Crazy Diamond

EXACTLY what I'm talking about.

To my knowledge no, but we appointed a few scouts under Pardew according to the man himself - we never got to know their names, it was never confirmed by the club.

Saints eye Danish starlet "Southampton are reportedly set to make an offer for Danish prospect Sebastian Gregersen. The AGF Aarhus midfielder has recently spent time training with the South Coast outfit, and he is believed to have impressed the Championship club. Southampton are now set to open talks over the 16-year-old, who has a three-year deal with Aarhus. Gregersen spent time with Birmingham earlier this year, but they could not agree terms with Aarhus" Perhaps seen by this Danish chap that we recruited for the scouting network?

Just as bad, playing for Dundee United I think.

Now of Cheltenham Town. Remember Andrew Davies? On loan at lowly Bradford...

Have a look at this... http://www.lifesapitch.co.uk/laptv/podcast/fl-extra/too-early-to-talk-of-southampton-as-title-certainties/ I have to say I'm not a great fan of this. The programme is so dull, all three panelists lack any sense of something called charisma and the presenter would be better suited to announcing clean ups in supermarket aisles over a PA system. John Cross, who you can tell spends all his time focusing on Arsenal, thinks success is pretty much solely down to Lambert and Lallana. I won't argue that they aren't our best players, that'd be silly. But he's got no idea of how good a partnership Fonte has sparked with Hooiveld, how well we play, how industrious players like Chaplow are... This feature is pretty much what annoys me in football journalism. Interesting they mention Liam Ridgewell. I was never too sure about that rumour. Also, who's Jason Beckford? Was Sven manager of Notts County? Does Sven have to prove himself after all the titles he's won in better leagues? This is really, really poor. I won't be watching 'Life's a Pitch' again...

Hello all. I was logging the footage that night and I must say I logged 90% Saints stuff. The last 10 - 15 minutes we were properly hanging on though. I left before the editor got to work at the BBC South studio, maybe I should have stayed and supervised! It's actually an obligation to do an establishing shot.

I love that clip. The music is actually a song written about him, he was that terrible. His own fans at Lyon would boo him when he took to the pitch. That was the calibre of the man meant to score goals for the fishy few.

I don't think I've ever been so relieved to hear a full time whistle. They threw everything at us and we were dropping to the edge of our own area - it was madness. I thought Chaplow was brilliant in trying to do a similar role to Lallana, supporting Lambert and Connolly and running at opponents. There was run in particular that made me think he had said to the Hammers players around him 'you're only getting this ball off of me if you foul me' and sure enough, they had to do that to stop him running into the area. Brilliant. Though his two footed lunge was not as hot, but then again there were a few yellow cards going round last night, a lot more than usual. Hooiveld and Fonte were solid, barring Fonte's error that let in Baldock - I really thought that was going in. After that moment Fonte was always a bit out of sorts but on the whole he got his head to everything and did well I thought. Hooiveld has to be a permanent signing in my mind, he is improving with every game. His headers are starting to get to our players rather than theirs! Lambert again found himself isolated but he worked very hard, so I cannot fault him. Connolly was making a nuisance of himself, great play from him. As for how the game went, I was logging the game and it looked to me to be all us in the first half - barring one or two half chances and that shot about 50 seconds in which was saved low to Kelvin's left. It could have been three or four to us in the first half. Our style was in total contrast to theirs, the ironic shouts of 'hoof' were not wide of the mark, unlike their long balls. We showed them how to play, I felt, especially when we just passed it round players looking to press in nice neat triangles. Second half we were good, but they stepped up a gear, no question. They didn't learn though, it was more hoofball. I barely noticed Kevin Nolan or Henri Lansbury and I was expecting a hell of a lot more from them. They were industrious though and could easily have scored one or two - Kelvin made two incredible saves. At the other end Connolly and Chaplow should have scored, so it really could have been 3 - 2 or 4 - 3 by full time. Those last 10 - 15 minutes were nerve wracking and it reminded me of Coventry at home in about 2006. We had our goal lead, dropped deeper and deeper, eventually they got a penalty from diving Don Hutchison, full time 1 - 1. It didn't happen this time though, which is another sign of how far we've come in the past two to three years. A deserved result I think, and one that suits us very nicely.

Life is a salad. You are a tosser. As the old joke goes.

Whilst Kevin Nolan and Henri Lansbury disappointed me last night, this man was on form. Time for a YouTube classic

Manny is a Liverpool fan too.

I'm going for a 2 - 0 loss unfortunately. Hammers are hitting form, we're minus our best player. Doesn't look good.

Probably the best I could have hoped for! Thank you.

Back in February I met Manny and he very kindly went on camera for my final university project. The subject matter was his time playing for Tampa Bay, but I obviously got a load of Saints questions in. I've written it up and it's on Les Rosbifs, a site dedicated to tracking English players abroad. You can read it here. He talks about man marking Trevor Francis in the league cup semi-final, Lawrie not letting him join another English club and more. Thanks to Fitzhugh Fella for his help on tracking him down. Sadly I lost all the footage from the recording, otherwise it would have made a cracking watch.

Apologies if it's already been mentioned but the game will be on FiveLive Sports Extra from five to three.

As some of you know, I'm with the Beeb at the moment and I'm privy to some information every now and then. Some might say ITK. I've heard tonight that Fabio Capello will NOT be succeeding Steve Cotterill. Just passing on what I've heard. Don't shoot the messenger and all that.

I'm not sure I care. Done and dusted a long time ago. Whilst we're revealing things, I can tell you that he liked expensive biscuits. That comes from a source within the Football League's interactive department. True story.

Oh is he? I thought he was still out of work after that stint at Leicester.

Anyone got it or used it? I've got some experience with Final Cut Pro and own Final Cut Express - I love using them, great and easy to use programmes. I can't do anything particularly fancy but want to learn. Anyone know of any good resources I can use to teach myself some good editing tricks? I also notice you have to download it as an app, you can't get a hard copy. With my internet connection that's going to be a problem, but I'm sure I can get around that somehow. I'm thinking of getting an iMac solely for editing, maybe even with a hard drive just for Avid, which apparently people seem to use a lot in the industry. I've had to pass on so many jobs because I've only used FCP and not Avid.

Burley at Skates? That would be hilarious. Sadly I can't see it happening. I reckon someone like Paulo Sousa will get it.

Your guess is as good as mine. Just a mate he says, but a few years ago they said he was either a playboy or gay for not being married. There was all that fuss about Hague being up to no good - that all faded away very quickly and its acknowledged that story was a load of tosh, so who knows what'll happen with this one.

If ministerial code is breached, should be black and white really, off he goes. And Liam Fox.

The biggest shock of those Oliver Letwin photos is that he didn't offer those ducks and geese some bread. Typical selfish Tory.

Cotterill has told Tony Husband that he was very upset to leave his players this morning, and is at this moment travelling up to Forest. I really don't see what he's so upset about, the way he went on about things down there it was like he hated it. I also can't understand why Forest want him. Dave Jones or Sean O'Driscoll would be a hell of a lot better and they wouldn't require compensation either. Hate to say it but it could be bad news for us (I can see the fishy few copying and pasting this sentence to their forum already), I really didn't give them a hope in hell this season of beating us, but now the village idiot has gone? Well. If Dave Jones, as favourite, does take over, they could do alright. Nope, he's off to Forest as well! If only they did a road equivalent of airmiles, he'd be able to go round the world a few times surely!