SaintBobby

I think if you read my initial reply....#4 above...that's a fair (and turns out wholly accurate) response to the thread title. No, there probably won't be a press conference. Even if there is, it won't be remotely interesting. I didn't "flame" the OP (just said I'd expect to be myself if I posted a Beckham rumour along the lines outlined). Facepalm squared.

Well, you named the thread "Press conference today???" - with the implication there might well be. You then linked to a piece on a fan site that made a vague reference to a room being booked in a hotel, possibly. If I started a thread saying "Is Beckham signing for Saints???" and then linked to a short article saying that he and Posh might be visiting the New Forest, and suggested "according to this" he could be, I'd expect to be flamed for it.

Sure, I'd love to see Saints challenging at the top. But, this way madness may lie. We don't have the cash or the kudos. Nowhere close. I guess it hinges on whether you admire Del Trotter always saying "this time next year, we will be millionaires". I reckon he and Rodney would have been better off making their first £50k-£100K and moving out of their crappy council flat in Peckham.

My own favourite was 2009/10. Felt joy at the club starting to climb back. Never expected us to get promoted, so was relaxed all the way through. Loved the JP-T trip to Wembley too.

I think you were pretty consistently predicting we wouldn't get auto-promotion, even with a few games left. Can't remember the exact details, but do remember you saying with about 8-ish games to go that we needed X points to go up and wouldn't make it (even though X-1 points would have mathematically guaranteed promotion)

Loved watching Spain last night. But then I loved Italian football in the 1980s. England-Sweden was probably the most exciting game for me, but were clearly two pretty weak teams. Some sort of tippy-tappy cattenacio is probably the new way of playing football. I can live with that, but can also see why others find it a tad dull.

My 2p worth. I'm delighted by the progress of the club. But I worry a bit sometimes that some people are too optimistic. At some point, being aspirational slips into being delusional. Yes, sure I want Cortese to be ambitious for the club and to give a good impression to possible signings. But if he is really giving people the idea that we are close to being "competitive" with Man City, he's a nutjob. I just worry slightly that MLG (who I don't hold anything against) would have been - if he was a Darlington fan - cheering on George Reynolds when he built some lunatic 25,000 all seater stadium for the Quakers and talked about the club getting into the Premier League within 5 years. They are now in division 27. For my money, staying up in the Premier League next season would be a fine achievement and gradually becoming a safe-ish top 14 club would be heroic (e.g. rough equivalent to Fulham, Villa, even Everton...that sort of "they won't set the world alight but won't get relegated" level).

No longer a source. Just a grapevine. We now have people listening to whispers in vineyards. Cool.

Meh. Pretty indifferent. He's a fair player, but I don't attach any credibility at all to the OP's source.

Gees. Can people get away from "press conference called" stuff? The media doesn't work like that anymore. If there's a calling notice or ops note sent out, it is 99.9999999999% likely to be about (a) a photo op for something already announced or (b) something crushingly dull. The days of "pray, will gentlemen of the press care to gather in the foyer of the Grand Hotel for the purpose of hearing an announcement pertaining to the activities of the honourable Southampton Football Club (association rules)"....are over. Dead. Gone. Never to return.

Dear "nutjobs" (which I mean in the nicest and most flattering way), I'm helping to pull together an article for the Daily Mail website tomorrow on Porstmouth FC, finance and lessons to be learnt. It's not a sports article as such - but drawing parallels between Portsmouth and governments spending too much money, racking up debt - who suffers, who gets away with it, how "moral hazard" is encouraged if proper punishments are not dispensed etc. I'm a fairly frequent visitor to this thread, but would enormously welcome any contributions and advice on the following points: 1. Assuming CVA2 is approved, what's the total hit to the taxpayer/HMRC over the last few years? 2. And on the same basis, what's the hit to non-football creditors? 3. What are the most egregious examples of player signings for transfer frees or on salaries that Portsmouth didn't have? This isn't necessarily TBH (if he was signed and offered a good contract when the going was good, that's prob not as bad as a player on half the amount signed when the finances were obviously disastrous). 4. How "obvious" is it that the 2008 Cup winning team was bought and paid for with money they didn't have at the time? All/any help much appreciated.

Top 3: Man City (by a mile - 8-10 points clear) Chelsea Arsenal Bottom 3: Saints Reading West Brom

Can I just say if we get relegated it wouldn't be a total disaster. Is Adkins up to what? If we end up relegated on goal difference, I don't think he's a crap manager. If we end up staying up on goal difference, I don't think this proves his genius. Anything above 18th would be a fantastic achievement. We can't expect Saints to keep just rising and rising. I think those who say we could end up 10th or 11th-ish are VERY optimistic. Sure, it's possible - but that should be the absolute max of our hopes this year (not "probably top 10, maybe Europa League" or whatever)

34-ish is probably enough to stay up. I'd take 17th right now.

We don't seem very vocal on the pitch compared to a lot of other teams. Am all for the "together as one" stuff - but you still need a leader of men. Agree it should be a CM or CB and should not be Hammond.

I can't work out whether teams with a load of international players will start fresher or rustier than teams like Saints? I don't mind playing the good teams at the start, not sure I'd want to begin with 4 or 5 "must win" type games. Most important early match is Wigan at home, of course. Isn't a rule of thumb that you probably need to win about eight home games to stay up? Given the height of my ambitions (at present) is to avoid relegation, I'm most interested in the St. Mary's fixtures against the "bottom 10-12" much more than the glamour fixtures. Quite a shock to the system to see the fixture list - in the last three seasons, we've started about 90% of league games as favourites. Them days are gone (and a good thing too)

I'm appalled. According to MLG's unambiguous, peer-reviewed, scientific criteria of the "bigness" of a club, we are bigger than Hull. Managers from smaller clubs should not be able to compare their outfit to bigger clubs, natch.

Completely agree. What befuddles me is that every football fan seems to think much the same. So, what sort of market research do they do at the BBC?

Who knows? I'd be surprised though and maybe a little worried. If we spend £24m on transfer fees, we're probably committing to another £24m on salaries.

It's all a balance IMHO. I like the way the squad has been built and the "buy young and hungry" strategy. But there is something to be said for age, experience and leadership. I think we may be a tad lacking here.

I think how much we spend on transfers is just one end of the issue. We should look on the whole package of wages and transfers. Robert Green on a free transfer would eat up a major chunk of our budget, for example. I'm sure we'll spends more than an additional £20m on new players. But a good % will be salaries.

This seems an argument for more signings, not early signings.

I'm delighted. I plead a hefty degree of personal ignorance - have seen him play just 3 times plus the obvious highlights/clips etc. But all the "background noise" is good. He's clearly highly rated by Adkins as well as other top flight managers. Young, bags of potential, voted by his fellow pros in Championship team of year, played for Eng U-21s etc etc But, I'll try and wait for ten games or so before forming a firm view. After all, I was a shoulder shrugger on Hoovield signing and an air puncher when we snapped up Agustin Delgado...

That's even more moronic, why would we pay £1m for the privilege of playing a friendly against Wolves? Would make sense if it was maybe £50K - £100K, but not at £1m - we may as well just write them a cheque.

Southampton now hold the all time league record for the number of consecutive games in which they have avoided defeat if leading at half time (now something like 50ish?)