SnailOB

But were the charity 'turfed out' by the club ? I don't know the facts, all this is speculation based on a 'brief' Echo article. The Echo were banned - Fact. Were the charity advised by either party of this (SFC or Echo) - I don't know Did the charity have full access within the club facilities to all other media outlets invited - Yes. What has sickened me is the claim that the club acted disgracefully and owed the charity an apology as important awareness of the charity (which I agree is important) was compromised as the Echo were not able to attend and yet the same article in the paper spent as much time USING the charity for ITS OWN AGENDA against the club. As I previously posted, there was nothing to stop the Echo making seperate arrangements for the charity if they cared soooooooooo much. I agree that the initial spat between SFC and the DE is pathetic BUT it has been made worse by the resulting behaviour since by the DE. For them to use a charity in this way has sickened me and it is this main point that has really made me look at the DE in a poor light. Yes the club is not blameless but the point scoring of the DE is never going to help with having this issue resolved. Other posters have stated that the DE have apparently approached the club (comments flying around such as spat dummies etc..) BUT surely if the DE really want to resolve this then they should have a cooling off period with their constant sniping and stories or nothing will ever get done. The false idignation from the DE is sickening - do they really care about this - NO. As another poster pointed out - hits regarding ANY saints related story on their website are up since all this SO are they really interested in sorting this out - you decide, i know what i think. And it won't be long before THEY use another charity etc.. for their own agenda.

All these lower division clubs progressing so far has really shown that the 'magic of the cup' is dead

Did it really ? We are talking about 1 (ONE) media outlet of many which was not allowed access to facilities that the club provided. A media outlet which in all essence is a local rag with a small readership. Maybe the Echo should have made the charity aware that they would not be permitted to report from within the club when they were invited and maybe (if they cared so much about this deserving charity - and I mean no slight against the charity) they could have put aside a good section of their paper for an extended article and arranged for Mr Suchet to meet at another more comfortable venue at their expense rather than dragging them out onto the street. SFC could have always told the charity to bugger off and find another venue if their intentions were to undermine its awareness campaign ! Or maybe it is media chums backing each other for another petty snipe.

What do you think ? This was a reply to a message saying the club come out of this in a bad light (unfortunately its hard to the put the tone of sarcasm down in text - sorry)! FFS since the disgraceful stories that the Echo have ran since this and their constant attempts to undermine the regime at SFC - does anyone really think the club should bow / scrape / apologises to the Echo. Personally I think the Echo behaviour has taken away any chance of a proper reconcilliation. You can picture the headlines now if the club 'apologise'. We win etc.. Murray and his cohorts have acted more shamefully since the initial request / incident that how this all happened now seems totally irrelevant. They have shown all the best qualities recently of the 'gutter press' I say f**k em, all IMHO of course

It does make the club look petty - why can't they resolve this with the Echo considering that the Echo has acted with so much dignity and professionalism since this initial incident !

Do you think if i wear this bandage on the 10th that the tax-man will accept my plea on grounds of amnesia ?

Its the Football League Cup. We can enter it, unfortunately we cannot do the Champions League or Uefa / Europa cup at the moment. We also entered the FA cup and are still in it, also had a crack at the Carling cup in which we made a very good account of ourselves against Birmingham (and if it wasn't for the disgusting tackle on Murty which resulted in his injury - I believe we may well have beat them) - so so far I think we've done well. League could be better BUT really can't see what you and some others are trying to get at with these constant comments / threads about how things are not good enough. IF we make JPT final I will celebrate like majority of saints fans but will be realistic enough to take it for what it is. To continualy find some reason to 'undermine' what has been done / what is being done is rather petty and very pathetic - all IMHO of course

But that would mean that AP is a liar - and than seems too much to take for some !

