Jimmy_D

Storrie's case is the one to keep an eye on. His case is the one most like Luton's and the one most likely to lead to points deductions for them.

I guess you lot think you're real Smarties with this thread eh? The Topic of threads in this forum should be Saints related... I should send you lot to Mars! Bar the lot of ya! That'd make the forum pretty quiet though so I'm between a Rock and a hard place... I guess U-No Barred. Some of you can't think of good puns for Toffee though, some of them have just been Fudged together. Right, time to Rolo this one up and send the thread the unfortunate way of the Cadbury Plant.

Few off the top of my head, Wikipedia probably has a pretty comprehensive list...

Agreed. I can't see anything else constructive coming from this thread now, and everyone has had a chance to put their opinion already. I doubt more arguing will change anyone's mind now. I understand that Ex Saints is in fact a registered charity. I'd missed that when I posted earlier in the thread and stated it wasn't, so I'm sorry for that, especially if it's caused some of the arguing here. In any case I don't see it being too long before something else happens between Cortese and MLT and this all comes up again. Hopefully the next thread will be discussing how Cortese and MLT have reconciled their differences.

Never mind League One, that'll look silly in the Championship...

Good debut. I'd imagine he'll get another chance off the back of that unless his form for us is awful.

Cortese is the current chairman of the club, and it is clear he has a vision of making Southampton one of the big clubs in the country, and nothing is going to stop him, not money nor ex players nor the media. He's going to be here for a long time no matter what. Le Tissier was one of the greatest players this club ever had, an absolute legend on the football pitch, and those accomplishments will never be forgotten, but he isn't anything to do with the club in an official capacity any more, he's part of the media outside the club. Le Tissier unfortunately came into conflict with Cortese right from the start of the whole Pinnacle saga, with the Liebherr takeover delayed because of them, and they've never seen eye to eye since, as Le Tissier admits in that article. Cortese has shown he won't be moved once he sets his mind to something, and whatever the rights and wrongs of this situation, Le Tissier isn't going to win out here. He's not going to be able to make Cortese back down, so unless Le Tissier does something to change his own stance, he's going to be left out in the cold by the club. As for Cortese not wanting players to turn up... My own experience with Ex Saints amounts to a spam e-mail trying to sell me 'bonds'. It initially looks like you're owning something to do with the club by buying these bonds, but they're nothing more than raffle tickets for Saints related prizes. My first reaction on looking at the website was that it was a scam website, trying to use images of players etc. to make it look like it was officially Saints related while using language ambiguous enough to not get into legal trouble ("The Ex Saints enjoy a close relationship with Southampton FC and have an affiliation agreement with the club.") It was only after I saw a photo of Le Tissier under the Ex Saints banner that I realised it was legitimate at all, but the current situation of players not being allowed to attend and imagery not being allowed on the site shows that it is definitely not officially associated. Their charity work is admirable, but Ex Saints is not a registered charity (nor does it claim to be) and one of their stated aims is to help former players that have fallen on hard times, which is understandable and admirable, but means that not all donations to Ex Saints do go to 'charity' as such. Saints do have an official charity in the Saints Foundation, and one possible theory I have is that Cortese doesn't want the 'brand' of Saints Foundation diluted by appearing to give an official link to a non charity by having current players attending, especially as there currently appears to be a dispute over it appearing to be official, but as I said, that's just one of my own theories. I'm not sure where I stand on this. I don't personally see anything wrong with current players supporting a charity dinner, but it seems to be a result of several different factors coming together. Cortese and Le Tissier not seeing eye to eye, Ex Saints appearing to be official when it isn't, and the relatively recent launch of Saints Foundation. Just my own perspective on things.

Al Mirage the focus of the investigation? So... make someone up, load debt on to them by letting a company trade while insolvent, and then let the authorities go after a non-existent person... Profit?

At least we're better off than Newcastle... our Feb player is only out on loan.

Ooh... Definitely one to watch this year...

Don't Brighton only have three league games this month? They can't stop us going above them this month if we get at least 5 wins and a draw, albeit they'd have games in hand.

I bet they won't be hitting their financial targets next year if they get relegated...

Well done to him

Also... I LIKE the look of this table. http://www.premierleague.com/page/YouthATable Looks like there might more of that where Oxo came from

Signing Guly ahead of Serie A interest, signing Lalana ahead of Prem interest, keeping hold of Oxo ahead of HUGE big 4 interest... Dare I say we're just starting to become a big club again?

I'd laugh if Torres' deal fell through now...

Oxo remains ours... Woot!

Huge result if we have managed to hold on to him. How many times were the papers reporting all but a done deal?

That'll teach me to get a coffee while I'm typing a reply At least it backs up what I wrote...

OK, so we've established that none of us know for certain what Charlie Austin is thinking, and the speculation and personal opinions have started to go in circles. Yes it is unlikely we'll get Austin, Ipswich have had an offer accepted and it would seem he's going there. However, we have a recent history of attracting players above our level, Fonte from the league above, keeping hold of Lallana from Prem offers, and attracting Guly from Serie A offers, so it's only natural to think we might be able to attract a good player from a team below us in the same league, who's from this area, even in the face of bigger offers. Now please try and keep the personal insults out of the debate.

We can get more than the sell on fee we lost by using this to attract top talent to our acadamy. This is proof that our acadamy is a valid route to the very very top.

While it would have been nice... I get the feeling we're not in desperate need of that money any more...

See that Le God is 25-1 to get Gray's job. (But the favourite in the papers seems to be Gary Neville >_ Jeff Stelling would be a good shout to replace Keys I reckon.

We don't want him backing us anyway... all the time he tipped us for relegation we always escaped lol

http://www.blackpoolfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10432~2278250,00.html Took into consideration the team against us and his comments... Bet he isn't 'Having a laugh' right now