SaintBobby

Local newspapers are on their last legs. The Echo wont exist in five years time, most likely. The world moves on.

I'm sure I read somewhere that Saints penalty conversion rate was the best of all 92 team since 1992 or something. Rickie has every chance of being top scorer. Hope so I have 50 quid on him at 4/1....

Does anyone other than hypo care about the fans forum? Ive been to a couple and enjoyed them. But they are a bit of a self-indlugence for uber-fans, really.

I'm able to confirm we don't have any exciting loan signings lined up. See my previous post, starting a thread, on the January transfer window. HTH.

Many congrats to Alex. I thought the tabloid-invented £10m asking price was made. But if Andy F-ing Carroll is worth £35m..... Anyway....hope he stays.

Yeah. I care. There's some pretty good evidence that the club has acted like a bunch of a**eholes. Nick Illingsworth himslef may be an a**ehole. Whether he is or not seems to be a matter of great fascination for many of us. Certainly, after the Silverspoons debacle, my own impression is that he is probably incompetent, is incapable of delivering on his promises and is not a man to be trusted ever again. But I don't much care if NI is an a**ehole. I am certainly not intending to have any sort of business or personal relationship with him again. Ever. And I'd advise any other sensible Saints fan (or indeed human being) to follow the same course. Put as much distant between yourself and Illingsworth as you reasonably can, without getting too paranoid about it. And certainly don't send any money in his direction. In contrast, I am intending to have an ongoing relationship with Southampton Football Club. And I am intending to give Southampton Football Club a large chunk of my cash in months and years to come. I care passionately about Southampton Football Club. Nick Illingsworth isn't even worth ignoring in comparison. Consequently, if Illingsworth scores, say, 9 on the a**ehole scale and SFC score, say, 5 for their treatment of him, I'm still more worried by the 5. It's not a "who is the biggest a**ehole"?" issue. It's whether you're worried about the behaviour of the club. I am.

Actually, unless the IFO document is a total hoax, I'm pretty apalled by this. I'm no fan of Nick Illingsworth. I don't know the man personally at all. I have only not taken legal action against him for the JPT rip-off because my lawyer has found it neraly impossible to identify the legal party who "organised" the event. I don't have any reason to believe that he is representative of Saints fans. I know quite a lot of Saints fans and none of them know Illingsworth. The broad brush view on here is that he doesn't really represent anyone. But that's really a complaint against SKY, The Echo etc for claiming that he does. Not against him as such. But the club has some explaining to do here. Either this man is such a threat to national security that SFC can only discuss the matter with MI5 etc or they have acted in a petty and vindicative fashion. There are plenty of petty and vindicative people in football. No surprise there. I'm just a tad worried that SFC have clearly gone to some considerable length to act in a petty and vindicative way and then not even apologise. If you're going to do dictatorial loony behaviour, do it properly. Ban him from SMS altogether. But what sort of totally warped bureaucrat thinks "no....don't ban him from the ground...let him buy tickets as and when he pleases...let him come to any game he wants....just don't let him have the satisfaction of owning a season ticket" The only conclusion I can draw is that one or more people on the payroll of the club went through exactly this thought process. I find that creepy, weird and unacceptable. I don't think a response of "So what? It's Illingsworth!" is a fair one. Nick Illingsworth shoudl lodge a subject access request with the club under s8 of the Data Protection Act of 1998 to find out what happened. This isn't going to knock the meltdown in Eygpt off thefront pages. But that's not the basis for deciding what's right and wrong.

I think you can find a thread I started a couple of weeks ago. Namely that we would not make any new signings. Forte for Punch basically. I hate to say "I told you so"..... Btw, I should say I'm not too disappointed. We've kept the squad together basically. And they shld be good enough to get promotion with comfort.

It's a weak service. But it's the best you're gonna get. I reckon I've seen maybe 20 people complain about their fivers. That's £100. How much time and effort do you think that buys us collectively? Sooner or later someone will decide that they can get migration from this site to another (just as previously). I do agree this platform is waning, shame.

Am reluctantly starting at agree. We dont have anyone on target for a 20 goal season this year.

Here's my take on it, although a lot of this involves some leaps of faith as well as the evidence of yesterday: 1. A sort of 4-1-3-2 formation works, with MS as a "quarterback"...worth far more than a mere defensive guard for the back 4. 2. It did mean we lacked a bit of defensive width...especially v Fabio in the first half, so we need to get the midfielders more used to covering for the right and left back. 3. Our strike force isn't as on fire as last year. From open play, not much of our threat came directly from RL or LB. My solution is to experiment a bit more up front, e.g. 4-3-3 or try RL and DN together, just to see if we can make something "click"

Kelvin was rested according to the club officials in the Channon suite

I was in corporate, which is always deathly silent. My impression was Man Utd were pretty damn loud.

Me too. Absurdly long odds on that...A nice 140 quid profit to ease the pain

I don't really believe those who say they want to lose. Did you really have your head in you hands as Chaplow scored? And did you punch the air when Hernandez got their winner?

@miserableodgit. How can you "understand" we have a bid in for Austin and yet say you're not ITK? It's both or neither, surely?

Very very good effort. Especially for first sixty minutes. We did tire a little and didn't have a ton of options on the bench. A little annoying to lose to two quite soft goals too. Btw, Adam Lallana came into the Channon suite afterwards and said he expected to be playing again (and indeed fully fit) in 2 weeks. He'd met a specialist a few days ago and the injury is less bad than expected. He was also full of praise for the team's effort but said he thought Exeter and Peterborough were actually bigger games in terms of our overall objectives. Well done, Saints. Brave effort. MOTM: Schneiderlin. With honourable mentions for Chaplow, Harding and Butterfield. The handful of Manc fans in corporate seemed to think Guly was our most threatening player.

Is this seriously a thread arguing about whether or not SMS has a running track? Poll please mods???? Jesus H Christ.

Bit of a wild suggestion....based wholly on me just starting a new game of CM as Saints boss for this season. Robbie Fowler, aged 36, is available for a song from Perth Glory. He and Lambert are pretty good together up front - although not exactly pacey.

Groan.

I bought a Saints-Celtic scarf at the Claus testimonial. I'd buy one for any decent pre-season friendly (Ajax etc), but not one with another English league team on it.

If we go ahead at any time: "Are you gonna change your shirts? are you gonna change your shirts? are you gonna...are you gonna...etc etc"

Im not against this in principle actually, although I appreciate you are making a point. I dont really agree with anyone on this issue. I think our current squad is fine, and will probably win promotion. But, I do agree with Alpine that we should make signings. But I also think its true that weve made major offers, and that these offers have been rebuffed. This just goes to cost-benefit analysis. Assume we made 3 different bids to 3 different clubs for 3 different players. Assume these were at £1m each. For identified, top players who'd walk into our first team. But each time were told "nope, sorry...£2m please" and/or we think we can get the player at 6k a week, but his agent is demanding 12K a week and a big signing bonus. At some point, it isnt worth it. I think Saints have reached this point. Im happy to sign back-up squad players though. These come cheap. They wont change our season,but may end up being worth a point or three. I want a 4th string striker. It's a marginal call, but its def not a mad one.

Bloody ridiculous. He was offering to pay as well? Ex-players should be able to be flagged on the database. I dont believe in freebies. They all got paid a salary for playing for us. But, they cant be treated as random members of the public. I have 3 tickets, he can have them.

I'm sure the club are working on the basis that AOC isnt going. If he does and we get £5m+, Im sure that would change their transfer strategy.