up and away

You are right, he just has to keep working at it, we haqve little other choice at the moment. This lean patch is down to physical problems not confidence and we have little hope of an automatic spot without that 30 goal striker. We won't be selling him as no one will want him in his current state and we will want him when he comes good. That does not mean we can let this go on for much longer.

The whole team was poor, especially the midfield. That said, swap the goalies around and we would have won that one. I waited for the replays before I commented upon the second goal and it just confirms my original thoughts. That would not have been a goal if Kelvin comes for the ball. I am not looking to replace kelvin, that is up to Adkins. He's a good enough keeper for this division, nowhere near as good as the Brentford keeper and something that needs changing if we get to the CCC.

No surprise to see you not assign any criticism to Adkins derry. You were a vocal critic of Pardew who has gone and beaten Liverpool in his first game in charge of a Premiership club. You lauded Adkins, but he has not shown why he deserves your praise yet. If the players are not motivated in the first half (why should that even be so) I expect him to fix it at half time in the dressing room. I can accept losing matches, but I hate seeing us lose matches without even bothering to turn up. The manager can't change the players at will but he should be able to change their attitudes. Very worrying. I really miss Pardew, I think we would be doing better with him at the helm, before he was sacked I expected us to be promoted. Now, I just hope we can be, the expectation has gone. The reason we are in this mess is because of Pardew, do you really believe the team would be playing any better under Pardew with the damage he did in pre-season? ludicrous! Yes it was a disappointment, but change the two keepers around and we would have won that! The one change I would have considered is replacing Morgan with Gobern, but I doubt we would see anything else of Morgan this season. Adkins has a difficult job making it to the time we can get in new players, without doing too much damage. The reason we lost that game was because Kelvin screwed up for both goals, the obvious and not coming off his line for the second. Their keeper made a couple of excellent saves and we looked poor because the midfield never gave us any control. This midfield that has had this weakness from the beginning that Pardew did nothing about, only since Adkins brought in Chaplow has there been any improvement. The centre backs are sticking their chewing gum on the back of Ricky before going up for headers, safe in the knowledge it will still be there when they come back without having to wander off looking for him. We don't have that 30 goal striker in our team anymore, just a frucked up replica that we have to nuture back to fitness and form.

This is a very interesting point and one worthy of serious debate IMO. We heard all the usual diatribe from Adkins before the game about how the team were so "up for it" and ready...how the rest had done a few players good. And yet we're served up one of the worst performance ever to grace SMS. So perhaps Adkins tinkers with tactics too much - so much that the players just get confused? Or perhaps Puncheons opinions about his ex-manager are the tip of the iceberg and Adkins has lost the changing room? Do we have another Poortvleit on our hands with Adkins - nice guy but doesn't command the respect of the players? One thing is f'sure, something is not right with the camp - there are too many supposedly good players for this league not pulling their weight and not performing. Your right, things are not 100% in the camp at present. In this case we had important players in Lambert and Barnard not able to perform because of injuries going back to Pardew. We have a star player in Fonte not available and in Brentford, we met the wrong team at the wrong time. In Brentford we met a young, physical gifted side who worked hard around a simple plan, which we struggled to counter. We had our chances, but we have seen going back to last season, that the midfield including Schiederlin, is just not up to this type of battle. Put Chaplow into the midfield and we may have fared better, but it was going to be a struggle when we neither had Ricky or Barnard to rely upon, Connolley only capable of cameo performances. I don't know what happened with Puncheon, but Adkins kept asking him to play in a manner for the team which he could not deliver. I don't know if there was an attitude problem, but looking back at both of their histories, this seems loaded against Puncheon. As for plan B, Adkins moved the deck chairs around as best as possible, but injuries and suspensions left him down to the bones on this one. When you have a bench which in no way can change a game around, that's when you have no plan B, something not uncommon under Pardew. Yes, this result was poor. Injuries and susensions dictated the team on the pitch and in Brentford, we came up against the wrong team at the wrong time. You still wonder the impact of Kelvin spilling the ball on the eventual outcome, but injuries and suspensions caught up with us against the wrong team yesterday.

