Papa Shango

Not really that fair on Rickie, the service to both strikers was poor. I seriously doubt Doble or anyone else would have made any sort of difference.

Agreed. He's not been first choice under all those different managers for nothing. Yes he makes the odd mistake every now and then, but lets not forget all the other times he's saved us, like at Sheffield Wednesday this season, and the penalty save against Brighton. He plays a lot more games than Bart so it's pretty obvious you're going to see more mistakes from him. Bart's played two games this season, one he had nothing to do in a low pressure cup game against Cheltenham, and the other he probably only made one major save (albeit a very good one) all game. Put him in all season and I'm sure he'd make mistakes like Kelvin did today as well. Bart might well be ready in the future, but right now I'd stick with Kelvin.

First half was as bad a performance as we've had all season. Our entire back five was poor. Defensively they looked shaky and every time they got the ball it was usually aimlessly lumped forward to nobody. Second half was ok, but still not great. Morgan was our best player, and the only one who actually managed to complete more than a couple of passes. Rickie was ok, and Barnard livened things up a bit when he came on. Ratings Davis 4 Richardson 5 Jaidi 5 Fonte 5 Harding 4 Chamberlain 6 Schneiderlin 7 Chaplow 5 Dickson 5 Lambert 6 Guly 5 Barnard 6 Pretty obvious we miss Lallana big time. I don't want to say we're a one man team, because obviously we have other good players, but every time Lallana has been missing this season we've looked like a much weaker team, and struggle for creativity. That Jennings for Tranmere looks like a real talent. Can't see him staying there for very long. Today's result isn't the end of the world, win our game in hand and we're second. However it's not going to be easy as some people were saying it would be a few weeks ago. We are far from the perfect side and will probably have a few more days like this before the end of the season. I'm still confident we have enough to finish in the top two, but we've still got plenty of work to do.

It definitely is. You can clearly hear the Manc accent in all of their chants. Every United fan I've ever come across when they come down here (In pub, outside the ground etc) has been from Manchester. Anyone is seriously deluded if they think the United end is going to full of people from Hampshire. Of course they have some fans from outside the area, but so does everyone. Only have to look at this forum to see we have fans from all over the place. I'd say at least 75% of their travelling support is from Manchester

Agreed. That an Millwall away last season when some of our fans started singing "I'm forever blowing bubbles". Sadly I predict more of the same for the United game this season. There will be the chants of 'We support our local team" from the word go, which United fans will just respond with "You support a bunch of ****" which will shut our fans up. United have by far the best away support in the country to be fair. Our support is always going to look bad compared to them. Also, I guarantee at least one of the large variety of songs the United fans sing during the game get stolen by us. Last time it was that 'City going down with a billion in the bank' song, which we were using the very next game away to Barnsley ('Pompey going down with no money') Again, that's something they hear every week. And besides it's not even true, the majority of their travelling support are Mancs (You can clearly hear the accent when they chant)

Wonder if that Skate will be in the crowd again like last year? We're due some luck up their. Last year we were all over them when it was 1-1 until they got the penalty. And the less said about the FA Cup replay in 2001 the better. Reckon we'll do it this time though, 0-2!

Darren Kenton wasn't great over all, but he had a few games here and there when he genuinely looked like Fabio Cannavaro. Seem to remember games against Chelsea and Arsenal where he was ridiculously good. More often than not though he didn't really cut the mustard. Redknapp bombed him out after he had a shocker against Spurs in that 5-1 game. When David Connolly is fit (which of course is not very often) IMO he's our best striker. He improved the team massively when he came in last year, and it's no coincidence our form dipped when he dropped out of the team. It only picked up again when Barnard was settled in the team. His movement and finishing is top class.

I know a couple of lads who grew up with Austin, who would confirm he is actually seriously thick, so you never know. To be fair though, you have to say Brighton are a much better bet to definitely reach the Championship than we are at the moment (5 points clear with a game in hand). They've got a new stadium on the way, and a very good young manager. Not the worse club in the world to be at. To completely dismiss them over us, is a little bit arrogant IMO. No wonder some Brighton fans don't like us. Maybe he would choose us over Brighton, but it's not out of the question he'd choose them if we were both in for him. Like you said though, he'll probably end up in the Champo

Quashie was popular with the majority of fans while he was here. His energy and drive gave us a fighting chance. However when he left a lot of fans decided he was all of a sudden a useless skate. He was 100 times more useful than Prutton.

Was at the League Cup game, which was terrible. The terracing for the away end is pretty big if I remember rightly. Should make for a cracking atmosphere even if not that many Saints fans are there due to it being televised. Looking forward to it!

