moonraker

This is becoming a bit weird, how many articles have there been on the Academy. I realise there is a degree of syndication but the fact that so may mouthpieces are actually publishing all this Saints positivity just feels, well weird. The young lads themselves must feel chuffed. Despite some believing that this is not good as it will attract attention as if professional scouts from around the country didint already know how good we are. I believe this level of publicity can only be a good thing. These sorts of stories tend to kick start a self fulfilling prophecy, all of these lads have signed pro forms and are comitted to Saints, other youngsters will want to follow.

This has absouloutly nothing to do with Saints and should be locked or moved to the lounge.

Interestingly for 2012 - 13 Rovers avarage attendence was just under half of Citys, 6308 v 13348, Rovers were responsible for 2 of highest attendences at in League 2, Oxford and Torquay whilst city featured in none of the highest attendences in the Championship.

Whilst City have a larger home following, Rovers away following is out of all proportion to their home gates. City average 1 away fan for every 20 home fans (4th worst away following in the footbal league) Rovers is twice that. As a side note the bestest fans in the world avearge 1 away fan for evey 15 home fans and are therefore officially 57th bestest away fans!!!!!

The problem is that these two things are seen as mutually exclusive when they are not. As stated above Man Utd have achieved there unrivalled success with a core of English players. The problem is that the foreign Sugar Daddies are only interested in how the success of the club reflects on them and they are impatient for that success hence they buy established players mostly from overseas. As an example there is no realistic long term youth strategy at Chelsea, yes they have an academy but how many first XI Chelsea and/or England players has it produced since Abramovich took over? I can think of only 1 Bertrand and he is not a Chelsea first XI regular. The turnover of Managers in these clubs clearly illustrates the impatience of the Sugar Daddies, pressure to succeed is so immense they dare not risk blooding the youngsters. The preferred approach is to loan players out, mostly to lower league sides, whilst this can work it must be done in the best interests of the individual player as part of genuine personal development programme not just to make room in the academy for the next bunch of gullible talent who are blinded by the glamour of the Club not the success of the academy.

You got the wrong Brizzle, rovers would bring 3k no chance city will.

2-0

Not denying Utd and many others are interested in Shaw, as we might be interested in many players, the problem is reporting it in this way alludes to an active as opposed to a passive interest. Have Utd made an approach to saints? if not this is poor journalism, aka the express peddle the story that Shaw a recognised as a real talent, Utd rebuffed by Everton therefore they might go for Shaw.

at best sit on the bench at utd or be a key part of an ambitious team playing regularly, i think Luke has already decided that his immediate future will be better served at Saints, this seem like 2+2 = 5 to me poor journalism.

Very nice but definately not a footballers house!!! perhaps this, http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/29258151?search_identifier=1691aad84ef07f6abd8f309fb938e16c, close to the training ground as well.

i know we keep saying theres no such thing as loyalty in the game any more, but i believe that SRL will stick with Saints, he has acknowledged on a number of occasions that coming to us has been the key to his recent success. 20 mins of international football and stunning debut goal will not change the him he is a decent man. The big teams are not in the habit of splashing the sort of money we would want for a 31 year old.

To answer the OP is no, whilst I would like a Striker and possibly one other, it is not a numbers game, a stable cohesive squad is vital, how long will it take the Sunderland squad to become a team, if ever, and not all those signings will work out.

It is a latter day version of the Dock Labour Scheme something most Sotonians should know was a disgraceful exploitation of the workforce.

The Enemy!

Partly that was my point the 3 way, UK, French Italian compromise was never going to work, and the 2 way French / Italian is not easy, if she isn’t comfortable she must be pretty!

The three armed services do themselves no favours when it comes to lobbying politicians. The default is to fight for their own arm at the expense of the other 2 and sadly the overall military capability. The RAF (civvies in uniform) are the masters at this, the ill-fated CVA-01 of the 1960’s partially failed due to RAF lobbying and claims that they could provide air support anywhere in the world! One story has it that they moved Australia by 500 miles in its documents to support the air force's preferred strategy of land-based aircraft. That is until the next wave of defence cuts shut all of their bases east of Suez, and they failed to win support for TSR 2 or its alternative F111. The Falklands and Sierra Leon demonstrated the irrelevance of the RAF in expeditionary sea based warfare. The much feted but useless and costly Vulcan raid on Port Stanley airfield was the RAF’s effort to justify itself. It was lobbying from the RAF that led to the loss of our Harrier force and our maritime patrol capability in order that they could retain the next to useless Tornado.

The perception that Labour Govt's do more damage to the Armed Forces than Tory ones never ceases to amaze me. Thatcher would have made the biggest ever cuts to the RN in history if wasn’t for Gen Galtreira. John Major the first PM in history to make servicemen redundant something that pretty boy David is copying with glee. Doesn’t suit the right wing view but it is a simple truth that since WWII ship design and building has always been better under a Labour Govt.

About 25 -30% of the vessel listed in 1954 were reserve fleet with no chance of being re-commissioned, only one of the battleships was operational. In addition most of the ships were worn out poorly modified WWII vessels. However I do agree with th genearl theme in this thread that the RN today is to small.