Nurse, get his medication sorted out and do something about this mess he's got himself into! The reason we are in this state is because Pardew had full control, did things his own way and completely bluggered things up to the extent we see at the present. Give Pardew the condition of these players and a Ricky that is so knackered he can hardly score, you will not be seeing the results Pardew had last season. That you can easily confirm by looking at the performances under Pardew for the start of this season, way below previous levels. When you go out on a limb and do things your own way against advice from your own staff, then get proven totally wrong. It comes as no great surprise that the likes of those that warned him, would not take a swing at the bare arse he left sticking up. You can blame Cortese for allowing Pardew to do this, but you are arguing the opposite. Adkins has no problem with any of the staff, only praise and I only hear his decisions on the squad. All the problems we are seeing now, is down to the disastrous pre-season under Pardew. Reed may well have poked his nose in and warned of the consequences, but Pardew got his own way. Cortese did decide this was sufficient to launch his arse down the road and I won't fault either of them for coming to that decision, given what Pardew did.

One of life's inconsistencies that we all find difficult to rationalise. I was puzzled as you are and posed this question previously. The reason given was this is down to actual costs incurred in processing and all they are doing is passing on the additional cost they are saddled with by the various methods. Something common with most clubs. I am not sure exactly how online tickets are processed, but I get the feeling this involves an outside agency and it is their charge we are paying for, or temporay staff brought in to process this. Although the walk ups create far more problems and issues, it is not adding any cost to the club. Looking at other clubs that do this, it appears the charges increase with less volume, as the smaller clubs charges seem higher in a lot of cases? Many would not be uttering a peep if there was a blanket charge covering all of this and included into a standard ticket price. This just reminds me of the Poll Tax and it's reception by the public. Something inherently far fairer and allocating the costs to those that generate them, but never viewed or accepted as such.

This has resulted from the undermining of the club by the rumours the club was for sale over the last couple of weeks, hardly a past that can be readily forgotten. From all the details that have come out so far, Cortese is specifically talking about ex managers or ex players who were being paid by the club for their "services" in hospitality. Both Wilde nor Crouch never took a salary as far as I know, so that leaves a very restricted few. I am pretty sure Lowe never offered his services when Cortese came in, so that narrows it further. As Cortese said, if they can show they can improve the profitability of the club by their employment, then he would look at it. From his milking comments, it's obvious that the money paid out previously just increased losses, rather than helping reduce them. I don't expect these rumours came from these ex managers or ex players, but a lot of those that congregate around them would be definitely in the frame. So when Cortese gets some feedback on the source and those they associate with, it's not unwarranted to point the finger in that direction. As for the Mirror, they have already apologised and offered a retraction, so not really an issue.

It was more than trainning I think. Pardew old school manager wants control of all team matters, NC building new style lots of different people in control of different bits of the team = not going to work. I don't believe it was all happy families then summer comes and everyone falls out. More like a constant build up of pressure which final came to ahead but should have been sorted sooner. I don't believe it was anything more than this, on top of the disagreement Pardew had on priorities. The reason Pardew got into this mess was because he had full control and was able to over rule other staff that had their concerns. When the damage was done, I expect the knives were out and Pardew had that dead man walking approach. I don't feel if it was ever happy families, but Pardew definitely had the whip hand to allow himself to get into that mess in the first place. Cortese has already covered this previously. Where he states that if you want me to pay you £90k? for your services, show me the money you will bring in for this. Now when you consider that will be based upon profit, that's a tall order which none of them could justify.

