Gorgiesaint

Who knows - I've only ever seen talk of Lamela on this thread. Did also mention Davide Astori, but no comment on whether we were likely to get him. Pretty positive about him as a player and what he might do for us, but did say a player who has developed slower than expected.

Gabriel Marcotti on Talksport just now, asked by someone who texted in about Lamela possibly going to Liverpool - his comment was that Roma have no reason to sell. Given that he thinks Lamela would get in most international starting 11's (including Germany) it sounds like it would take a massive deal to get him out of Roma.

Can't remember if it was very late 70's or very early 80's but remember after a game against Arsenal, they were about to march the away fans back down Archers Road and Hill Lane back to the station when some numpty decided he'd had enough of waiting for them so decided to drive through them. His car just disappeared under a swarm of Gooners kicking every panel and window in! I was only a nipper at the time so my dad hauled me out the way, I've always wondered what that car looked like afterwards!

Rodrigo was linked with Spurs in this mornings Mirror... but at £10m + is certainly within our price range.

Not just Roy though is it, looked at the link to the Mirror and their daily transfer gossip... according to that there are only 6 teams in the Premier League.

Well, having a fight with Pique on the top of the bus during their victory parade won't have helped his cause much mind. (that said could see him going back to Arsenal). Anyone know how Lucas Biglia did for Anderlecht this season? We were heavily linked with him last year, is it worth going back a a year on?

This is the nub of it, why would be jealous of the position of the their club? And I used 'their' deliberately as they are in this wonderful fan owned position. Given the announcement by Saints this morning between Nicola Cortese and Katharina Liebherr, It has given me cause to reflect on the relative positions of the fans of each club. As a Saints fan, I'm pretty happy with the way things are going. Overall Cortese has my support - yes there have been concerns about certain issues such the BVI loan, the transfer policy and Adkins sacking (to name a few), but they tend to work themselves out over time. The BVI loan shows up eventually in the accounts, the change of manager seems to have worked okay despite me really wanting to see how far Adkins could have taken us. Transfer policy will always be one of those issues that divides fans anyway. But if I had a major gripe, what could I do about it? The answer is apart from becoming a cybernet warrior, tear up my season ticket (if I had one -living in Edinburgh I don't anyway - so at least not attend any games for me!) and that's about as much as I can do. Will it have any affect? Absolutely none. Now the lot down the M27 will crow that's not the same for them as their a fans owned club, but would it be any different for them? Let's face it, if I was a contributor to the pst funding (I'll avoid using the word shareholder as its not a true share) and I had a gripe about any of the same issues, i.e. I thought the chairman was doing a poor job, I thought the transfer policy was poor or I had worries about the funding what could I do? We've already seen the transparency of the trust in action in putting the bid together (or translucent as someone but it on here - a much more apt description, you know there's something there but you just can't see what it is), so they're no better as a fans owned club than our ownership. So if I had an issue with any of the gripes - as an individual, I have little power. Cobbled together with the rest of the pst, what power do they actually have? Remember the people at the top are the pst leaders who are going to be reluctant to give up their positions, the chairman is their man. And let's face it, if 60% of the 'pst shareholding' don't like something, they'll only be roughly 30% of the overall shareholding so can still be ignored if you take into account the HNW's. So they are still a small voice with little power. So what exactly does their fan ownership get them above any the fan of any other club? Other than ability to throw a grand into bottomless pit and an ability to call the scummahs jealous...

Betting was suspended yesterday on him being the next Fulham manager, gather the market has been re-opened now. West London would fit with him being ex-Chelsea.

Not forgetting that not only were the owners chosen as partners by the club, they were lauded by the local media as saviours of the club and the pr was lapped up by the majority of the fans dewey eyed with thoughts of millions more to be pumped into the cesspit. But no - it has to be someone else's fault, because there was no way of seeing through what was going on down there, no siree, absolutely no way a group of fans could have predicted that each and every owner would leave them as a laughing stock....

I do think that there are some things in there which deserve some praise - for example, their attempts to get kids into the ground and supporting them, something that I wish we had done when we were L1 and averaging around 22k. BUT... There reliance on season tickets for everything (programmes, pies, etc) whilst looks innovative - in reality I suspect this really is an attempt to get cash in quick and assist what might be a pretty dodgy cashflow. What it will do, will be to minimise the affect of any drop off in the fanbase if/when they start to struggle. Is this the pst recognising that the playing budget won't be as competitive as the fans want?

