mikee

Just shows what a joke football and many footballers have become! I have confidence that Cortese and Pardew will spot the mercenaries and keep them away from our squad, our players need to have the right attitude to bring us success and being money focused in League 1 is crazy. It may though mean that we will have to shop mainly in the lower leagues and abroad until we are getting close to the premier league. We can treble players like Jacksons wages without breaking our wage structure - or would that make him a mercenary.....?

must not click on this silly thread again must not click on this silly thread again must not click on this silly thread again must not click on this silly thread again must not click on this silly thread again repeat 95 more times...

If Cortese had the mis-fortune of reading this site, you could forgive him for not wanting to let you know where the team were going for a couple of weeks of relaxation and training / team bonding. I should imagine that your vitriolic, not to mention, schizophrenic, campaign is justification enough for all of the actions you are berating him for.

Well maybe this doesn't invoke any passion or patriotism in you but for me this is the key difference between club football and International football, otherwise England are just another team and the World Cup is just another tournament - an attitude which is, I am afraid, too prevailent amongst the current England squad.

I don't think you can compare Saints and England really, not at the moment anyway. It appears to me that the England players are so well looked after and protected from the real world that they have lost their hunger and desire to succeed, and any patriotism for playing for your country has been replaced with professionalism. Some players don't even sing the national anthem - my favourite part of any england game - and those that do hardly display any passion for their country. I understand the general point that the closer we get to the PL the more mercenary our players willl become. In the past this hasn't been too much of a problem as we haven't been able to compete with the bigger clubs but we are perhaps expecting that things will be different this time around, which is a double edged sword. For me the key is to research potential signings in much more detail and understand their motivation for wanting to join, if it is about money rather than glory the club should steer well clear, even if this means we miss out on lots of good players. We as fans will need to be respectful of this and not give the club a hard time for not signing every good player that becomes available. There are already signs that this may be the attitude we adopt with not signing players like Calderon and I am quietly confident that Cortese and Pardew will spot the mercenaries and will continue to invest in the academy to produce quality homegrown players who are committed to the club long term. The largest salaries should only be given to players who have performed for Saints as a reward and to ensure thay are happy to stay long term. Not really worth worrying about it too much at the moment as we still have a big journey to get there and as someone said earlier I am not going to let future worries get in the way of a great ride!

Renewed mine yesterday and bumped into my mate who sits next to me who was doing the same! We have a few newcomers who want to sit with us in the Northam so hopefully all of these people not renewing will give us a chance to grab a bigger group of seats together. Every cloud has a silver lining ;-)

Whilst I don't agree with the anti-Cortese agenda of some on this thread, it does appear that Cortese either doesn't understand the value of ST holders, or actually thinks that a ST is a benefit to fans rather than the club and should therefore be restricted and controlled. This goes against the traditional football club view that you want as many ST holders as possible and it is better to take a lower price now guaranteed rather than hope that people turn up on the day of games at a higher price. I think it is this principle which some many are finding difficult to cope with and i do think that many will let their ST's lapse because of this, which is a shame. I do hope that this is just a lack of understanding of the football business culture on Cortese's part and not some statement of intent for the future. The problem may be who does Cortese turn to for this kind of guidance?

Nah, just made that bit up to impress people! From what i remember of the game, I think Beattie scored a cracker but can't remember who else scored - apart from me of course.

C'mon turkish, we all know where a woman should be whilst her boyfriend is watching the footie..... knelt down in front of the sofa, to one side of course so the head doesn't block the view! Otherwise why would women have eyes in the back of their heads;) In fact one of my fondest memories was on honeymoon at the Banyan Tree in Phuket, romantic dinner on the beach, booked the intimate moments package for when we returned to the villa, turned on the TV looking for porn only to find something even better...... Saints beating Man City comfortably 2-0 with a totally dominant performance whilst being pleasured by the new wife:D Of course the honeymoon is well and truly over now but the memory is locked away in the bank forever:smt110 So please don't degrade women by suggesting they have no place in football:smt018

Of the current team definately Waigo seems to have the most character. My favourite characters of all time: Mark Dennis - the "original" psycho! Ivan Golac - hard as nails and a bit soft in the head! Special mentions for: Channon Jordan Case Osgood Beasant Burridge Adams Watson (Gordon) Dowie Ruddock Van Gobbel Ekelund & Le Tissier would also be considered to be characters but to me they were more showmen and let their football do the talking. Sure I have missed loads but memory not as good as it was. There do seem to be less characters in the game today but that is inevitable as the game has got too serious and jokers may be weeded out for having a suspect attitude. Probably one of the biggest characters in the game at the moment IMO is Jimmy Bullard but they are few and far between.

