Rasiak-9-

Fonte has always done better without the armband. I think he feels the pressure a bit too much. Schneiderlin would be my choice. Experience beyond his years, runs around and leads by example. Confident enough to put his mouth about. Legitimately important player in the starting XI too so not just a leader without decent footballing ability.

I didn't expect to but I actually mostly agree with you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

- £2000 season tickets. - Arsenal still representing the working class of Finsbury Park and their area of North London. Choose.

When you pull on a shirt for a club like Saints, you're not representing a footballing corporation-sized monster like Manchester City or Chelsea that don't really represent their local community so much as the massive club (that doesn't really even need a fanbase) they've become. Nor do you represent a club like Arsenal or Manchester United that have grown so large and are so well-supported all over the world that they no longer really represent their community or local area so much as their own large identities as national-sized football clubs with most of their fans in east Asia. What you do represent however is the city of Southampton, its people, its community, its industrial history and the traditional local support on which our club will always be built. The doctors, nurses, porters, kids etc.etc. I truly think that the hospital trips are as good for the players as they are for the staff and sick kids. A fantastic thing to unite around that makes me very, very proud to support our club.

What exactly defines "terrace culture". What sort of behaviour/style/mannerisms do you feel we lack? I do know what you mean but I'd like to hear you define it (and don't worry, I'm not trying to peg you as someone backing violence or anything, I mean in that respect take a look at the absolute racket the fans make in Germany despite the fact that the vast majority of them certainly seem to be quite civilized when away from the game.)

Looks a little gangly and goofy but is actually a bloody decent winger. Pace has always worried us so him being out is useful.

Rodriguez was a ridiculous rip-off. Mayuka is a good player who doesn't fit the system, so a stupid buy for a club like us - genuinely think he's a good player though Yoshida was 2m and you get what you pay for, he's not great but then again he's not terrible. Has potential. Got good fight in him I guess. Gazza - ditto Yoshida. Potential, but not a first-teamer.

Definitely take Distin! Don't much fancy Silvestre though, he's a free agent for a reason.

Yeah I mean Liverpool are hardly going to be particularly enthused about beating Southampton at home I'm afraid. Look at the number of wins we had last season and the season before that where you could hear a pin drop in SMS because a comfortable win was expected.

Beat me to it. What an embarrassing thread title. If fans of any other clubs saw this we'd be mauled for it, glad you got in with the appropriate response nice and quickly!

Retarded signing. Obviously Adkins had decided early on in the season that we were going 4-5-1 and Mayuka is equally obviously a through-the-middle striker who plays on the shoulder of the last man alongside a big man in a 4-4-2. Ironically I actually really like Mayuka and would have liked to see us use our cup matches to test something like a 4-4-2 with Rodriguez and Mayuka up front, but no, we missed that chance as well. I've complained about Adkins signings a fair bit I know (especially with respect to the keeper situation) but bloody hell it is true, we really did screw up our transfer window very badly. £11 odd million on our bench in backups when we don't have a solid CB or GK. Enough to make you weep.

Your blame should be entirely on Adkins not sorting it out in the summer.

You spin round, take two or three steps forward and control the ball on your chest instead of standing still and letting it bounce up to bollock level as you put it. You don't let it bounce and you don't take chances. Hope that explanation helps your understanding.

Against Swansea it was 1/2 and 1/2 with Yoshida. Yoshida should have taken it on his chest and ****ted it away into row Z in the Itchen. Against QPR Clyne didn't close down the cross and neither Fonte nor Yoshida got anywhere near Hoilett. Tonight we had a whole half of football to score one single goal that would have won us the game. Is Gazzaniga good enough for this level (yet)? No, I don't think so. We agree on that. Is it all his fault? Not at all. No way. This is scapegoating in the extreme.

The one thing I would say here is that its hardly Gazzaniga's fault that he at 20 years of age is being picked to start in the position of greatest responsibility for a team in the toughest league in the world. When he was brought here? What was on offer? I'd be very surprised if he was told from the start that he could expect to feature much. I think the plan originally was to get Boruc in, have Davis as number 2 and loan Gazza (who clearly has potential - that save against Newcastle was one of the best I've ever seen in live football -TV didn't do it justice at all) to a Hull/Bristol City/Charlton or whoever to get him some experience (still 2 leagues higher than where he had last played) I am getting frustrated at the slating that he has received here. I know a lot of posters it seems were delighted when he screwed up tonight just to prove their point, especially after his save against Newcastle spoilt their chance to spend their Sunday evening *****ing and moaning about him. Look, point is that the buck stops with Adkins on this issue. This should have been sorted in the summer, we had £30 c*nting million to spend and considering we blew 4m of that on a striker that Adkins obviously doesn't want and who doesn't fit into the system we could have signed a half-decent experienced keeper. If you put your 8 year old son in charge of the evenings cooking its hardly his fault when the house goes up in flames. Know what I mean?