There is nothing going on that doesn't go on at ever club up and down the country every day. The difference is NC can't take any sort of criticism and is paranoid and/or has very thin skin. Half of his interview was about "others, outside the club" FFS It's time NC grew a pair. 99.9 % of Saints fans aren't even aware that "others" are criticising NC. Which just illustrates NC's paranoia further. It does go on at many clubs, but that in no way makes it right, just a reflection of the numpties that attach themselves to football clubs. This has nothing to do with criticism or paranoia, this is to do with gossip influencing the clubs plans and future. Because of the consequence of such gossip, it is no exageration to describe this as malicious, whatever the original intent. We have two instances where Cortese has responded to these rumours and for good reason. First the rumours regarding Pardew had to be addressed, such the plans already agreed and laid out did not require major change by the manager being unsettled. Now our plans were unsettled when Pardew got the sack and you can see the effect they had. Cortese had no idea that Pardew would run the players into the ground during pre-season, against the advice of medical and other staff, resulting in his sacking. Secondly, it should not be too difficult for you to figure out that any major sponsorship negotiations would be seriously effected by rumours in the national papers of the club beig sold. Paranoia maybe, phissed off definitely and definitely grounds for complaint.

I don't think it was deliberate, but obviously a break down between Pardew and other members of staff. At the start of the season I imagine that Pardew realised he had screwed up and I have little doubt those that warned him previously were now laying into him. This would explain his demeanour and that writing on the wall outlook that he carried with him. This would also explain why someone as Leftback would be criticising Reed so heavily. I can't see Lallana doing nigh on a full match in a meaningless cup game, then to get taken off injured in the weekend league match helped his cause either.

Cortese is slightly overdoing things with “dark forces”, but I can see the implications this could have on any ongoing sponsorship negotiations. You get certain type of hangers on around football clubs, a lot wanting some form of involvement for whatever reason, but mainly financial. You have ex players, ex managers, ex employees, friends and relatives of those all wanting something to various degrees. When you look at the period between Wilde and Cortese there were a lot of people sniffing around the club and the players (especially the academy), offering all sorts of services that were designed for their pocket, not the good of the club. These people tended to gravitate towards prominent figures of the time, though it would be remiss to say this was anything organised or designed. If anyone has been to one of the smaller Irish dog tracks, that’s the sort of environment we are talking about. All this has now stopped, but the lure of being involved with a football club like Saints is a powerful stimulant for these people, why I have no idea, some just are desperate to be in the know. Sneaked glances of letterheads that get passed on then get recycled into proven theories that end up in the gossip columns. Now for Cortese coming from his previous working environment I can understand his bewilderment of these actions and rumours, he just does not understand why people who proclaim to support the club would do such things. I can understand why he is justifiably ****ed off with those that promoted the sale rumour, as it’s influence on any possible sponsorship deal could be very costly. I have very little inside information from the current regime and most of what I do hear has to be guesswork at best. As with the sale rumour, it was more than possible that Cortese was known to have involvement in some degree with outside of the club involving finance. You then shuffle the bits about and have a stab in the dark, the dramatists choose this as proof the club was being sold where it was not difficult to see this as being related to sponsorship, as I said at the time. What does perplex me is that we have had posters on here first relay the information about Pardew and previous knowledge of “the sale”, then question who is the source? Well if they don’t know, little chance for the rest of us. I don’t know of anyone who has any reliable information from Cortese, he just does not play this game and what you hear in public is as good as it gets. You get the odd indicator which always gets spun to the worst scenario for some reason. Leftback certainly had information coming back from the training ground, but you had to filter that against and tenuous link to Les Reed and adjust accordingly. Very surprised he never mentioned that Pardew ran the players into the ground during pre-season, such they were of no value for a long time to come, some still not. This against advice from a couple of concerned parties at the time, yes it’s not difficult to figure out who these parties were leftback. For those like me, that have been wondering upon the two issues of why Pardew really got the sack and why the team looked so arse at the start of the season, this looks like it.

This was what Cortese had to say when responding to comments at the end of last season One of my early actions was to eradicate the politics that had cast a shadow over Southampton for so long. However, it seems that those same people are trying to continue behind the scenes. I can assure the supporters of Southampton Football Club that I will not be influenced or driven by people who seek to harm the Club in the pursuit of personal agendas - whoever they are. Again very similar with his latest statement But Cortese said the reports stemmed from a campaign designed to destabilise the club. He said: "The club is not for sale. There's always been a group behind the scenes with an agenda that's not good." "This is a deliberate attempt to damage the club at this time because we're in negotiations with players and a very important [potential sponsorship] brand." We all know where this is coming from, even to the extent of those that come on here to give succour to these rumours. We would be far better served if these muppets went and bestowed their support to Bournemouth.

I prefer standing and in most all seater stadiums can't see a big issue in implementing a limited proportion for standing. But I can't see a cat in hells chance of getting this through on safety grounds, something I can readily accept.

I still believe we will do very well with the Liebherrs, but Markus could have spent CL money on us. Cortese is the glue that hold everything that is left together. Without his influence and ambition for the club there is not a lot left. Cortese is especially important to the club, even more so than before.

Just because Pardew gives it the Yes Sir, me Sir, routine before the seat is cold, is no indication that he will even be interviewed. Bad news for us? you would be better off with a tenuous link to the cricket.

Just imagine Micky Falka sells his stamp collection, goes down the back of the couch and manages to convince others he is the man. All of a sudden you are in that well known stretch of water, though I don't believe the Liebherrs would do that. What I find intriguing, is that Cortese approaches a local business man, instead of going where actual money resides. These local businessmen who never had the contents to come in before Liebherr, but have suddenly found the capital to trump all of that. I don't know where this latest rumour has come from but am pretty sure about leftbacks previous source regarding Cortese taking the family to court, speculation at it's best. I agree to a certain extent that there is no smoke without fire, but I get the feeling the smoke and the fire are in two different locations here. I think the family are looking to scale back the amounts Markus was prepared to spend on the club and Cortese is looking at outside help / sponsorship to help out. What the position will be of the family if we can't make up that shortfall I do not know. I am pretty sure Saints are well provided for by Markus, but I cannot see that as near the figure I might have expected him to spend off his own back. If you have recipients of Markus's will not bothering to watch the Saints, it's only logical they would not overly supportive from their own pocket. It would not surprise me if Cortese has a significant although not biggest share of the Liebherr estate, because he certainly seems to be acting in unison with the other family members over Mali. I still do not believe anyone has the confidence of Cortese. They may be able to tell where he has been, who he has talked, but are just filling in the blanks and coming out with their own interpretation. My own feeling would be if there cannot be agreement from the family of finance to advance the club, you would see a scenario as with Jack Walker and Wolves.

Why not take in all that was posted " merits or significance". You don't think Ted would fit in there? It's not just considering the individual case, it's all the others who feel their case has been slighted by not receiving the same attention. What you end up with then is prominence for those that shout the loudest, not the meritocracy. Saints were at the Dell for all of the 20th century, so why was no plaque attached to any of the gas works? As I said, this is hardly Saints related until we moved there 60 years later. I have no problem with anyone doing this, but cannot for the life of me see any reason why anyone of our previous chairman at St Mary's should be castigated for not doing this.

This is totally dumb, why should anyone be ashamed? I would imagine in the 40's if all those men that died were local, they would be Saints fans. This was no supporters trust meeting that got bombed, so this is no different to all those other tragically lost lives due to war, something remembered by war memorials all across the country. I expect if you care to look their will be a lot more, even heroic deaths in Southampton during the war that never got the recognition such as this. We have seen this multiple time in the past where charities, loved ones that have passed away want the club to honour their own cause, irrespective of it's merits or significance. Well done to Cortese, but these few exceptions will never keep everybody happy. One of the whole points of having the "bricks" was precisely to cover these sort of things (yes, as well as making money).

