Sheff Saint

I don't mean to dumb down, as your intellegence is of course above us all. And i understand there could be an intersting discussion to be held on both footballers autobiog's and betting. But personally i'd like you to **** off and never return.

I think people expected us to roll up and destroy teams. We had very little pre-season and have only last week finished building the team. Yet we've on ly lost twice. With performances improving. And as for AP, know one on here knows for sure, but all the noises he is making about the players he's bought in, the scouting, the training and his long term plans -well they seem the right noises. We will end this season a very good team. Probably not good enough for the play offs as i reckon we'll be to far behind due to inconsistency caused by the above reasons. But after Christmas, with a little more tinkering, i reckon we'll be very good. It would have been lovely if everything had just 'clicked' straight away but the chances are it wouldn't. At least we are building what looks like big and deep foundations. This season can only be a failure if we haven't improved by the end. And if we have we won't be relegated. For my money i reckon we'll be nearer 6th than 21st and set fair for next season.

Who?!!!

Whoever our manager is, and i think we can all agree we've tried a couple of different fellas in the role recently, we NEVER leave a man up on a corner. For the reasons you say above i've always found it strange, like it must be written in the constitution at St Mary's/The Dell, Thou shall not leave a man up on a corner unless you are losing!

Except for the play off season we've not reguarly won games for 20 years now. Even our 'decent' years in the Prem didn't actually involve winning a lot of games across the season. More often it meant not losing. That old table on the SF board said we won less games then all other league clubs that had been league clubs in the period, i think 95-05. I bet you could extend that to 89-09 and we'd still be bottom. Tell me another football club that hasn't, in the last 30 years; Won a cup Won a league Got promoted. I know there are good reasons why we haven't (our long stay in the Prem for e.g.), but still, there can't be any other clubs that have not done any of those things.

No, not really. He only came in the week before and i think the training ground was flooded for some or all of that time. I think Souness himself said it was a gamble. We had a few injuries and he hadn't really seen a lot of him. Then someone else got injured so he gave him a go. That all said people forget Neil Heaney also had the 'indignity' of being a subbed sub. Yet he had a good long spell at the Saints!

Good post.

My Father in Law was chatting at his work to a chap that used to play for Sheffield Utd and Stockport, not sure on his name, not very special. He was bought to Saints as a sort of Scout up north when Dave Jones came in, more for reporting on opposition than potential individuals i think. Got a few quid a game and a couple of warm winter coats. When my Father in Law told him i was a Saint he bought in one of the coats unused. Very nice. But it was only a side job for him and i think he's moved to Spain half way during last year so it all fits with what Trousers said and what AP is discussing.

Prices about fair really. I think the club sould give this a real go this season. It being unlikey this season is anything more than a massive pre-season for 10-11, it being even more unlikely we'll have any joy in the Carling or FA Cups, getting to Wembley would be fab. And as Leeds, Noriwch and Charlton would all probably be going for the league we'd a) have a good chance and b) be able to take about 50k to wembley!

Have we ever got 80 points in a season before?

Sounds exactly like a poor mans MOTD to be honest. An MOTD is toss.

Good appointment on paper. A good fit with the club and, for a division 3 team, it is a name, really. If you think of the managers Leeds, Forest & Wednesday got in this division this is much bigger.

Amen. Annoying isn't it. I recorded 'The 50 Best Prem Goals Ever' which was on Sky 2 last night. I've not seen it yet but i bet Tiss only gets about 2 or 3 goals in there when he should have 10. And afterwards there was a show called 'Rooney's greatest goals' Now, i quite like Rooney but has he scored enough goals let alone great goals, to warrant that show?

I also think some of it is linked to our division 3 status. I don't think anyone in the national press really care about division 3 teams. Thus no digging around, no high profile money making agents to make stories up, less blood thristy players cos they know they're all sh*t. Nice isn't it. FACT

As much as i'd pleased with Strachan or Pearson coming back, i doubt it'll happen and i'm always slightly worried about 'hero's' returning. (Maybe not so with Matt as he's 100% red and white and bar managing Pomp*y could do know wrong in my eyes.) It's for that reason it still has to be Tisdale. I just worry that the likes of Hoddle and Curbishly might think a bit above themselves for league 1 and not put in the hard yards. Of course you never know. Prefer not to have Adams, please. Keegan i think would be a bit short term but nevertheless exciting. Boothroyd or Coppell would be 'sensible' choices but for me Tisdale would be no more of a gamble and it would be great to see an ex -saint come back.

Indeed. SSN's headline just now was Di Matteo's first game in charge of WBA ended in defeat to a non league club. Really, who cares? Pre-season used to get no coverage. It's changed a lot in the last 10 years as the gaps between seasons is now so small, but surely from our experiences you can see it counts for nothing. At all. Even if we won all our games 10-0 i'm not sure we could say we were on for good things. Didn't we win 8-0 or something like that under Sturrock which was our biggest win for donkey's years, even if it was some Swedish part timers. And that season ended well..! There is a lot of work to do, for sure, but it's a very ling season and promotion will be a big big ask with everything thats' gone on.

We've been rubbish since Tiss retired. In those halceon days Hall, Monkou, Richards...they all used to get a fair few goals a season from corners. Not got many in recent years. A successful team at any level makes the most of the basics. Set pieces should work well. You can stand on the trianing ground all day until you get them right. If we can crack this (defending them as well) it puts much less pressure on the team in general. And, can we please, please, please, please, please leave a man on the half way line when we're defending a corner!!!! 21 years since my first game and whoever has been manager (and we've had 565 of them since then) we seem to have a default function to put all 11 back in out penalty area. Why?!!

Out of interest, who? The only names, even with wealth, that spring to my mind are Keegan, Hoddle, WGS and Coppell. But they are all very much their own men where money might not be the lure that it would be to others. If they all turn the chance of going for a division 3 football team down, who else is there? Curbisherly? Pardew? Would either of these, on paper, be any better than Tisdale. He might well be unproven but his CV reads as well as you could hope?

For me it doesn't have to be pretty passing football, just exciting. Sure, we want to go up but the two are not mutually exclusive. Keegan and Tisdale would be brilliant. Hopefully it'd make it exciting and there is some transition planning in built into that relationship. Come December, for all the saftey we have through our new found riches, we'll still be going to Hartlepool on a Tuesday night. Much better to go up there and thrash out a 4-3 win then struggle to a 0-0 draw!

Brilliant. Let's hope he's as good as well want him to be!

Don't see why us and them can't host. Sheffield & Leeds; Derby, Nottingham AND LEICESTER; Sunderland & Newcastle - all as close together as Soton and Portsmuff.

Think they've missed a trick and not bought the naming rights to Ocean or Power. It's a real shame that some of the better 'local' things can just disappear so easily. Let's hope the same can't be said of the football club!

Who knows what will happen. What we all should have expected was that it wouldn't be plain sailing and it will go down to the wire. Trouble is no-one had the good grace to say exactly what constitued 'the wire!'

Posted this the other day. To survive in League 1 next season with a -27 point handicap, we'd need to get what S****hrorpe got last season. Which was enough to get them up. I'd fancy our chances more of a promotion from League 2 in 09-10 (four go up) than surviving in league 1. We'll need less points in league 2 to mkae the play offs than we'd need in league 1 to survive!

Great post!