Tom & Gerry

So which is it, with this squad we should be walking this league or we would need 6 -7 players to compete in the prem? I don't think both can be true. Clearly we need more goals. If we had beaten Ipswich we would only be 2 points behind them and if we'd beaten Rotherham and Huddersfield as we should have as well we'd be top. It is much harder to score in the Premier league so that is the problem Martin needs to solve and then I think we'd probably struggle , we usually do, but we'd be alright

Tom Parker, Ludlow Rd boy, captain of the mighty Arsenal, the fee paid for a stand at the Dell. As manager brought Ted Bates to the club, later a scout.

I went to the Woking game. I thought they were red and white quarters but it was a long time ago and I was only 8.

With regard to the narrow wins. I can remember plenty of times in the past when we've had a big win , optimism has risen and then we've lost the next game. Don't get me wrong I like a big win but I prefer a consistent winning team.

It is quite normal for a team to have a bad spell during the season. We've had ours, Leicester might be at the beginning of one and have now lost 3. Do Ipswich have the squad to continue like they have all season? I also think there are a lot of tough ,hard to beat teams in this league and all the top teams will find it hard to maintain the current pace. There is a long way to go

Do people still not realise that football is a team game? You can have the best players in the league but unless they compliment each other and learn to play together they won't win anything. That's why managers don't always pick what fans consider to be the best 11 players. How are you expected to win football matches when you lose your captain, the replacement captain and a goal scoring winger and you have to bring in new players and you have no time to coach them because there are three games a week. You might expect in these circumstances that the players would revert to the failed methods they had been taught in the past when things got tough and that's what happened. Since the manager had a clear week to coach the players they have not lost. It's not only the manager that has learnt from mistakes, its the players.

Some 60's classics There's a bloke his name is Terry Paine, he only scores goals now and again. And again, and again , and again, and again , and again, and again , and agaaain. Went to the Dell just the other day, sha la la la lee, just to see Southampton play, sha la la la lee. Sha la la la Ron Davies, sha la la la Ron Davies. Onwards Saints supporters marching as to war with the boot of Chivers going on before. Melia is our schemer pushing from behind, Davies is our leader scoring all the time. His name is Ronnie Davies he's the leader of the team , the greatest centre forward that the world has ever seen , you always can rely on him to score a vital goal and as for Ray Hiron you can stick him up your hole, la la la laa - la la la la la la.

I think his reputation has gone before him. To my eyes we play less crab like football as you call it than some previous regimes especially since he actually had a full week of training with all his new players, since when we haven't lost. I see our much maligned goalkeeper getting rid of the ball quickly and generally distributing the ball well. I see players like Bednerek passing the ball forward and I see exciting wingers taking on defenders and putting in crosses. Of course when teams put 10 men behind the ball it can be a struggle to break them down and you get some slow play, but that happens with all teams. As for possession football, I much prefer it when we have the ball than the opposition. Momentum in football counts for a lot, look at Ipswich. Saints were on long downward trajectory with hardly a home win in years and were a long way last. It takes time to turn that round whatever the club said about automatic promotion. We are doing much better than I expected.

It's early days in a long season, if he has the strength as much as the ability at he will get the chance at some stage one way or the other.

Young players have to learn the game however good they are, which is why some players start like world beaters and then come to a grinding halt before they push on or not. Players can improve at any time and some are ready ar a younger age than others. JWP took plenty of stick for not being the finished article at 22. Chez Adams is still improving in my opinion, Alan Shearer didn't start scoring regularly straight away despite his first game hat trick . Just because a player is behind others at 18 or 19 doesn't mean he will stay there.

I'm just happy we're scoring goals

We did have a bloated squad and we need to replace some that have left. If we replace those that haven't left yet we could have a bloated squad again. I thought everyone was aware that this was going to happen yet some seem surprised and shocked

The problem is that if we buy before we sell, deals like the Lyanco one for instance could fall through, and we could end up with a bloated squad, and we wouldn't want that would we? I said this would be hard month for the fans and the manager. We have to get new players and then we have to get them to play together, not easy

From manager to fans the next few weeks are going to be really hard. We have the frame work. Lets hope that from September we have the players to execute it.

That's August's team sorted, what will it look like by September?

So am I , but a solid base would help us get higher than mid table.

I actually agree with most of that but just think it's unrealistic to build a team in just over a month with all the comings and goings there are likely to be , and we need to be picking up sufficient points so we are not panicking about relegation when it all hopefully gells later in the season.

But last season I was told on here that most of our players weren't premier league level and would struggle in the Championship.

I hope you are right but our resources got us 25 points last season. I also remember our previous experiences of being relegated and I take in to account SR's patchy recruitment record. I'd like to be optimistic but I prefer to be cautious. Yes there are teams we should beat but there will be some tough nuts in the top half of the table.

At the start of the season we will have sold players, we will have players we don't want, we will have players that don't want to be here, we will have bought players that need to be integrated some of whom will be good and some of whom won't. It's hard in these circumstances to see us making a fast coherent start, whoever is the Manager. Our adage in the Premier league was to get to 40 points as soon as possible and take it from there. I think we will have to adopt the same approach this season (or the Championship equivalent of 40 points)

Blimey things must be bad. No manager, staff leaving, players leaving and the only kit we've got left to wear is is some old shirts from the 80's.

Do those who support Le Tissier do so because he is our hero, is a nice bloke and can do no wrong ? If Joe Bloggs from Portsmouth broadcast similar opinions would they be so sympathetic of such nonsense?

Good players can adapt to make a game plan work. Most coaches at this level know the game inside out, even better than fans maybe. Yes they make mistakes, but I would suggest that motivation is their key asset. Players are more important than tactics in my opinion.

We did not get relegated because of our style of play or tactics. If we had won matches no one would have complained about our style of play. We all hated Branfoot's style of play but we stayed up and we all know why. Why did we go down? We had good players who hadn't yet learned how to play in the Premier league. We had good players who didn't adapt to playing in the Premier league and we had players not good enough for the Premier league, but most importantly we didn't have a match winner. We didn't have a Davies, Channon, Le Tissier, Lambert or Ings that could turn 1-0 defeats in to draws or victories. There is only so much any manager can do.

The new manager, needs to be given the tools(players) to do the job. They then need to get off to a good start by winning some games. That way the fans are happy (easily pleased or displeased), the owners are happy, the players are happy and the manager is happy. With everyone pulling in the right direction you can have success. If it doesn't happen it's an uphill struggle and everything starts to fall apart and the manager will get the blame and the sack whoever he is, big name or not.