He was certainly of use in that game, but if you are considering using him in a 451 formation at the present, it looks a total waste of time. If you think everything is ok, you are sadly deluded, just the stats should be enough. We have to manage this in the best way possible, such we still are in with a chance when we can solve any issues in the January window. That means dropping Ricky when the formation or the game does not favour him. We will soon notice when he is back on form and there has been no lack of confidence in some of his build up play. Ricky shows no signs of wanting to leave and Adkins has shown no sign of wanting to let him go. As soon as Ricky gets back to last seasons form, then use him all the time, otherwise don't make this any worse than what it has to be. One simple observation, we won't get automatic promotion continually playing the Ricky of this season. We need to get back the Ricky of last season or find someone else to help him out.

That does not add up for me. This has been going on for a long time now and if Adkins believed it was down to attitude, he would have done something about it. You only have to look at the way he celebrates with the rest of the team to see it means something to him and most go to Ricky when celebrating their goal, even if he is not involved. The most striking thing for me is his inability to jump. Now and again puts in something along the lines of what we have seen previously, but nowhere near the same overall. Adkins has said a couple of things on saints player in the past regarding Ricky and has been fully supportive of him, something he would not do for someone swing the lead. He mentions his struggles to get fit at the beginning of the season, briefly mentioning groin and knees. Subsequently saying we don't all know what is going on behind the scene with injuries and something he would not elaborate on further for giving ammunition to the opposition. Bearing in mind he openly has mentioned Barnard's and Jaidi's problems several times, looking around the pitch only seems to leave Ricky as a possible.

There were plenty of times last season playing hoofball that Ricky never got a look in, so I don't see that as a reason. Defenders are giving him less space and he is having to track back to find that space, but that's another issue. Our season turned around after Pompey in the cup, with two on form wingers in Puncheon and Lallana pulling defences completely out of shape with their energy and skill, giving Ricky more space when he knew what to do with. Get two games in a week and we could no longer keep those energy levels up and the freedom it gave, Ricky was mainly neutered again. We won't be selling Ricky, you are hardly going to get buyers in his current state and when he does come good, we will want to keep him. There is something physical affecting Ricky's performances and until he gets through that, I don't expect any change. What I cannot understand is the logic in playing him in every game.

There's been nothing wrong with Ricky's passing, his support play has been the only thing keeping him in the side. Adkins has gone out of his way to favour Ricky, but something occurred yesterday to change all of that. There seems to be a silence all round that no one is talking about and I don't believe it's to do with any spat between Ricky and Adkins. There may have been words exchanged but I really doubt that is the root cause. I never went yesterday and can only go on others opinion, but many rate this performance the worst Ricky has been all season. I am wondering whether the cold weather had an impact on Rick's condition and ability to perform? Either way, this seasons Ricky will not be that great a loss and more than likely, improve the team by being dropped away from home. Barnard may be as good a penalty taker but can hardly be better, though Ricky does draw defenders for the other forwards. Adkins has been very supportive in many ways with Ricky and I do feel there is mutual respect between the two of them. Yesterday may have showed that there are limits and we may have got to the point where things are allowed to go no further as they are. But this was a nothing game in the grand scheme, we shall have to wait to find the true position.

Of course he wouldn't. Thinking back someone like Chaplow probably would have been the signing that could have made the difference last season. We really missed Scheniderlin and Hammond when they where injured/suspended. As much as James and Wotton tried they couldn't give the same sort of performances the first choice pair where putting in every week. Shame. Just how could he have played someone he would never have brought in. He even had the opportunity of bringing back Gillett from Doncaster, but allowed him an extension up to sometime in the January window. This midfield position was the biggest problem we had all season and it never even got addressed in the closed season. I really cannot understand why Pardew just let that go on and on.

You seem to have summed him up perfectly, a good link between defence and attack. With the added caveat that he produces minimal assists / goals and defensively suspect.

Technically gifted, but you really have to ask yourself what he contributes. His passing skills are goog, but over all the time he has been with us, have produced next to nothing in goals or assists. Defensively he does not bust a gut to get the right side to be of use and will cost goals because of this. Has improved his tackling but can't let his emotions get him carried away into the hand bags. He's one of those players who shows plenty of promise, never really delivers and you are eternally waiting for him to make the break through.