a fit Murty at RB for me every time. From what we've seen so far he reads game well and has an experienced head and talks to those around him which appears to help. Wide midfield and up front i'm not 100% sure CB pairing - difficult as not seen enough of Seabourne to make proper judgement. Would probably go for 442 Davis Murty Fonte Jaidi Harding Lallana Hammond Spiderman Puncheon (based on each time i've seen him against us for MKD) Lambert Barnard (He has missed a couple of chances but from what i've seen I have faith that he will start scoring) Problem could then come with pace but still feel that likes of Antonio / Waigo better as impact subs once we have tired out opposition All in IMHO of course

To further take the thread of topic Connolly, Jaidi, Murty - quick fixes. Experienced freebies who were worth a punt because quite frankly our squad when AP took over was awful. Since then - think Hammond was a fair buy and was needed. Lambert was a good buy and needed. Harding was another good buy as we have not had a left back for ages. Trotman was a quick fix by loan but centre of defence was definitely an area that needed strengthening. Still early days to judge Fonte and Seabourne but would argue that were both needed. As for Barnard - has the pedigree for this division and everyone was crying out for another striker ........ SO which of the signings have we not needed ?

To try and place a bit of perspective - although last two league results were not great, Brentford and Millwall have both got impressive home form this year. Surely its the upmost of arrogance to assume we should automatically beat these teams ? Yes, same excuses about players gelling etc.. but its true surely ? When AP first came to the club there was a HUGE losing mentality and a lot of very mediocre players. Those first 8 games or so had a bigger damaging impact than the - 10. That said, how many games have we lost over say the last 20 or so (rhetorical question - don't really require an answer). I'm sure AP would prefer it to be better but f**k me - its not all doom and gloom. Pretty sure that pushing for play-offs is still the aim of the club but to criticise them if they don't achieve it this year is a bit extreme. I get the impression that AP is building a team for next year and that then he should be looking to actually win the title - now thats arrogant but by then it should certainly be achieveable.

Not wishing to be too negative but - we start off by saying fans will be consulted, sell the idea of a 'kop' etc.. BUT as soon as itchen/northam corner mentioned from people as suggestions, the stock response seems to be 'never happen - corporates'. Is this the same 'corporates' that are empty ? Will the club listen to fans (as indicated) or prioritise the current non-existent corporates ?

Can't be helping him that he seems to be a utility player. Already forum users have quoted he is better at either RM, RB or DM. IF he is to be our regular RB then IMO he needs someone like CMFG in front of him to bring him on. Lets be honest, when he plays RB, his cover at RM changes week to week and even then the RM position is a bit 'make do' with what we have at the moment ! Did feel upto the Birmingham game that he looked very assured in RM with Murty behind him as you could see Murty constantly talking to him and offering guidance so he obvioulsy reacts to that. On plus side - can deliver a ball (one of our better ones at that) On negative - he really does wind me up when he continually backs off when players run at him Overall, do feel that the way some fans single him out is very harsh. Seems some fans just must have a scapegoat for everything !

I thought you had agreed on the word 'progressed' ?

Loving it. For a couple of seasons totally fell out of love with football in general. Got fed up with sitting in the pub with my mates after another dreadful Saturday afternoon moaning and going home miserable. Ended up jacking in the season tickets and getting season tickets for local theme park so i could spend better hours with the kids. Now its all about football again AND i take my boy and girl to St Marys instead of the theme park. Much more of a feel good factor. Is nice to be talking about 442, 451, who should be in / out side rather than the behind the scenes politics and who is fleecing who ! Long may the new regime and feel good factor continue.

Funny, i was just reading the times link for the 50 greatest Saints players and thinking what a great list of players and what great times. Strange that one of the common links for A LOT of those players is that they signed for Lawrie. I'm not a big fan of how in recent years he seems to fall back on Southampton when nothing else seems available to him as this does appear at times to be looking for a bit of a meal ticket BUT you CANNOT dispute the fact that as far as his actual service to the club he should be regarded as a legend. I can see where the new board are coming from trying to eradicate the 'politics', IMO it was needed and it does seem a shame that likes of LC & LM allegedly do not attend because they are now being asked to pay BUT do we really know thats the reason ? I'm not in the know, so not for me to 'criticise' either of them. Don't think any less of both of these guys because the fact (dodgy word to use on this forum ) is they have both contributed to helping SFC.

opinions, opinions..... you will never please everyone but the article was a great read and the author has put his case forward for why each player is in there. Bottom line is, what a great list of players. It does make me very nostalgic and if I was reading this 5 months of go i would have been suicidal thinking of how far the club had fallen. Lets hope some of the new breed can go on and bring us as much joy as all these players have.