AAARGHHHHH - I just spent the best part of a hour posting a lengthy reply to this but have lost the text due to a timeout issue as I was not logged in when I submitted - due to said timeout - am not going to repeat message (my most rambling to date) and run the risk of same thing happening, can anyone help me understand how to avoid this as i have wasted an hour of my life already:(

Not really an accurate analogy is it. More like you wanted 20 and he scored 18 or 19! But he hit the post 4 times, crossbar twice and had 3 cleared off the line. Do you sack or encourage to go one better next season?

was easily their best player today and kept lallana quiet for most of the game. Very impressed but hopefully Calderon will be even better as he is more of a marauding full back - we haven't had one of those since Bale - although Dan has his moments.

it is more a question that it would give people like Lambert and Lallana the excuse to go elsewhere whereas Pardew is best placed to convince them to stay should bids from higher placed teams come in and can ask the players to show the same loyalty that he is. Also, Pardew would end up at a higher placed team in the Premiership or Championship and would undoubtedly come back for Lambert, Lallana and probably Morgan and Puncheon too. It basically places our project at risk and is likely to lead to the 5 year plan becoming at least a 6 year plan. This is why I don't think that Cortese will rock the boat at this point. He will have ample opportunity in the future if Pardew fails to get us promoted next season or fails to make the premiership the season after - at which point he would be able to attract a new manager of real proven quality. Cortese is a business man and will see the logic of keeping things together now as Pardew should win the league next year and no new manager could better that!

It is only reasonable if his contract is about to end. Otherwise he should be focusing on getting the best out of the manager who is contracted, rather than trying to undermine him with a lack of public support. Even those of us on a normal employment contract (30 days notice) would be ****ed off is our boss was always looking at others who could come in and do a better job. You only do this if the incumbent's performance is not acceptable - and anyone who thinks Pardew peformance is not acceptable can only have some axe to grind with him. A crappy article in a crappy paper and the usual suspects - trousers, dune, alpine, TDD and Glasgow notsaint - are right back on their bandwagon. Not one of you thinks that Cortese would be unreasonable if he were to do this which shows what a small minority you are. I am enjoying my football again for the first time in years but would be severely disappointed if we end up having replaced one meglomaniac with another.

Good point - Pardew has said that he wants to build a team now to get out of the Championship. You wont do that by buying L1 quality players so definately top end Championship players is the way to go. Pardew will no doubt try to tempt them with: 1. A league winners medal next year; 2. the real prospect of getting to the Premiership soon after. I think that Fonte has set the bar at the right level, anyone else coming in needs to be as good.

I think I heard correctly...... Pardew didn't just say he wanted chanpionship players but to build a team in the close season capable of winning the Championship (not league one but the league above) as we didn't want to be in the championship for long at all to achieve the 5 year plan. If he can do that - and he said he that is what he would be asking Cortese for - then we really should be able to win this league next year as we will obviously be adding some serious quality over the summer. Good times ahead!

I presume that you didn't see him play for Millwall against Huddersfield the other night? I know that you shouldn't make judgements on players based on one game but my god he was awful and based on that performance possibly the worst player I have seen in League one all season. He hid from the ball and when it did fall to him he promptly gave it back to huddersfield and was a major reason, along with their right back, why Huddersfield were so dominant and won the game. For that alone i would hate to see him at Saints as he cost us a realistic chance of the playoffs. rant over:(

1. Lambert 2. Harding 3. Morgan Lallana would be in my top 3 if his finishing were more consistent as i believe this has cost us key points at places like Wycombe but it is hard to be tough on a youngster who gets as many goals as he does - but he really is good enough to be scoring 25+ a season like Matty did. Honourable mentions for Davis, Fonte and Barnard and also for impact both Waigo and Antonio deserve a mention.

are you sure you were reading the same article? Pardew says that until it is mathematically impossible, he will be going all out for it - absolutely right but he doesn't say he thinks we will make it and acknowledges that our chances could be over by saturday evening. Oh and he wants the fans to turn up and create a good atmosphere - what is wrong with that. Surely fans should go week in week out not just when we have a chance of winning something bigger than the next game. This time last year we were relegated and our gates got bigger - that is the spirit of Southampton. I'm looking forward to our last few games and the chance to dream about what might be next season.

For your information there was less hoofing tonight than any game so far this season and Seaborne mostly played the ball out of defence to either Harding or Fonte. In fact towards the end we were screaming for Davis to hoof it upfield rather than passing from the back:confused:

Surely the point is that had Lowe put us into Administration 1 week earlier, we would still have Markus and Nicola but not the points deduction this season and would therefore be on course for automatic promotion. The point deduction this season and ML are not mutually exclusive. We all have our views on his motives and many of us believe he only returned to protect his equity and had very little regard for the club and certainly none for its fans. For me it was a combination of ego, greed and desperation. Happy with where we are now but it could have been even better without the -10 this season.

I think the idea was to give us all a sneak preview and potentially boost sales over the close season. Can't remember the last time it happened but it was definately the norm for quite a while and gave the last home game of the season a bit more interest - particularly if there was nothing left to play for. In any case, probably not something NC and Co are aware of, just like early sales of next years season tickets.

I wonder if they will continue the tradition of wearing the new kit on the last home game of the season and give us a glimpse of the 125th anniversary sash?

On the contrary, I believe that the JPT win at Wembley has given the team a huge burst of confidence and the desire to get back to Wembley again! If it hadn't been for the JPT we wouldn't have even tried the team that has done so well in the past 4 games. This team now believe they are winners and that will be vital next season if we are to be champions of this league (or even the one above?) What a season:prayer: