SnailOB

Mate got a flag with 'Lordshill Village' made for Steau game in 2003. Still has it

Woke up feeling very very confident for today. That optimism that Reed was just messing with us all summer is slowly subsiding and I'm starting to consider that Reed genuinely thinks we have enough to kick on from last season.... Scary (but hey ho Reed must know better than me right!?)

I believe he has proven that over recent seasons and has delivered year on year improvement.

Sorry, what am I saying! It hasn't been Reed at all, think the consensus is that it's either been luck, MP, RK etc...

Seems there are a number of posters on this forum who are more looking forward to the opportunity to say they were right and he was wrong than actually watching the games and supporting the club!

The pessimism of this forum every transfer window astounds me.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Guan would rather not go blind, if he can help it

Been out the loop for a while.

Is he hinting at Blind from Man Utd ?

If he plays on the left...

Exactly that. Its no coincidence that majority of his best performances come from when he plays left side.

Lets hope RK realises it too.

Not sure on that - Just a bit better than BT Sport on the telly, beer with the lads!

Two nights in the Dam is good but its all about the football.

A couple of nights in Amsterdam is not a waste! Plus you'll still be able to go to Arnhem and drink the the Fan Zone and probably still watch the match on a screen.

Totally agree.

Just would be nice to get in the stadium

Off to the Vitesse website it is then....

A shame. don't think that is anywhere near enough tickets.

Oh well, will have to try for a ticket with home fans - not going to waste flights & hotels in Amterdam

My only concern from reading his preferred positions is that its another predominately left sided player.

When Tadic first signed he played on the left and put in some of his best performances.

Then Mane came in and struggled on the right so he and Tadic switched as Tadic was considered more flexible. As a result, the performance of Tadic has dropped.

We then signed Elia who is also left sided.

Now we have Djuricic who plays through the middle or left wing.

Worried we may struggle with a bit of balance to the side because Tadic really doesn't look comfortable on the right and neither does Mane.

I don't think us getting in to the CL will be enough to keep him. I've heard he lives and socialises in London (due being recognised less often) a lot of the time and finds it a ball ache getting back and forth.

 

Source is usual mate of a mate stuff though so who knows.

Have also heard that he (and his partner) want a move to London (although hadn't heard the bit about being recognised) via friend of friend. Certainly don't think he will end up anywhere near Manchester

One of my earliest memories of the Dell was the chant 'Oh no Mick Mills'

Was relatively young then so not sure if it was ironic or if he was not well regarded by the fans

One thing I couldn't understand from the last game is why he became a victim of the boo-boys.

As far as I'm aware, he didn't try to force a move and his leaving has ensured Clyne no.1 RB spot (something that Poch wouldn't guarantee Clyne) which in turn has given Clyne an opportunity to improve this year. We also banked a tidy sum of cash (which could end up covering transfer fees for Bertrand & Toby)

Don't recall Walcott or Ox receiving the same treatment

He is a more proven goalscorer at that level than Jay Rod was and yet we paid 7.5m for Jay and he turned out OK

If the club have the money and are willing to pay it then I don't see a problem. Would consider it less of a gamble than likes of Ramirez, Osvaldo etc..

It would be good if players only fell over if they really couldn't stay on their feet. I heard Michael Owen commentating on BT Sport recently saying that, if there was contact, then then player "had the right to go down". No he hasn't. He should only go down if he can't do anything else.

Its not just Owen. Majority of pundits use the phrase 'entitled to go down'. Phil Neville used the phrase recently and he was playing/coaching only a season ago so so that should give an idea of current thinking amongst players & coaches.

So when you talk of putting a panel together to review this, with the current mentality I can't see how anyone would get punished !

Let us just concentrate on your statement which I resent, that a player who we signed is "too good for us" shall we? Lovren signed for us, so patently it is absurd to suggest that he is too good for us. If you fail to realise that, then it is you who need to deal with it. Undoubtedly players develop and become the targets of the bigger clubs, but the fact that we are able to either develop them in-house via our academy, or buy them in from other clubs means that at that time, they are not too good for us. Keegan wasn't too good for us when he came here, even though he was European Player of the Year when he arrived. He didn't think that he was too good for us, or else why would he have signed for us? Any player who signs for us is not too good for us, although they might feel further down the line that they can do better than to play for us.

 

The board, (or Gareth Rogers) were at fault for issuing that naive statement about the difficult financial statement they had inherited upon Cortese's departure, which produced the media feeding frenzy, with stupid headlines claiming that were a club in meltdown and open to a firesale of our best players. The board retaliated with a statement that no player would be for sale that the incoming manager wished to keep. The fly in the ointment has been the World Cup, where several of our players have featured, putting them in the spotlight of all the World's top football Clubs. It irked clubs like Liverpool and Manchester United that little ole Southampton had as many players in the England squad as they did and their egos dictated that if they were good enough for England, they really ought to be their players. If they bought them before the tournament started, they could even bask in the glory of saying that here was another Liverpool or Manchester United player in the England team to impress their plastic fans from Tunbridge Wells to China. No doubt there are several players that we now covet from some of those teams like Costa Rica, Algeria and Mexico and we have the money to buy them. Needless to say, if we do buy them, then they are not players who will be too good for us.