Yet again a debate on Naval matters in this case pertaining to design and capability of various vessels. The comments demonstrate only an amateur understanding of Naval Ship design (not operation). Warships and in particular frigates and destroyers are by their nature essentially single capability platforms, AW, UWW etc. the size of frigates and destroyers means that multiple capabilities are incompatible. Whilst they will have elements of other capabilities e.g. CIWS these and generally provided for self-defence. One of the reasons that destroyers and frigates and have grown to such a size is the attempt to multi role them to compensate for the reduction in hull numbers. Suggested reading to understand how the RN has ended up with ships and designs it currently has and those operated since WWII are “Rebuilding the Royal Navy – Warship design Since 1945” by D K Brown and George Moore and “British destroyers and Frigates – The Second World war and after” by Norman Freidman. By most measures the best UK frigate design since WWII is the Leander, the Indians are still using the hull as the basis for new designs. Judging a ship by the number of weapons systems is a very crude and misguided approach. When the UK Italy and France tried to design a ship together they failed because as a very old and bold RN ex operator in the design said “The French wanted a comfortable ship, the Italians wanted a pretty ship and the Brits wanted a ship that could fight” so we ended up with a 2 ship solution the Type 45 and FREMM, I know which I would go to war in!

This cant be right a LD getting praise on this site!!!!! anyway a great speech that really shows the Saints in good light.

This discussion needs some quantitative analysis to prove conclusively where our transfer activity should be focused. I have therefore taken the liberty to create a fool proof Multi Criteria Decision Analysis tool, the results are below! Competency of Current Incumbent 0 - 3 where 0 = Championship at best, 1 = OK could do better, 2 = Premiership Standard and 3 + Champions League Finalist Current Specialist Replacement 0 = no 1 = yes Competency of Cover 0 -3: where 0 = Championship at best, 1 = OK could do better, 2 = Premiership Standard and 3 + Champions League Finalist Weighting 3 1.5 2 GKP 2 1 1 LB 2 1 1 LCB 2 0 1 RCB 2 1 2 RB 2 0 2 DMF 2 1 1 DMF 2 1 1 LAM 2 0 1 RAM 2 1 1 ST 1 2 1 1 ST 2 2 0 0 RANKING GKP 6 1.5 2 9.5 LB 6 1.5 2 9.5 LCB 5 1.5 3 9.5 RCB 6 1.5 4 11.5 RB 6 0 4 10 DMF 6 1.5 2 9.5 DMF 6 1.5 2 9.5 LAM 6 0 2 8 RAM 6 1.5 2 9.5 ST 1 6 1.5 2 9.5 ST 2 6 0 0 6 So the results clearly show that our priorities are for a Striker and Left Sided Attacking Midfielder. This irrefutable quantitative evidence should now put a stop to these continual subjective based discussions.

There will be bumper crowd for this freindly, Rayo Vallecano. Pompey have announced plans to give serving sailors the chance to watch Sunday’s friendly against Rayo Vallecano. Members of the Royal Navy can collect tickets for the match (3pm kick-off) from the club’s Frogmore Road ticket office on the day of the game, but will need to show naval identification.

Having now read the report in full I belive it contributes a lot to the debate. All 3 main Political parties accept the need for some form of Nuclear weapon system for the foreseable future. The report was commsioned to provide a definitive anaswer to the system options and costs arguments. It has effectively concluded that the only cost effective viable option is the 4 boat CASD one. You might say no surprises there however I belive this report is important, and worth the money, as it gives a credibilty to the proposed 4 boat programme and the fact it was led by and LD whose party members are the most sceptical demonstrates that its conclsuion are not politically skewed.

Thats politicians (all colours) for you, sounds just like Jeremy Hunts reponse to the Keogh NHS report, from which the authors and other well informed and rational people have distanced themselves,.

Originally Posted by badgerx16 What is the solution for Italy, Germany, Holland, Sweden, or Spain ? Or over 150 other countries around the world ? Why does the UK HAVE to have these systems ? Good question; in reply I would suggest none of these have the global legacy, ties and responsibilities the UK has. Each countries needs are shaped by history, Germany is not allowed by international law to have such weapons (maybe Italy I do not know) nor are they allowed to partake in overseas operations (front line), this is also true for Japan. Sweden is a neutral country and Spain was until the early eighties a non-aligned fascist state without the money or technical know how to build and own a Nuclear Deterrent. No nation has developed a Strategic ICBM Nuclear Deterrent since the late 50’s early 60’s (arms limitation at work). Israel’s, India’s and Pakistan’s weapons are essentially regional and tactical and not submarine based. NATO was formed to provide collective security, part of the NATO strategy is a Strategic Nuclear Deterrent maintained by the US and the UK, (note not the French Deterrent, why do they have one?). If the UK decommissions its Trident force without replacement then a key part of the NATO strategy will be undermined and we (Europe) will be even more reliant on the US. I do not subscribe to the argument that it is about empire and past glories it is however a legacy of these. A question if Europe (the EU) were a fully integrated sovereign state do you think it would have a Strategic ICBM Nuclear Deterrent?