I remember seeing Gasmi sat in the away end just in front of me at Plymouth a couple of years ago. Think I may have been the only person who actually recognised him. Also, I had completely forgotten about the existance of Peter Madsen until this thread. Scored a decent goal at Crewe IIRC

Marcelo Sarmiento Paul Williams Djamel Belmadi Jamie Redknapp Chris Perry

Sorry, but that is such a ridiculous thing to say. You're suppose to support the club, not just one player. It's got nothing to do with being a selling club or not, if a player wants to leave then he's going to go. No point keeping someone against their will. I'd say pretty much every club anywhere in the world has had to sell a player they didn't want to at some point. United let Ronaldo go to Real Madrid when he wanted to go. Arsenal did the same with Ashley Cole, Liverpool with Mascherano. Even Barcelona with Figo. Are all those 'selling clubs' too? FWIW I believe he won't go this transfer window, but if he does it will be because he wants to go, and not because we want to become 'a self-sufficient business'.

* edit- Centre halfs AS full backs

Disagree. I'd class people like Wenger, Ferguson, Mourinho, Hiddink, Capello and Guardiola top managers. The type of people who could walk into any club they wanted. O'Neill is a good manager, but has his limitations. None of the top five clubs in the PL (Or the other top leagues in Europe) would take him if they needed a new manager. As for saying, 'look at Villa now', who do you think signed most of those players? Yes Houiller is much worse, and they would be doing better if MON was still there, but O'Neill still deserves some of the blame for the state they are in now. A large portion of Villa fans don't have a good word to say about him after leaving them in the **** just before the season started. Lets not forget O'Neill spent a huge amount of money in his time at Villa. The best finish they achieved was 6th, which is the minimum you'd expect given the funds Randy Lerner provided. The fact is O'Neill squandered a lot of the money he was given. He has no knowledge of football outside England and Scotland (never signs anyone from abroad), and wasted a lot of money on complete rubbish. While clubs like Wigan were signing foreign gems like Palacios and Valencia for next to nothing. O'Neill was forking out big money for players like Nicky Shorey, Marlon Harewood, Curtis Davies, Habib Beye and Steve Sidwell, all who contributed little to nothing. If he'd looked abroad he could have definitely found better value for money than these players. He's a very one dimensional manager as well. I don't really enjoy watching his teams play to be honest. Plays very direct, with centre halfs and full back and relies a lot on getting goals from set pieces. His failure to rotate players also cost Villa in the last few years, as the players ran out of steam towards the end of the season after making good starts. It's well known O'Neill does very little on the training ground as well. Nicky Shorey said him and some of the others players weren't sad to see him go when he left (Although I'm sure they prefer him to Houllier) and that his methods were dated. His record in Europe (bar one UEFA Cup final season) is poor. He's been found out tactically time and time again on the big stage. It's not just Villa though. Gordon Strachan is regarded as a managerial joke by most people outside of Southampton, but he won as many titles (in less time than O'Neill) and progressed to the Champions League knock out stages two times compared to MON never getting passed the group stages. Strachan did it on about five times less transfer budget than O'Neill as well. O'Neill inherited Larsson and had a huge budget at Celtic, yet still didn't win the league 2/5 times. And yet he is a god in the eyes of Celtic fans, and Strachan is a clown. The decline at Villa was inevitable this season. That's why MON left. After wasting money on the players mentioned above, O'Neill was told to blood some of the excellent youngsters at Villa rather than bringing in more new faces for millions and leave them on the bench picking up huge wages. He bottled it and left Villa in the **** with a lot of old players on big money. Just like he did at Celtic and Leicester too. Not a bad manager, but not a top one.

Heard that on the way back from the game today. Was completely out of order. What's that going to do to the lad's confidence? Cotterill's complaining about the Skates small squad/lack of funds is ridiculous. It was common knowledge before he joined that they had serious financial problems, and would most likely have to make do with a very small squad. Cotterill knew full well the situation he was getting himself into, so should stop moaning every week about his small squad. He could have easily stayed at Notts County. If he was that worried about filling the bench every week, why did he ship out Marlon Pack and Matt Ritchie? Typical **** manager, blaming everyone else on his own shortcomings.

Martin O'Neill isn't the managerial god that everyone thinks he is. A few Villa players came out when he left and said his methods were about 10 years out of date. West Ham is about his level. Not good enough for a really top club.