For those interested, Trevor Birch is a guest on the Keys & Gray show on Talksport on Tuesday. Not sure what time though (although the main guest is normally between 12-1).

So reality bites amongst the fans... or not, as the case may be (from the BBC textfeed on the Basel v Chelsea game on the website) GET INVOLVEDHasnain Gulzar: "Why would anyone not give Frank Lampard a contract extension? Well, he is welcome at Old Trafford." followed by GET INVOLVEDJames Watts: "Re Hasnain Gulzar tweet: Or Lampard is welcome to come to Fratton Park!"

Well, at the moment, not many. But you would suspect that they'll want to sign up all of these youngsters that have been tearing L1 a new one over the last few weeks on long term contracts otherwise... well it could be return of the triallist's squirrel tour of last summer during pre-season.

Yeah, and I'm 'optimistic' that I'll win the National Lottery tonight... but it ain't gonna happen. If you have enough to buy 51% of the club, does that leave any funds to run the club over the summer?

So for the main award, the 6 nominations are: Gareth Bale, Michael Carrick, Eden Hazard, Juan Mata, Luis Suarez and Robin van Persie and the Young Player of the Year, the nominations are: Gareth Bale, Eden Hazard, Christian Benteke, Romelu Lukaku, Danny Welbeck and Jack Wilshere No great surprises, with the possible exception of Michu being missed out, in the main list. Not so sure about the Young Player of the Year list - Wilshire's been injured most of the year and has Welbeck really scored enough? For me, the winners would be Bale & Benteke.

Corpy Whore?

Now now, Let's make sure that we get this as factually correct as a Neil Allen article in the snooze. They weren't rucking, the 657 crew were simply trying to encourage new fans to make their donations to the pst...

The council funding is a loan so won't qualify for shares. The figures that I'd seen (and not sure how accurate they are) was that of the £3m in the Escrow account - £1.4m was from the fans £1k 'shares' & £1.6m from the HNW's. What needs to be included is that the HNW's subsidised the club to the tune of £1m during the season, I'm sure that we were told that these contributions were being converted into shares. That then means, on the simple figures above, the HNW have £2.6m of a total £4m funding, that equals 65% to me. Sure there are other parts that I've missed out and its a simplistic view - I'll await the trust's transparency to make the actual figures public.

No but its an indication of the pressures that will be put on those in charge. And lets face it any number of fans will think they have more of a say given 'fan ownership'.

Anyone just needs to look at the Mathieu Flamini thread to see what would happen if the fans get hold of the club - the 'discussion' around Schneiderlin's value is entertaining on a forum but would be a disaster in the board room. Let's just sit back and watch the mob at the other end of the M27 and see how long it takes them to start the infighting.

The latest table on the Premier League website is 5 games out of date, which I'm sure is the one shown on the previous thread putting Saints in 5th place. http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/matchday/fair-play.html

No - your balls have not crossed the line... oh that ball...

Back in the day when the Southern League was as important as the Football League, and certainly on a par in terms of quality. Could I just use this thread to say congratulations to Chester who today clinched the Conference North title. Chester went out of existence in their former guise of Chester City in 2010, and a are a proper fans-owned club. Having re-started (after appeal) in the Northern Premier League Division One North, they have now had 3 back to back promotions, so will play in the Conference National next season and have a chance to get back into the Football League. So in 3 years, Chester have been able to get back to the level that Chester City were at when they folded. Who would have thought that was possible?

Not surprised in the least by the decision, although slightly surprised it didn't happen 2 weeks ago. O'Neill, without his long term sidekick John Robertson, has looked pretty lost of ideas tbh. Apart from the initial boost after replacing Steve Bruce (and let's face it, most teams would get a boost of anyone coming in after Bruce, but O'Neill would have that enthusiasm) he's been pretty poor. If you take out the 7 wins in the first 10 games then his last 44 league games have produced 12 wins (14 in 56 in all comps), pretty close to relegation form over a prolonged period. Without anything changing, Sunderland were only heading one way - into the Championship. With no transfer window available, what else can you change? The difference between Sunderland and Reading changing managers is Reading just don't have a squad good enough to stay up, either with ability or PL experience. Whatever Reading do, I don't see them staying up & the players backed Brian McDermott. That Sunderland squad should be good enough to stay up, but with their main scorer out for the season, it's not looking good. Let's hope whoever comes in doesn't get Connor Wickham & Danny Graham functioning as a partnership

and Everton go 1-0 up on Stoke... up to 12th we go (for now)