SaintBobby

Hmmm. Not convincing at all, really. Of course, people who actually attend games will often have very different - even contradictory - views. But actually being at a game will mean you have something of an informed opinion. It might be wrong, but it's informed. By way of analogy, a jury of 12 may well disagree about the guilt or innocence of the defendant. They may even all get the verdict wrong. But their views demand a greater level of respect - and command more veracity - than someone who sees a photo of the accused in a newspaper and decides he's guilty or innocent based on this alone. Now, I readily concede that your knowledge of Saints' players and performances is greater than merely looking at a still photo in a newspaper. But it is massively, truly enormously, less than the knowledge base of people who regularly attend matches. This doesn't automatically mean you're wrong. On occasions, someone might get a decision right by flipping a coin and someone who has spent hours of intense study might get the same decision wrong. But it does mean your view is not very well informed. And is certainly much less informed than the views of the vast majority of posters on this forum. Your entitled to your opinion, of course. Everybody is. But it would be strange indeed for you - or others- to attach very much weight to these opinions. There's the world of difference between having a right to an opinion and having an expectation that this opinion should be taken remotely seriously.

If I remember rightly, in the Branfoot era c.1992, we drew 2-2 at Old Trafford and went on to win on penalties. Shearer scored at least one of the two Saints goals. I think Tim Flowers saved the critical penalty (from Ryan Giggs?)

Bang on the money. Alpine?

I don't wholly disagree with you, but I don't think it is the same at every club in the world. Far from it. Finding comparable cover for Messi or Ronaldo is simply impossible. Finding good cover for, say, Dean Hammond or Danny Seaborne is eminently possible. And quite cheap. We're very different from Barca or Chelsea or Arsenal. We are actually fishing in a far bigger pool. There are only a tiny handful of players good enough to play for Barcelona etc. Whereas there are very many hundreds, maybe thousands, good enough to play for Southampton. We're also very different to most League One teams. We're mega-rich compared to most of our divisional opponents. So, I can well understand Dagenham or Leyton Orient saying "hell, we're just going to have to risk it. We're struggling to meet our bills as it is. If our best players get injured, we're just going to have to put the under-16s on the pitch." Southampton don't need to be as risky. obviously, it's absurd to try and believe we can buy an exact replica of Lallana just to sit on the bench. But I'd expect our squad to be far, far deeper than the smaller L1 teams. I'd expect us to have a fair number of fringe/squad/substitute players who could easily walk into the starting XI of many other third division sides. At the moment, although I think we have a playing staff that must be the envy of many of our opponents, we could still do with - and afford - a little bit more depth.

I'm a STH. Go to a total of about 30 games a season. I will definitely be going because it's Man Utd. I might well have given it a miss if it was a non-glamour team. Don't know (or care) if this makes me a pseudo-plastic fan. But it seems to me absolutely sensible that many more people will choose to go to see glamorous opposition rather than pedestrian opposition. And pay more for it. Same goes (for me anyway) for pre-season friendlies. If we were to get Barcelona or Juventus or Bayern Munich, I'm willing to go and will pay top dollar. Am less excited about Saints v Reading (although I did go to it for the c.£10 they were asking).

If Connolly's a busted flush, I think we do need another striker, just for cover. But this could be a loan deal (along the Bignall lines) or someone very cheap. Although he hasn't been on sparkling form for a good part of the season, I think we are too reliant on Rickie. I'd like to have a very easy option to take Lambert off with 15 minutes to go if the game is clearly won. I think RL, LB and Guly are all 1st class for L1 - and AOC or AL could fill in up front too - but I'd like to have a 4th/5th choice striker who knows that's what he is. I don't think Ryan Doble fits the bill just yet. I'm looking at maybe a £100K player on 2K/3K a week. Emphatically not someone who is better than we presently have. Can't decide on CB. Fonte is several degrees too good for this division. Seaborne, Martin and Jaidi are all okay, although the last of these is fading quite fast. If we were to make a c.£1m signing of someone who could go straight into the starting XI, central defence seems the obvious (only?) area to do it. Someone along Jaidi lines, but younger (Danny ****tu was mentioned) If we keep Punch, the wings are fine. We'd have four possible left-sided wingers (Lallana, Puncheon, Dickson or a recalled Mills) and four possible right wingers (Chamberlain, Lallana, Puncheon and - just about - Guly...or even Butterfield). Full backs definitely fine and seems there's real competition on both flanks for who is no.1 and no.2. I'm not quite sure what we do if both Butterfield and Richardson are injured, but some risks you just have to take. I'm a bit ambivalent about centre midfield. I'm not a huge fan of Hammond. I'm less enamoured with Chaplow than many others. Schneiderlin is class, but his form can be patchy. Obviously, we have a ton of players who can swith to CM (Dickson, Butterfield, Guly etc). It's "fine" in centre midfield and rather better than any other L1 midfield I can think of. But probably for next season, if we're in the NPC, I'd like to see an experienced c.32 year old central midfielder, a leader of men, replacing Hammond. If that's done now, rather than in the Summer, so much the better. I don't share Alpine's bizarre negativity. And I agree with the criticism that he can't credibly hold such strong views as an absentee. This isn't a p*ssing contest about how many matches people attend. I think someone who attends, say, 20 matches might have opinions basically as valid as someone who attends 30 or 40. But it's difficult to give much credence to someone who attends, I believe, zero matches, whatever their wider football knowledge. That said, I also don't share the view (expressed by many on here and also by Adkins) that we should only sign players who are better than what we already have. Yes, we have depth that most L1 teams could only dream of, but that's not a reason why a tad more depth might not help - especially up front. Promotion this season is vital. If we stay in the third tier, we could well see an exodus of our better players in the Summer. There would also be huge pressue on Adkins and quite possibly yet another change in management. I think we're quite likely going to win the division with the players we have got and that our chances of promotion are about 70-75%, but spending money to boost these chances to 80-85% (they can never be 100% of course) is money well spent this January. We are as well positioned as any team in L1, but the need for us to deliver in the next four months is probably greater than for any other third tier team.