Agree with that - not sure what Keegan could offer apart from very short sharp PR boost and quite frankly don't think thats what we need. I think (and i'm willing to be contradicted here), when he went to Newcastle he admitted he had not watched a live game of football for i think 2 yrs - this is not a man who still has his finger on the pulse of all that is happening in football, particularly the lower divisions. Also a man who has walked out on his last few jobs - not a stayer then either

so basically you have limitations as well then

Us fans we are just awful - ALWAYS our fault (sigh, hint of sarcasm etc..) There was plenty of support last night, is it any surprise that WE get on edge when the team again throw away a lead ? MAYBE if our team stopped falling apart and sapping the confidence from the fans things might have been different. MAYBE the team gets the fans they deserve. Sorry but i just hate this poor old players, fans fault stuff that always gets trotted out. There was NO booing during the game, nothing but total support.

i posted the other week and stated i was nervous had a bit of a debate with ST Marco on this issue Also confirmed i liked the work that had been done with the club so far and was not calling for Pardews head. That said - couple of games later and i'm still nervous Not convinced with performances at the moment and the results quite frankly do speak for themselves. The time for excuses (no pre season, new players etc... etc..) is over. The little intricate football being played at times shows that the players ARE getting used to playing with one another but sometimes this tippy-tappy football is over done. As a football fan i never thought i'd hear myself say this but i think at times we need to play more direct football. Other posts have moaned about offsides for Waigo but how many times has that 'killer' ball been delayed ? When was the last time we actually saw a saints player run into space at teams with 10-15yd gap between player and 18yd box ? Everyone else seems to do it against us. We seem to want to walk the ball into the box/back of the net - no wonder Lambert isn't scoring and looks ****ed off (and some posters class this as a lack of commitment !!) IMO We cannot support Spiderman and Adam in same side Full backs can't tackle (really fed up with the back-tracking, hands out by the side crap we are seeing - someone stick a tackle in by the half way line for crying out loud.) Crossing is still poor Corners are worse If we can't sort this out then we will not see much marked improvement. This is league one and just relying on pretty footbal will not win us games - didn't we say the same thing about the dutch experiment ? Lets remember - only win so far has been from 2 penalties (both somewhat debatable) Yes, progress is being made BUT results are not forthcoming. Do i want Pardew out today - NO Am i STILL nervous - Definitely What should we do - I don't know i'm not the manager, Pardew is so lets hope he has some pretty damn good ideas - and soon.

interesting to note that official xbox magazine have an article saying that they have played a better update of PES10 than the download currently available. Say it has something similar to Fifa 10 360 movement system. Says it makes PES10 totally different game to current demo Think i will wait until both games fully reviewed before making a decision BUT on present showing think Konami could have made a major mistake in rushing out a pretty poor demo.

i can see where this ones going - no bites yet though........

When the period of exclusivity was granted was there really any chance that the funds were in place or of Pinnacle completing a deal. And how was exclusivity granted (plenty rumours about when / where money may have come from but very little fact)

couldn't agree more. Lambert won every knock down, good control etc.. You could see Kelvin look for him on every occassion. Unfortunately there is noone to play off him. Saga is too slow to react, only moves AFTER the ball lands, never anticipates (even his diving was a bit delayed ) As for Papa, early days but at least he was willing to have a shot at goal. Before that we were always looking for the extra pass, cross etc.. Lack of shots yesterday was really frustrating. Just can't see what Saga offers at the moment