 

The idea that we could make an example of Lovren is not laughable at all, but it requires a club to make a stand, at some financial cost on a matter of principle. That cost has to be weighed up against the cost of other players in the squad taking the blackmail route to leave themselves if it succeeds. As I said in another thread, I don't know what the implications for us are if there is a release clause in Lovren's contract of say £20 million that has been triggered, but presumably even if there was, we are not then obliged to sell to a club of Lovren's choice. If we have to sell, then let's p*ss him off by selling him out of the Premiership if we can. Liverpool or Spurs definitely ought to be out of the reckoning.

 

I also think that it is a bit naive to expect us to believe that these professional footballers came here because they were pursuaded by Cortese that they would be playing CL football with us. The players who have left, (with the exception of Ricky Lambert) didn't leave because they felt upset that Cortese or Pochettino were gone and the new board did not share his ambitions, they left for reasons of pure naked greed when a bigger club feted them and massaged their egos. As I already pointed out, how can they claim otherwise when they have not even had the common decency to see what the new manager's plans and ambitions are, in the indecent haste to leave before he even had a chance to speak to them?

This

Always remeber the jokey question asked once of Abbey Clancy along lines of, what was it about the multi-millionaire footballer Peter Crouch that first attracted you to him.

Same could be applied to outgoing players - what was it about the Champions League / Astronomical wage paying Liverpool that first attracted you to them!

There are no FACTS available to us fans as to why these players chose / are choosing to leave but IMO I think the offer of huge wages and chance of playing for a high profile football club plays a much bigger part in their decisions rather than being upset by Cortese or MoPo leaving. To think otherwise is pretty naive.

Difference of opinion on here today. Majority very disappointed with AL, a few dismissing all rumours and trying to be 'supportive' of AL.

Personally I beleive a lot of the problem with fans reaction is down to the fans themselves, we are wrong to place these young men on pedastals and hold them up as icons.

In football words are cheap! Fans seem happy to believe what Lambert wrote because it sounded all gushy and warm yet don't like what Lallana wrote because it is short and condescending.

The only 'fact' is that we have no idea about what has gone on with any players departure. There is so much debate & speculation as to 'why' these players would want to leave - personally I think its easy to see, they have moved to 'bigger' clubs on bigger wages. Same way that everyone understood why Chaplow, Hammond, Barnard etc... were let go because they no longer met the criteria for an improving Southampton.

Whilst AL, RL, LS etc.. were here, they had my support. Now they are gone, I don't really care what they do.

As some have said, time to move on.

I am looking forward to the seeing what new management team can do, looking forward to seeing who they bring in and looking forward to my days out to St Marys to support whoever will be on the pitch next season.

Have either of them actually played in this WC so far? Straight question, no innuendo included. I lik Phil Jones as a player, I'd have him in the side instead of a variety of people, starting with Gerrard, certainly in this heat. Maybe he's not 100%, Jones that is. Trouble with Jones and Man U is that he gets shifted around to fill anyy gap that opens up, can't be doing him much good, then again that's Moyes for you.

Very hard to convey sarcasm when writing, sorry!

Basis the original comment, neither Smalling or Jones have improved the England team or have improved at Man Utd. Similar could also be said of Welbeck and many other young English players who have moved to 'big' clubs.

In my opinion the players are more likely to improve by leaving Man Utd as nothing is greater than regular game time in a regular position. Take Jones, he has played as Right Back, centre Back, Holding Midfielder etc.. What he needs is a regular position and games. Welbeck is the same. Look at Zaha, was seen as a great prospect but his move to Man Utd was a failure.

Everton now have a promising batch in Stones & Barkley, again it would be best for them to play regularly at Everton. This would improve the options for England. Unfortunately England Manager and Media would rather see players at the 'big' clubs, until ths attitude changes then England will continue to struggle.

With regards to Luke Shaw, yes the money being offered is huge but don't really believe he will improve significantly more at Man Utd compared to staying at Southampton. Only thing that will be greater is money and exposure and unfortunately they seem to be more important to most.

The good folks over at RedCafe aren't to thrilled about this.

Here's my favourite piece of logic from their thread.

 

"And then the national team complain that the league has too many foreigners and our youngsters don't get time to develop. Well maybe if clubs like Southampton didnt go round ripping off the bigger clubs for potential talent these youngsters could improve. Abit hypocritical but let's be honest Shaw had more chance of developing into a class left back at United rather than spending extra years at Southampton."

They could have a point.

Look how well the England team has benefitted from the improvement in Phil Jones & Chris Smalling

A few things you can learn from this forum is if you don't take it seriously and take the p*ss out of people it's because something is missing from your own life and you lead a sad and miserable existence, probably living in a bedsit somewhere and have a crap job with no social skills.