Funny thing was, at the start of the season the only mid week aways that were scheduled in the original fixture list were Yeovil and Exeter, so we could have had less away mid weeks for a long time if things had worked out differently. Just having a quick scan of soccerbase (Yeah I'm bored too) from our last few seasons and I think our first season down in the Champo (2005/06) saw us with the most mid week aways in recent times (can't be arsed to look back further) That season we had Luton Coventry Ipswich Leeds Hull Plymouth Reading Burnley 8 then. That's just what I remember, think they were all mid week games. Might have missed some/got mixed up with other seasons, but think that's right. Reading and Coventry were moved for TV. Had Mansfield and Southend away in the cup as well.

Sorry, but I don't buy the argument that nobody else could have done any better with the squad they've got. Yes it's not a great squad when compared to the top five, but it's definitely better than teams like Bolton, Blackpool, Stoke and Blackburn who are all above Liverpool. They still have some very good players that most PL clubs would kill for, like Reina, Gerrard, Torres etc. He also spent over £20 million in the summer, which is more than a lot of teams currently above them. The fact is a lot of those players clearly were never good enough for a team of Liverpool's stature. I'm talking mainly about Konchesky and Poulson. You might as well have kept Insua and Aquillani, who were both better options than those two. The idea that Liverpool fans are 'deluded fools' for criticizing Hodgson is ridiculous. They've every right to expect better. As far as I'm aware none of them expected to be challenging for the title, but they should be in and around in Europa spots at the very least. Winning just one away game is not acceptable. He's set his teams out completely wrong many times, especially away from home (442 against Man City on a Monday night springs to mind). He's been an absolute disaster for them and fully deserved to go. He was the wrong man from the start and it was never going to work. Hodgson is a good manager, but some good managers aren't suited to certain clubs. He wasn't really that great at Inter (Thought Roberto Carlos wasn't good enough). And was terrible at Liverpool. Not saying Dalglish will do any better though, but they won't go down so I guess it really doesn't matter. I'd bring in Owen Coyle or Andre Villas Boas for next season. Reckon either of them would be ideal. Bringing in Damien Comolli as director of football is a very smart move though. He did great work at Arsenal, and a large portion of the Tottenham team doing so well right now were brought in by him.

Didn't hear any boos then, although wouldn't surprise me if there were some. Only Saints fans would boo the man who convinced Marcus Liebherr to buy the club. Would also give my vote for unsung hero to King Cortese. I am biased because I'm the guys biggest fan, but IMO he's exactly what we need and will take us far. If it was up to me the whole stadium would be singing his name every match. Also should mention Schneiderlin. Not everyone rates him for some reason, but he oozes class. The kid has a huge future IMO. Frazer Richardson has been really solid as well!

72 grounds in total, but out of the current 92 I've done 62. Only got Rochdale to tick off this season now. Dagenham was the only other new ground for me this season.

Couldn't give a **** about England so would like it to stay Saturday 3pm KO. Might make a weekend of this one!

Why? Ask Stoke or Blackpool fans what do they prefer, Championship or Premiership? Don't recall anyone complaining when we were beating the likes of Arsenal and Man United and finishing 8th and getting to the FA Cup Final. Blackpool are mid table at the moment, so what makes people think we won't be able to hold are own? As long as we are clever and managed correctly we can be reasonably competitive in the top flight. Not sure why everyone thinks the Championship is such a wonderful league either. It's not like we were ever that good in it. Even in 2006/07 when we got to the play offs we were inconsistent and put in some absolute shocking performances at times. When I think of our time in the Championship, I remember rubbish players, and going to places like Preston, Hull and Sheffield Wednesday and getting stuffed out of sight. Give me the Premiership any day, where we can test ourselves against the very best.

Wasn't born for the Carlisle game, but was at Wolves and Oldham last night. The Wolves game we didn't even play THAT well, and they weren't bad at all. We had 6 shots all game and they all went in. Would have been happy with a draw last night before the game. Thought we could possibly scrape a narrow win, but never would have thought we would have brushed them aside so comfortably. Hard to pick a MOTM last night because the whole team was fantastic.

We played some good stuff under Pardew, but IMO Adkins has taken us to another level in recent weeks. Oldham weren't even that bad last night, but we made them look ordinary. Haven't heard much from those fans who were wrongly slagging of Cortese after he got rid of Pardew. I thought at the time he knew what he was doing, and that's been proved right. I think Adkins will end up being Liverpool manager in the future, but not for a while. I've no doubt him and Cortese will take us back where we belong in no time at all. The football at the moment is just a joy to watch, it'll take a huge disaster for us not to get promoted this season now.