Rasiak-9-

All jokes aside - The OP has a point - This has been a worse start than anyone expected

To be fair i've spoken to a Col U supporting mate of mine who's gutted about Hammond leaving and reckons he'll be a great signing for us - besides - Wilkins knows him well from his time at Brighton, and I'd be far happier getting in experienced players than highly rated but totally untested young 'uns from bongo bongo land

hmm...this may be pushing it a bit Mr Liebherr but is there any chance we could just thump in with the best part of a million for Simeon Jackson? Gillingham would no way be able to turn that down and that'd give a c/ship level front two completely sorted for at least the next 3 years - and with the kids like Paterson coming through that'd basically mean we can consider the strikeforce essentially done and dusted.

God i know

This is the thing though - Wotton never DOES offer muscle and toughness because his positioning sense is so bad and is so damn slow that he's never there to make the tackle when it counts. Coupled with the fact that he slows our attack the **** down EVERY FRICKIN TIME HE GETS THE BALL it makes him a completely useless player. Get a decent foil in so Schneiderlin can play his passing game - because in Morgan I think we do have half of a very good central midfield

We need two new CBs and a box-to-box CM in NOW. Once we've got the spine of the team sorted out with those ^ plus Davis in goal and Lambert leading the line we should be ok to push on.

Good one!

He's infinately better than Wotton but Pards will wanna keep Wotton in the team as he's very big, brutal and vocal and of course adds experience. The fact that Gillett is by a far the better footballer and actually through his better positioning, speed, tackling and touch ends up adding far more toughness to our midfield than Wotton ever could seems to have been missed by Mr. Pardew. This is the thing, whilst Gillett and Schneiderlin don't go in with a crazy crunching tackle every five minutes and rarely foul their opponents doesn't mean they can't defend well. Often them being aware and composed enough to nick the ball away in the tackle and make quick interceptions is the best defensive asset we actually have. Course when Wotton gets involved, we see a big mad crunching tackle. With Wotton its not what you see but what you don't see thats the problem. You tend not to notice a player being out of position or easily bypassed in midfield because of his lack of pace and as a result Wottons rarely seen as a particularly weak link. What drives me insane though is Wotton's lack of ability to play a pass without taking at least 3 touches and 2 or 3 seconds to look up for a player, which slows our attack down every time we get the sodding ball and DOES make him stick out like the inept but good-intentioned yet unfortunately inadequete CM that he is.

Jackson would compliment Lambert perfectly the little and large/fast and tough combo would be trouble for any defence.

He's a fantastic defender with an absolute bastard of a free-kick on him. If Pardew could just get it through his head that one should NOT TUG SHIRTS OR PUT YOUR ARMS AROUND PLAYERS IN THE FRIGGIN PENALTY AREA then we've got a top-end c/ship level CB in him. ...he's actully quite quick too and can often dribble and pass the ball out of defence effectively

mm - way too good for our level i'm afraid - possibly one to go for next year if we get promotion

When you think about it - Sunderland had 0 points from their first 4 games the season they were promoted and Leeds made the play-offs with a minus 15. Burnley got promoted last season despite 6 losses on the bounce so all we really need is to have a season like they did without going on an awful run and we should have every chance of making the play-offs. Put it this way - without a -10 I'm sure people on here would be hopeful of a top 2 finish. Most teams that finish in the top 2 would finish in the play-offs if you took 10 away from them at the end of the season. - I reckon we can do it.

We've got the big, 6'3 target-man bully in who can shoot from long range and score headers - no denying that the best thing to compliment him would be someone like Jermaine Beckford/Kevin Lisbie/Simeon Jackson - i.e a fast nippy centre-forward who's going to race through and slot home one on one whilst Lambert can whack em in from long range and get the headers - in truth we've had neither type of striker for the past 2 years so I guess we're halfway there.

Still a good song though - really hope we can get it going FFS PEOPLE IT ENCOURAGES PLAYERS WHEN THEY HEAR THEIR NAMES SUNG AND MAKES THEM ENJOY PLAYING FOR SOUTHAMPTON MORE IT DIRECTLY BENEFITS THE TEAM so quit your moaning and start singing - great song OP

they said the same thing about Steve Howard to be fair.

