Crazy Diamond

Yep and by the sound of it we blatantly couldn't afford him, even at just £1m.

Has he been with us three and a half years? I thought it was longer than that. EDIT: He's been with us since summer 2008 so you can't count him.

Oh hang on, I do beg your pardon, Sturrock was appointed wayyy before Nilsson signed. Sorry, bit of a lapse there!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/s/southampton/3858407.stm "Swedish midfielder Mikael Nilsson will sign for Southampton next week, three months earlier than anticipated. The 26-year-old had signed a pre-contract agreement to join on a free transfer when his contract with Swedish club Halmstad expires in November. But Southampton have persuaded Halmstad to release Nilsson in time for the start of the new Premiership season."

I think we paid a few hundred grand to get him released to us early, if memory serves, so he would have agreed to join before Sturrock was appointed but we actually got him after. Crouch was a player we had looked at for some time after scouting.

That's true, so again it reinforces what I was saying - he presided over a poor squad. Dodd, Lundekvam, Le Saux and Ormerod were past it, I would argue. Nilsson, Higginbotham and Folly were not good enough, the rest weren't world beaters either. Yahia was a Steve Wigley signing, so that tells you all you need to know. I think Jakobsson was too.

Have you spoken to 100% of our fans in order to be able to determine this?

Clarke's shoes? You having a giraffe mate? Paolo Vandini. Been living in Stratford for the past two weeks, so commute not so much of a hassle. I'm sure MLG is still reading the forum if not posting.

Wigley was little more than a yes man, and I seem to recall Brett Ormerod saying exactly that to a selection of fans once.

This is pretty much it, I have to say. 'Stale' really is the best way of describing it, it's as if we were more than happy to settle for average - but then again, settling for average in the modern day top flight is no bad thing. If you push too hard you can end up in financial ruin, if you don't push hard enough you end up relegated and could be out of the top flight for God knows how long. Looking back we had a very average squad of players, and the young guns we were looking forward to seeing were not a patch on what we have now - Yoann Folly, Leandre Griffit etc. I also think we were way too reliant and sympathetic towards players that had been around for a while. We immediately thrust Matt Oakley back into the team following his injury, and was he what we needed? A decent at best, unfit midfielder? What about Svensson, the years we waited on that guy were in hindsight, to my mind, wasted and a mistake. I think it's admirable we supported him, and the right thing to do, but really you have to know when to move on. He was never going to come back and be anywhere near his old self. Same with Pahars. Claus was shaky that season and we never really bothered to even contemplate replacing him. Things should have been freshened up. Given that they weren't, did Sturrock have much of a chance? I don't think he did. Was he a Premier League quality manager? He'll never get that chance again and he didn't have much of a chance to prove himself so it's hard to say but I would suggest he probably wasn't. Stale sums it up nicely.

Interesting that the view is that Sturrock presided over some good players. I'd suggest that he didn't, personally. Everyone else around us strengthened and we didn't. We ended up with the likes of Mikael Nilsson.

He's a firefighter essentially. Seems to thrive on chaos.

Funniest thing I've read this morning. I've been up since 6:55 and my days are usually hilarious, so well done.

I think what is very obvious is that Neil Allen doesn't like facts, so having them pointed out to him by us isn't going to get very far. **** reporter, **** paper, **** club... etc.

Indeed, Ray Jones.

Remember the good old days when news stories broke and Saint-Armstrong didn't IMMEDIATELY started a thread on them?

Oh dear.

It won't last. No transparency, a lot of money being spent. Remind you of anyone?

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/186741/At_57K_sold_Wii_Us_January_performance_is_historically_abysmal.php#.UR-quaVk1Lq Not good!

Without doubt there is a lot of work going on to build the brand. I suspect a lot has been invested in a top sponsorship and commercial team.

Good shout

Saganowski. Never have we been so desperate to sign someone permanently, only for them to disappoint so spectacularly.

From my point of view it's not so much being short-sighted as cautious. I dare say for a while we all thought the Skates would be the dominant force on the south coast for decades, but it changed very, very quickly. I don't think there's anything to suggest that we won't ever encounter money problems and just as quickly find ourselves in trouble. If the Liebherrs withdraw their support, then where are we?

It's all talk, ultimately. I'm not saying it's impossible for us ever to achieve a European spot via the league but do I expect it anytime soon? No, I really don't. You look at Forest with their Kuwaiti owners who declared they wanted to 'add another star above the Nottingham Forest badge' - by which they mean win a third European trophy. It's cringeworthy. They're going to do well to get in the Premier League and stay there, and if they do it will be an eternity before they get anywhere close to a European place, let alone get all the way to the Champions League, through the group stages, past the knock-out rounds and into the final, and then win it. Look at Man City - they've thrown how much at that club? They can't get beyond the group stages.

Seem to remember a very early goal from Jermaine Wright putting us 1 - 0 up only to see us feck it up, losing 2 - 1, when we were destined for the Championship title having spent £7m. QPR meanwhile were skint with Daniel Nardiello up front and John Gregory managing. Year before that Ian Holloway brought his side and we got a 1 - 1 draw. Danny ****tu scored and the chant 'chim chimeny chim chimeny chim chim cheroo, who needs Sol Campbell, we've got ****tu' was sung...