Alpine in "utterly baseless, moaningly pessimistic" shocker

Just seen the BBC stats; Saints 23 shots (14 on target), Blackpool 8 shots (3 on target). And Saints had 11 corners, compared to 4 for the visitors. Nice.

Great appointment. Good results. Right style of football. The only issue is whether he could sustain us in the Prem, but that's a matter for a long way out. Has my 100% support and loved the appointment.

god help us. just pathetic.

Is anyone interested in pressing the club/company collectively for a 100% refund?

Espanyol wasn't a competitive game.

He got Channon. I got Mills. Is Williams right? My other (wild) guesses would have been Alan Ball and Mark Wright.

Maybe the question was the Saints 1982 squad? I ain't giving the shirt back because they got a question wrong!

I'd rather see Saints win a throw-in than England win the World Cup tbh.

I was pretty chuffed to win the quiz challenge in the Channon suite on Saturday (although it was only head-to-head between me and another volunteer). Meant I won a home shirt, presented to me by Kelvin and AOC, which the club are going to get signed by the whole first team squad. Here were the questions, which I thought weren't too difficult, although they seem a lot harder when (a) you're drunk (b) you're standing in front of 150 people desperate not to make a total t!t of yourself and © you don't have access to google etc. I was contestant B. Question 1 to A: Who did Southampton play in the last competitive game at the Dell? Question 1 to B: Who did Southampton play in the first competitive game at St Marys? A2: Who has more Southampton appearances than any other player? B2: Who has scored more goals for Southampton than any other player? A3: Saints made it to two Wembley cup finals in the 1970s - who did they beat in the two-legged semi-final to make it to the League Cup final? B3: And who did we beat in a 3rd round replay on our way to the 1976 FA Cup Final. A4: In 1982, Southampton fielded a team consisting of six past, present or future England captains. Shilton and Keegan were two of them, name one of the remaining four. B4: And name one of the remaining three A5: In 1968, Ted Bates sold a player for a then British record transfer fee of £125,000. Who was it? B5: And who is Southampton's all time record signing?

I thought Chaplow was pretty poor, apart from his superb finish. Fonte a tad shakier than normal. The full backs were both very good. Something's still wrong with Rickie. He's never been fast, but he looks very leaden at the mo. All in all, very pleasing performance though.

Yep, Rupert Murdoch pays 100s of journalists to work just on this story. In order to ruin your day. True story.

amazingly bad.

Nice win. Didnt look good at half time. But Im starting to get that feeling I had last season - when we go 1-0 down I'm still confident we can win! Top stuff.

This.

Notts 0 Saints 3 easy

As a Saints fan, I want them to suffer. Kind of want them dead. But then think that's too harsh, even for an unsentimental b*stard like me. But as a football fan, I really do want them dead. You can't cheat like this anymore. A message needs to be sent. Your financial cheating is punishbale by the death penalty. Couldn't have happened to a sh*tter club. Let's hope the extinction of a minor, poorly supported team triggers a recalibration of English football. Then no fish would have died in vain. Here ends the lesson.

If it was "muted", I guess that's why I never heard about these exciting possibilities.

Wedges and wadges aside, I'd say it's likely that we will make him a very good offer and he'll sign. That doesn't mean he stays for another 3 years, but it does mean (a) he gets paid many thousands more every month and maybe a signing on bonus and (b) if he does go we get much more in transfer receipts. Given this looks to be in both Adam's and in Saints' interest, it will probably happen. He may well still leave in the Summer , even then.