Rebel

What a sell out!

Why don't you come back when yours have dropped! Wow! Aren't I tough! I paid well over £700 for season tickets for my nephew and me - which doesn't make me a hero - but too me it was quite a lot of money. Despite having a season ticket for the last 5 years I seriously thought about giving them up this season because of the cost. But I bought them knowing we had a good chance of getting relegated and because I know my nephew - he's only 9 - really wanted to see players like Van Persie and Aguero - and he had put up with League 1 and the Chmapionship so he kinda deserves it! Also it might be his only chance as his dads a Pompey fan! But I expected us to at least make a go of it by buying players to give us a chance of competing. I have to admit I don't want us to sign Dann or Upson or any other failed premiership defender - but I was hoping we'd go out a take a chance on a couple of defenders from other top flight leagues. They might not have made the grade but iat least we'd have tried. To bring in only one right back and one centre back to a defence that was crying out to be strengthened was just plain stupid - and probably a little bit incompetent. I will survive if we get relegated - but dont kid yourself the defence we have right now would still struggle in the Championship. Don't forget it was the defence which lost us games against teams like Reading. When - or if - we go down players like Ramirez and Lallana will be off - dontvworry about that. As for defenders we could have signed - or at least tried to - Niklas Moisander, Douglas Franco Texeira, Andreu Fontas, Mateo Mussachio, Matt Kilgallon, Curtis Davies, not to mention Alexandef Buttner - to name but a few.

It's the scouts and the transfer negotiator who needs to be sacked - or whoever is responsible fie identifying and signing players. If Adkins hasn't got the players in the squad there's not much he can do about it!

Well it's not Adkins - h clearly identified the need to strengthen the defence at the start of this summer. It's whoever is actually responsible for identifying and/or signing players. I have a feeling we got promoted from the Championship a season too soon - our scouting system was not ready to identify the players we needed for th Premiership. Added to that I dont think we're any good at transfer negotiations - we seem unable to sign the players we identify anyway. And I think we probably got a bit obsessed with signing Ramirez for £12 million when we'd have been better off spending the money on 3 defenders at £4 million each. Not sure we need Mayuka either! It looks as though Cortese has to take the blame for our terrible start to the season for not bringing in the players we needed over the summer. I just hope he has a plan B for bouncing straight back up next season - as Plan A seems to have failed - and I think it will be too late for us come January to save our season! Do I regret buying a season ticket this season - right now yes given the cost - its quite a lot to pay to see us lose week in week out - and based on the prices I expected to see us strengthen the team a bit more than we did over he summer. Forget about signing Gaston Ramirez - it was pointless spending £20 million on the forward line when we only spent £5 million if that on the defence.

Can't believe we beat Arsenal 4-3 at the Emirates!? What great goals by Hooiveld, Clyne, Fox and Walcott!!! In all serious I was not expecting to win this one - but this is not a vintage Arsensal team. 6-1 is a real tonking whoever we were playing anyway. I just hope it wasn't a knock-out blow. I have to ask - are we even going to get one point this season? I can see us failing miserably to win a game until January when we can bring in a first choice keeper, left back and two centrebacks. It's not like we didn't know we needed to strengthen our defence last summer - let alone this one!

Lallana is he better player but Cleverley gets picked because he plays for Man Utd (so he must be great) simples!

It's a truly horrible kit - up there with Pony kits and the blue away kit

If we do go down we will still need to strengthen the defence - don't forget we kind of stumbled over the finishing line at the end of last season. And our defence was the weakest link. A new left back and 2 centre backs are needed whatever division we end up playing in next season. And probably a new right back if we go down as I can't see Clyne sticking around if we do. Hopefully we'll bring in a Left back and a centre back in the January transfer window to give us a chance of staying up.

Plan A is to stay up. Plan B if we get relegated is obviously to sell Gastom Ramirez for £30 million - recouping all the money we spent in the transfers window this summer. Maybe sell a few others like Tandanari, Yoshida, Manyuka and Clyne as well to lower the wage bill and generate some cash flow - as I expect they will go fr more than we brought them in for! Bring bsck Aaron Martin, Lee Barnard, Billy Sharp and Dean Hammond from their loans. Bring through players like Calum Chambers, Ward-Prowse, Reeves, Isgrove, Shaw and Corby Moore. And possibly bring in a few championship players and get promoted again.

A couple of us said exactly the same thing on Sunday!

