where the wooden (yes. wooden, you remember that) planking is so thin, you can see through to the lower tier.

They are not empty seats. There is never an empty seat at The Passiondome. On another note, where on earth are the cameras situated? The main halfway line camera is about 10 feet off the ground (and not exactly halfway), and plonked about the tunnel and dugouts. That hints to me the usual camera gantry up in the stand is not being used. Wonder why that might be?