Graffito

Unfortunately it's not just the Echo though. It goes much wider than that. As for keeping his mouth shut. Yes in principle. The trouble is there are times to keep your counsel and times when it's necessary to show a bit of leadership and speak out. If you don't, gossip and innuendo fills the void. You need only read this Board recently to see that.

I agree. The club is missing a trick. Positive PR can only be beneficial to the club and to NC himself, especially when things aren't going so well. He's delivered success up to now which ultimately is what we consider most important but there may come a time when NC needs to help Adkins keep the supporters on side. The kind of loyalty many supporters display, especially those that stump up for season tickets, would be like gold dust to most businesses and would be treated accordingly. Dealing with the media is something NC admitted in an interview with the Echo early doors (obviously) that he was finding difficult. Matters haven't improved since but I think we have to take the rough with the smooth with Cortese.

Who do you think you are Bamber Gascoigne? Look there's no vacancy and no place for B@llocks Chops in the Saints set up. No emotion, just seems obvious.

He won't be coming back. His face didn't fit first time and it don't fit now. Remember that Fratton performance? Remember the wink? Remember the whinging and whining about how useless the players were and compare and contrast with Adkins positivity. I'm not naming anyone. We've got a Manager. Adkins deserves a bit more respect.

West Ham looked a poor side too on Saturday. They may well struggle as the season progresses. There's no substitute for quality.

Can anyone on this thread honestly say they are not taking the p!ss?

With you on that one.

Very funny.

Cortese doesn't have a clue and about PR.

A camel is a horse designed by a committee and now we've all got the hump.

Not much pace so we have to move the ball much more quickly and get enough players up in support. That's been leaving us exposed when an attack breaks down. Yesterday was more cautious and slower.

That's been the case generally which is why I refrain from being too critical of Fox. His form has dipped but he's been far too exposed as have all the full backs.

Again.

We weren't gung ho yesterday. crass defensive errors account for the loss.

I can't believe Adkins would prefer to play a right footed CB at left back rather than a specialist left back, albeit he hasn't been in the best of form recently, especially with another right footer in front of him.

Agree he was selected ahead of Lambert for his mobility. Lambert didn't win much against their CBs which kind of confirmed the logic of playing Rodriquez. Unfortunately for him, and unusually, we didn't create much yesterday. Rodriguez did play Lallana in for the goal of course.

Pompey used to play in pink and they won f@ck all so they switched to blue and look where they've ended up.

There's something about the angle left footers run at defenders, think Gareth Bale who just seems to wrong foot defenders even though he's very direct, or maybe it's the body position of defenders as they address left footers they are less used to playing against.

There are fewer left footers so there's an immediate advantage in being considered so sensible advice. There are advantages too during play considering that the opposition will be predominantly right footed. Not sure they are so great as they appear to be in cricket.

I had those two in mind and coincidentally, perhaps, our two best players. Schneiderlin maybe? How's Ramirez?

Never ceases to surprise me that footballers can enter an academy at a very young age and benefit from years of coaching and training provided by the best available coaches and by the time they break into the first team the majority seem still to be predominantly one footed. Whereas left handers and left footers in sport probably have an advantage, it seems to me a far greater advantage to be equally good on both sides. Which Saints players would you describe as two footed? Does it even matter if a player is one footed e.g. Maradona?

“There will be a European league because big teams can’t keep subsidising small teams like Southampton for the next 10 years because they will go stale." He's confusing the SPL with the PL. Celtic and Rangers went stale in Scotland but there's no evidence that is happening to the top teams in the PL. The so called subsidy to the lower PL teams is what underpins the premiere league's competitiveness and integrity by comparison with the SPL. He seems to be ignoring from which league come the current european champions. It's highly questionable whether the top teams in England want to play european teams week in and week out. We all know how dismal are the group stages of the champions league, albeit this level seems to have been the limit of Rangers' aspirations, entry to which courtesy of a p1ss poor SPL.

Ok thanks, you are probably right. Though I don't see that whether it's Mata or Cazorla alters anything Lallana has done.

It's not clear what point you are making. Are you implying that he is not a creative player because someone has scored directly from two of his corners? Or is this pedantry? In which case I'll happily concur as you are probably right and I can't be arsed to look it up anyway.

I read that and I saw elsewhere that Lallana has the most assists this season (4) alongside Santi Cazorla and Eden Hazard. So yeah let's drop him because this clearly isn't good enough. He has defensive shortcomings, which of course isn't uncommon with creative players, so the solution is to build the team around Lallana and the creative players in the side.