I think we did try to buy a keeper - Fraser Forster from Newcastle - but when he opted to stay at Celtic we didn't really have any idea who else to go for. Our transfer negotiators and our scouting team needs massively improving before January

Your a Skate aren't you!?

Yoshida came from the team with the worst defensive record in the Eredevise - if that's true - I can't see him being the answer!

How about 'Can we get our money back!?'

I know we're winning 2-1 with 10 minutes to go! I'll take off my 3 best players - that'll let Man Utd win the game! I have understood if we brought on 3 defenders or a defensive midfielder - but we didn't really have anyone good enough on the bench. Mayuka looked a bit pointless - I'd rather have had Billy Sharp on the bench!

That's all sounds good and stuff - but we are stuck with the defence we've got until January! I can't see Yoshida getting a starting place, Seabourne is well Seabourne and we're stuck with Fox at left back as we don't really have another one.

Maybe we should give Ryan Dickson another go - he's still with us isn't he? Fox seemed scared of the ball today, drifted in to the middle again time after time giving Man Urd all thevtimevabd space they needed out wide. I also dont remember him putting one decent cross in! Maybe instead of chasing Ramirez and Mayuka we should have signed a left back and a decent centreback or two!

We used to be witty once!

I could have accepted Hoddle back - eventuallt - but Harry Redknapp never! The worst manager Saints! have ever had - even worse so than Branfoot! This is the man that took us down - that's gave the thumbs up to Pompey fans as our manger having just seems his Saints team beaten. A man that represents all that is wrong with football!!!! If he ever becomes our manager again I would just give up on Saints - my season ticket would just stay unused.

I think we'll start with the following line up if Adkins has his thinking head on: ---------------- Davis--------------- Clyne ----- Fonte-----Hooiveld----- Fox ------- Morgan ------ Davis------ Puncheon ----- Lambert.........Lallana --------- Rodriguez------- with Rodriguez and Mayuka on the bench to come on and make an impact if we need it! I'd like to see lots of movement with Punch and Lallana switching sides at times and Lallana cutting in at others whilst Lambert goes wide left or deep to pick up the ball and link the play. I'd also like to see the full backs putting some balls into the box for Lambert and Rodriguez to bully their centrebacks.

Probably

The empty seats were few and far between at the Wigan game apart from those in the away area where the tickets were returned by Wigan

We are woefully short at the back. I think we were all expecting first choice defenders to be brought in bad Jos, Fonte and Fox drop to the bench. I was also expecting the same thing with Kelvin. But all 4 of them will be in a starring back 5. Fox cannott defend at this level - he drifts in to the edge of the box giving time and space to the attacker time after time. Seabourne is probably still recovering from his 'accident' and should probably go out on loan to a League 1 club. Yoshida will be the sub from the bench - but is he as good as we seem to think he is? The team we signed him from had one of the worst defensive records in the Eredevise. I've not been impressed by Steven Davis so far - he looks to lightweight - and lets not forget he joined from Rangers who played at a level equivalent to League 1. He may have been player of the season but I'm not sure it counts if it's in Scotland - remember Neil McCann and Rudi Skacel anyone!? Lambert doesn't have the movement or pace to play as the main striker or centre forward in a 4-3-3 or anywhere in the front 3 for that matter. And Mayuka will be off to the African Nations Cup in the New Year so we could lose him for 2 months. And apart from a wonder goal we havent really seen enough from Tandanari to know if he's good enough.

Do people really think Pucheon, De Ridder and Guly are Premier League quality? Sure they can step up for the odd game - but not a season. Hopefully that's all we will need. Have to say I am more worried about our defence than attacking options. And I'm not convinced by Steven Davis either - looks to light weight for the Premier League to me. So playing the seemingly preferred 4-3-3 system our first choice 11 will probably look something like this: Ramirez. Lambert. Mayuka. Lallana. Morgan. Cork. Fox. Hooiveld. Fonte/Yoshida. Clyne. Davis. Is that going to be good enough to keep us up if we don't have any injuries?

Sorry I think we needed a bit more quality and a bit more quantity. Chuffed with Ramirez but he's only one player. Not sure we have the strength in depth we need to stay up. We still lack pace, a decent left back, wingers and 2 first choice centre backs of premier league quality. I think we could have done with a quality keeper as well. Kelvin does have his weaknesses - distribution for one - and was a disaster at this level before. Also I'm not sure we have the players to play this 4-3-3 system we seem keen on - or much strength beyond first 11.