Oh god yeah there's no doubt that that is our strength, but we don't have that real raw impact winger, an Antonio Valencia type player who is really going to burn past defenders no matter how good they are defensively. You'll see what I mean when we play teams like Chelsea, its also why I don't think that Lallana is an international player just yet. Its one thing cutting inside Danny Simpson when you have Gaston Ramirez drawing most of the attention of the opponents, it is quite another taking on Dani Alves/Phillip Lahm/etc. one-on-one.

I think what we lack (and still do to an extent) is wingers who can run at a full-back one-on-one and take them on, beating them for strength, pace and power like Chamberlain used to. Ramirez, Lallana and Puncheon can twist and turn and cut inside but I wouldn't fancy them one-one-one head-on against a central defender with no support. I'm talking about players like fat Ronaldo in his pomp. He'd just knock it past his opponent and burn them for pace, even if they could catch him, they'd simply bounce off him as he was so strong and one-on-one he could blast it past the keeper with either foot. Now obviously he's the perfect example and it'd be impossible to sign players of his quality, but we do still lack that kind of player. We've had a number of 3/4-on-3/4 counter-attacks throughout our past 3 matches that we should probably be making more of if you want to be critical.

Think Schneiderlin getting a chance for France is more likely/deserved. Lallanas a great player but the problem is that he's always going to struggle at International level where full-backs are expert at dealing with tricky wingers and most of whom would have him for strength/pace. Problem with Lallana is that he doesn't quite have that really electric pace that would enable him to play in a 4-4-2. If we played Carroll on his own up front with Rooney in behind in a 4-5-1 then Lallana could have a chance in the squad, but he won't beat Ashley Young for a spot on the left wing.

Mix of issues. Femenazi media drums it into women that being a homemaker and having children is somehow selling out no matter how happy they might be. A combination of men displayed in adverts/tv shows/films as incompetent foolish idiots that deserve to be mocked or taken advantage of alongside men being more-or-less castrated in terms of masculinity being looked down upon across all western media. This is all alongside the Twilight/Fifty Shades generation of books and films telling women that no matter who they are and regardless of their own character, they're all entitled to a perfect/mythical/fantastical man. The family unit is being slowly broken down (as if somehow saying that a standard Mum/Dad/kids/Dad earns the money Mum stays at home and provides security for the children family being a positive thing = slating single mothers) Slagging around is regarded as being the sign of a strong independent woman. So as a young man (as I am) you're given a simple choice, pair off with one of these entitled brats, or basically spend your teens and twenties ****ging around and having fun. So its of course a no-brainer, meaning that when people do get married its often later in life when they've basically "settled" for one another and aren't really in love. From a young man's point of view its never going to be tricky to get laid but its bloody hard to find a nice girl in all honesty. Essentially its a lot to do with Western media and culture being one of so much entitlement and consumerism that both men as well as women objectify each other and are never really satisfied.

Thank God you're not the manager and have no influence on our club.

I've heard that he's literally nowhere to be found and that many people have tried to contact him for various interviews and sports comedy programs. He really is completely off the grid apparently. Could well have a fake identity now and no-one would be any the wiser.

This is actually good news, he'll probably be a bit of a "homer", not wanting to draw too much attention to himself and not wanting to give too many decisions that'll raise many eyebrows. Best result for him probably (I mean at the end of the day he's only human) is a 2-0 bread-and-butter Saints win where everyone shrugs and goes home.

Gazza made an error of judgement but his natural goalkeeping ability is obviously there for all to see, with his saves against Villa and Fulham proving crucial. His confidence with his feet also means that our centre-backs are happy to backpass it to him, which is vital when we come under pressure. Stick with him.

It could work but the problem is simply that we don't know how to defend as a unit. We're not used to it. For the past 3 seasons our defensive strategy has been just don't-give-the-ball-away-and-besides-which-we'll-outscore-our-opponents-anyway. We aren't used to/aren't built for ACTUALLY defending Even with those numbers back defending a low cross or shot pinged into our box would still cause a ****load of panic, probably resulting in more goals from someone playing everyone onside/giving a penalty away deflecting the ball away from the keeper.