CanadaSaint

I think Lallana has a ton of potential but he has been allowed to lack positional discipline. Although he can bring a lot of skill, energy and creativity, he can also seem like a f*rt in a thunderstorm at times, and this indiscipline can destroy the team's shape. I really hope Pardew can sort this out because Lallana can be either a huge asset or a major liability, and that probably accounts for the wide spectrum of views on him.

We've tried throwing a load of sh*t against the wall and hoping some of it sticks. It didn't - during either the Redknapp or Burley eras. We've tried avoiding the transfer market in the belief that our kids could carry the load. They couldn't - at any point during the hideous Dutch experiment. What we haven't tried for quite some time is building a good system around the available talent and acting decisively to address weaknesses within financially acceptable parameters. The prerequisite for that is A) having a system that works, B) taking the time to figure out who fits within it and who doesn't, and C) establishing who wants to be here and who doesn't. A fair bit of that happened last week and at the weekend, and I'd expect the transfers to start arriving this week.

Keep posting please.

We (somewhat understandably) keep discussing this in the context of the past. ML is a very different form of owner to anything we've ever known and (whether we like it or not) it's HIS club, not ours. However, I very much get the sense that he's genuinely sensitive to the need for a strong relationship with the fan base (witness his unease about bidding against "MLT's group") and is high on ethics and values. But we also need to think about this in the context of a different kind of future. Professional football is unsustainable in its current form, and the chickens are heading home to roost at a lot of clubs. There are not enough Sugar Daddies to go around, and their interest usually wanes fairly quickly. Things have to change - quite drastically. We're heading for an era of greater financial responsibility, and the greatest asset in that era will be being debt free. The second-greatest asset will be having an owner who is capable of putting his hand (sensibly) into his pocket in order to move up to the next level. We had neither of those assets under recent regimes. We have both of them under ML.

Oi !! More respect from you please. Don't you realize that they had to play Old Corinthians and the Royal Engineers twice per year during those days? I don't wish them out of existence but I do wish them into reality.

From what I've seen AP really has to replace him because it's such a pivotal role. We can't succeed with inconsistency and questionable fitness in that position because that takes everything down the sh*tter with it. But get that one right and a whole lot of good things start to happen. So the question is who?

Just as Rupert's heavy (actually excessive) focus on the Academy and his revulsion for big transfer (and agents') fees was ahead of its time (so far ahead that it nearly killed us), so are we ahead of our time in having much of the infrastructure without the throttling debt. Pompey are in an especially precarious position because they have a lot of debt but still don't have the stadium - and the Avivas of this world aren't very keen on funding football stadia any more. When the "Sugar Daddy" types lose interest, and they will, we may well look back on these days as the making of the Club.

Lallana will become a lot more than a decent prospect IMO. But he needs better guidance and a clearer idea of how he fits into a decent system, both of which he'll get under Pardew. What he didn't need was being thrown in at the deep end within a dysfunctional system and left to figure it out for himself, which is what happened all too often last year.

He sounds like Rasiak's kind of manager! It sounds like Pardew has chatted to Rasiak and knows he'd prefer to leave, so Toomer's suggestion that it was a "shop window" performance may well be right. But after two goals and not being expected to track back too much, you never know.

A sniff of the coffee will tell you that this is far more likely this year than it was last. You know it. It's as though you're treading the same ground as us, but about three to five years behind. The big difference that will work against you (in the short and long term) is the drastically declining appetite in the financial community for loaning new ground or ground improvement funds. Our administration didn't help you at all on that front. Far from it. So the only way of boosting turnover (a bigger ground) might well be beyond your reach for the foreseeable future, which would mean that your prospects for surviving after relegation from the Prem would be dimmer than ours. It could get really ugly really quickly.

It's easy to rush to (negative) judgment on a lot of players when they are not being used or motivated properly, and Rasiak is far from the only example. For the first time in a long time we might be watching a manager who knows how to build a credible system around the players at his disposal, who knows how to motivate them, and who can see fairly quickly who can't cut the mustard. This is his first game with his hands fully on the reins, and that's why it wasn't too troubling to see him holding back on bringing players in last week. The coming week may well be very different.