The full back positions are sorted (definately left-back at least) and Thomas is ok but we need another CB to replace Perry

As already mentioned there was a HUGE fight outside the fat cat at around 5 - a good 50 or so millwall fans went after 10 or so who wisely chose to scatter two guys did get the **** kicked out of them and there was blood everywhere - it could have been a lot worse had two police vans, 5 cars and a few cars with dogs in the back not shown up sharpish well done to the police today - things could have been a LOT worse had they not shown up cos that really was mental

People The reason we aren't spending money is because SHOCK HORROR! a player worth 1/2 million isn't going to play in bloody league 1!!! its bloody simple

This really is a bloody good signing I have to say - we've needed a big blick brute at the back for like 2 years now. NOW SAINTS LISTEN pleeeeeease don't rest on your laurels - we now need another centre-back - this time a faster, more athletic type, to compliment Jaidi and mark those bags of pace you get up front whilst Jaidi can be free to mark target men and rush forward and bash any aerial threats away and not be worried about whether he's covered or not. do this, and we are ****ing SORTED at the back. PLEAAAAASE don't do half-measures like we always do

Just thought I'd c+p my entry on a diff forum when asked questions about your respective team for the various season - wondered what people thought/agreed/disagreed Happy with players in? **** no, Dan Hardings a good championship left-back but he's been the one and only signing so far. We need players and fast, especially as Rasiak and Saganowski understandably want to leave. Its looking possible that we'll be signing Lee Trundle and Rahdi Jaidi too who would both make good additions and of course we've had Murty on trial for a few weeks, but he still hasn't signed. So far we've signed only one player to add to a squad that was deservedly relegated and has had several players leave to boot. We're in big trouble the way things stand. Happy with players out? Again, **** no. McGoldrick, Euell, BWP and John have all headed off to pastures new leaving our forward line threadbare with only Saga and Rasiak available up front (neither of whom want to be here) Our only options are two kids Matt Paterson (who looks ok tbf) and Jamie White. In midfield we've lost Skacel and Surman from our left side and have lost Jan-Paul Saeijs who looked a great prospect at centre back. All in all we're severely ****ed until we sign some players, the euphoria of the takeover and ejection of Lowe and then getting in the new manager has numbed the fact that our squad is hideously weak. Where do you think you'll finish this season? A frustrating season at low mid-table threatens unless we get our **** together fast. However if we CAN convince Rasiak and Saga to stay, sign players like Jaidi, Murty and possibly Lee Trundle and hopefully get a good start under our belt , and really build our season up as a promotion push despite everything, then play-offs is a possibilty - i don't think we can really make a judgement till the halfway stage with our squad being in transition, as well as the -10.

But lets be honest - do we even have pacy midfielders? Pardew seems to favour two holding midfielders in the centre (two out of Gillett/Schneiderlin/Wotton) and put Lallana out wide. On the left we've got Joseph Mills and honestly, neither of those wingers is actually that fast at all - Lallana never takes on players anymore and when carrying the ball is slowed down terribly. As for Mills, he simply isn't that quick. We really would have just NO attacking pace. We need a speed demon in the mould of someone like Patrick Agyemang or Ivan Sproule in soon - as with both of those examples, they don't even have to be THAT talented - just a threat purely because of their physical attribute of speed.

Hmm, not sure about that, that really would give us no pace/movement at all up front, allowing the opposition to push their back line as far forward as they liked. This is what happens when Saga and Rasiak play together - because they haven't got the pace and the opposition defenders can defend so high up they often end up having to beat their players twice and lose the ball. When Rasiak or Saga played with Jones or BWP they managed to find space between the back four and midfield thanks to the threat of a pacy striker running through which forced the defenders back. Trundle and Rasiak may both be good players - but if they wind up recieving the ball when they're still 40 yards from goal we'll seriously struggle going forward

Well he's not exactly a bag of pace or a physical target man, but he does have a good touch and adds a bit of creativity and trickery to the team - and he's not afraid to have a go from distance either, something we've been lacking for far too long has been a striker who's willing to friggin whack it

If i was Onyewu i'd genuinely just laugh it off and say something like "we both know you wouldn't ****ing dare say that if you weren't safe on a football pitch"

Why only 300k to spend? surely we can splash as much cash around as we Herr Liebherr likes? Anyone know what his weekly wage limit for one player would be roughly? I wouldn't expect him to be willing to pay more than 12 a week for any one player although I heard Rasiaks on 15 yet hopefully won't be sold - anyone ITK/can make a genuinely educated better guess than mine?