 

It's absolutely not that case that if you take this place so very, very seriously, using it as a medium to engage in serious debate and voice your opinion, that you're a bit of a sad **** that struggles to cope with real life, perhaps using this place to air your so very important view because no one gives a sh*t about it in the real world. If you can get enraged by things said by people you've never met and resort to putting them on ignore, foul mouth tirades or stop posting all together, then even better, that means you lead a full and interesting life and are an all round great guy.

It is so difficult to judge the tone of someones post when you only have the words to read and not the tone in which its spoken. Mr Turkish appears to be one of the best at posting on that line between sarcasm / mock seriousness / serious. This is another one of those posts and I think I know what tone he is trying to take with this one.

All I would add to this one is that there is nothing wrong as such as taking the p*ss / not taking it all too seriously / taking it seriously - whatever yor preference. For someone who no longer subscribes and only posts occassionally, the main reason is because it all seems to be too many posters 'playing the poster' rather than the post and quite frankly the constant d*ck swinging is so very boring.

There was a comment that if moderated properly, these type of posters would be dumped to the muppet show. In my opinion that would be a travesty. As a 'closet lurker' to that section, I tend to find that the regular contributors to the muppet show whether posting there or in the main forum tend to have the best balance.

All in my 'not too serious' opinion of course

This is basically my point, if you're asking "who" when we announced the appointment of an ex-Argentinian international who was directly involved in a high-profile penalty incident at a World Cup involving England, you don't have an opinion that's contributing anything to the discussion.

 

Long and short of it is some have chosen to be impressed by a load of cups in countries where cups aren't seen as important, and some titles at clubs who are always expected to win those titles. Now if he'd been a title-winning Celtic manager recently... (sarcasm).

When he was rumoured, I looked at his record for his last club (Feynoord). When you read various reports the consensus was he inherited a club in a bit of turmoil and not a lot of money. Therefore emphasis was working with the youth team. As such, his work at Feynoord resulted in the club finishing consistently in top 3 as well as producing a number of players for the Dutch national side.

This seemed to fit quite well with what Southampton seem to be trying to achieve (although not expecting consistent top 3 finishes!)

Surely thats the way most fans would judge the appointment ? A bit harsh to suggest otherwise - in my opinion.

For balance, at the time, I was not initially impressed with the appointment of Gordon Strachan and sceptical with regards to the appointments of Adkins and MoPo and they worked out fine.

As mentioned previously, there are no guarantees that Koeman will be a success but for the reasons i mentioned above, on paper, it looks a very promising appointment.

Both sides wind up the other. If those who predicted doom and gloom were a little more circumspect then the 'told you so's' would probably be somewhat less pronounced. And if everyone was actually able to say 'I was wrong' once in a while, then the whole place would have a lot less attitude about it. But a lot of people it seems are more concerned about being right or wrong, or how they look, rather than accepting that they're human, that their opinions are shaped by their own personal outlook, and that nothing is cast in stone.

This constant '**** swinging' or whatever you would rather call it is killing this site. It really is all about one upmanship. The bedwetters / doom & gloom merchants / happy clappers / realists etc.. FFS we are all supposed to be Saints fans, think that FACT (another term that gets thrown about a lot to enforce an opinion!) seems to have been forgotten now. The 'game' on here is becomming quite tedious.

A fan is for life not just for Christmas?

It works

or 'Stay calm and support the Saints'

Little winkey thing included this time in case thoughts taken too seriously

Just in case anyone was worried about it coming out in the Daily Mail, I can confirm that I have not sent an email, "signed" or otherwise to SFC informing them of my desire to leave and stop supporting them.

 

Its good to put positive things out there.

 

I full expect to be at Boscombe Athletic, Swindon and Brighton in preseason with my gf and kids supporting whoever turns out representing SFC like I usually do unless I'm away on holidays. Might have a few boxes of t shirts to sell off as well with "I'm an SFC supporter and I'm Not for Sale" or similar so could i put a cheeky bit of advertising in there - please bring an extra £10 and buy it off me and wear it when you can.

 

Oh, btw can somebody good at designing t shirts with saints stuff on it please try to design a few mock ups of what it might look like. That's not my specialty though i know there's people here can do it in a flash...

Think you need a banner along lines of ' Owners/Managers/Players are temporary but Fans are permanent'

Alpine, I only blame the messenger when the message is deemed to be A) unreliable, B) timed to deliberately cause trouble or unrest and C) is second hand

Always said over the last 5 years with Cortese at the helm, it would end in tears

I would say that all media are the same. You made a point of defending Adam Blackmore the other day over Luke Shaw. That was an old story and I thought it was issued deliberately cause trouble or unrest as it was same time rumours came out that Man Utd were switching their attentions to Alba. The announcement from Ben Smith & Adam Blackmore was phrased to suggest that Shaw had reacted to this and had made a renewed request.

I would class that as mischevious. That basis, would suggest Echo do not have an exclusivity of **** stirring

It can't be that bad as MLT and Benali haven't commented on it yet !

If NC had done this i'm sure there would have been comments from both of them all over the place. Then we could have classed this as a meltdown.

Dan Petrescu