I'm not advocating a "finger in the ear" mentality at all, or that we "ignore" the past. You're too good a poster to mis-characterize what others are saying. I am advocating that people stop re-hashing the past at every opportunity. You learn from the past and then you get on with trying to make the future better, and that's all that concerns me right now. How did we learn from Lowe's/Wilde's/Lowe's past transgressions - in such a way to make sure we were not jerked around again? Not very well judging by the succession of complete and utter screw-ups and the near-disappearance of the Club. Exactly how do you propose to hold Begbies and Fry "accountable"? They were working for the creditors, not us, and they have probably met the creditors' objectives. Everyone was taken in by Lynham & Co, at least for a time (including our own beloved MLT), so what's to learn there? No, I'm not saying that we should bury the past but that it's time to move on from it.

I'm no happier about that stuff than most people on here, but what is to be achieved by going back there? Begbies worked for the creditors, not the fans, and so the Pinnacle deal (at least in the early days) was just as good as the ML deal from their perspective - possibly better if wages were being covered. They didn't really give a rat's arse about the buyer's future investment in players or, really, about screwing a season by leaving things so late. The Barclays Fry issue may warrant some more scrutiny if someone is interested enough to take it up. I'm just sick of it all though, Trousers - Rupert, Wilde, Crouch, Lynham, Fialka, Begbies. I wouldn't care if I never heard these names again. Let's rise above it, stop sniping at eachother and start rebuilding this club.

This weekend will be his first squad preparation, first starting line up, first tactical approach and first motivation job. He's right to wait and see how that works out and to make his own evaluation of the players. But I suspect he knows that he needs to analyze fast (some of which he's already done) and that next week will be nuts. I'd be absolutely shocked if he doesn't already have irons in the fire on a few key players, and just as shocked if we don't see arrivals by mid week.

I think I just fully realized how far we've fallen in five years.

If that was intended to convey "For the love of God let's park the pro/anti Rupert sh*t" I'm totally, completely and utterly with you. Keeping that futile debate going at every opportunity suggests a simple mind. And that's being kind.

Bernie Pask, wasn't it? Yes, I can relate to your original post because I was committed* enough to break four ribs and crack another five in a friendly. * Most intelligent people view that level of commitment as stupidity.

Well, it seems to me that we've had a tendency to take managers with good records and provide them with their first real blemish OR take people with not-so-good records and give them their first real success. At least during the Rupert era, but I'm not going there! I'll settle for more of a disciplinarian (which I think Pardew is) because - surprise, surprise - we've always been better when lack of commitment isn't tolerated.

You seem to have a problem with older people, because that's the sole basis for your post - not any kind of counter opinion. It looks to me like you may have some "issues" to deal with. Hypocrisy is just one of them - or a really sh*tty memory: Wasn't that derry's original point? And how did you get to be a "Pokerchampion" with a memory like that?

It's more than that, though, CL. It's the fact that some people post nasty stuff that they'd never have the balls to say to someone's face, and then try to excuse themselves by saying "It's not as if anyone reads an internet forum". I think a lot more people read these things than we give them credit for - players, managers, agents, owners, journalists. Short of running a proper survey they are the only real way of finding out what "committed" fans think. That's how the world works these days. It wouldn't surprise me at all if these forums have the power to convince players not to sign and buyers not to buy.

This thread is starting to remind me of an old saying. "Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty but the pig likes it."

As opposed to your namesake?

IMO we do need someone with solid lower league experience - life is very different down here and it's a far cry from Celtic Park and top European football. I can see WGS as a DoF but not as a manager at this level. But if they wanted a lower league manager I think it would have been done by now. If they want WGS for DoF he'll want to choose his own manager, so not much can happen until they have his final answer. Perhaps that's where the delay is.

Isn't quoting yourself a form of masturbation? Don't take that wink the wrong way, Thorpie.

About as happy as WGS would be with his reputation in TA's hands!