benjii

It's an opinion Shurlock. Of course it will have some bias. For the record, I expect a lot of people will have a similar opinion.

Percy Verance is a right ****, I'll grant you that.

This thread is better.

Actually, the Tories shouldn't attend at all if May won't do it. They either want to be part of it - in which case May should be there - or they don't, in which case it's nonsense to send along a non-leader to a leader's debate.

That would be silly, meaning that when Austin next gets injured we will only have one striker. We should try and move on Long and Jay Rod and sign someone else good. But not Max Kruse.

No, no, no... What you do is get a load of forwards (big old bruisers; built like a brick ****house; send the keeper and the ball flying into the net) in the other team's box then GET IT IN THE ****ING MIXER. I know it's a bit avant garde but all the best sides will be doing it soon.

You must have the same source as me mate. I can confirm all the above is DEFINITELY A FACT. Also, expect a departure or two. Can't give names, for obvious reasons.

Max Kruse isn't good enough.

Bad choice from the Tories to send Amber Rudd along tonight. She's awful. Not even "shrill", just awful. Should have sent BoJo for the laughs.

Yeah, I couldn't believe we'd spoken to Tony Adams either!

Are his interviews entertaining? After all, that's really important.

I just can't see it. The Tories might not get a huge landslide but how are they going to lose their majority? Who are the people who voted for them last time going to vote for this time to cause them to lose seats? And they will hoover up a lot of UKIP votes and probably make gains in Wales and Scotland. Unless Corbyn has mobilised a load of new voters, I just can't see it.

He has been in prison for 12 counts of indecent assault. The latest trial was for further charges. He wasn't cleared, the jury couldn't reach a verdict. The CPS have decided not to bother seeking a retrial. Now he's served his time, he's out

In this case, I suspect that is something of a moot point.

No, I'm Heisenberg and Batman.

Fair play for having the balls to defend such utter horsesh it.

Like what? Tell us then....

I think with Fonte he might have had some interest from big clubs at the start of the season but we didn't want to sell and didn't expect unprofessional behaviour from him (I don't know if there was any, but we wouldn't have expected it, either way). By the time the Jan window came around it was obvious he was going downhill and it was obvious to us we should get rid so we needed a stupid club like West Ham to oblige us....! Bertrand, I can understand wanting a move. He probably thinks we've peaked and he probably fondly remembers playing in and winning the Champions League final with Chelsea. Just because he had to move down to get regularly matches doesn't mean he shouldn't be ambitious now he's established himself as a top full back. That doesn't excuse being unprofessional though. Again, I've no idea if he is or he isn't, although I have sensed a bit of a drop off in performance from him in the latter stages of the season.

Maybe he isn't a very good manager but that does not, in any way, justify open hostility of unprofessional behaviour at public events, like the awards dinner. If they hate Puel and want to leave then good for them but in the meantime they can do their ****ing job properly and show some respect. The people saying, "we all act like ****s if we don't like our boss" are just showing themselves up, to be honest.

"Football clubs strive to identify managers to fit into their respective ambition. Rarely is the right choice made in what is an unpredictable science." Astonishingly poor drivel as usual from Factless.

Who's the Norwegian?

I'm more worried about player turnover / recruitment than the manager. As someone else said, whenever we've had lots of departures in previous summers we still had a strong core of dependable players. Even in the "meltdown" summer I wasn't too worried because we had Fonte, Wanyama, Morgan, Davis, Clyne and they were all consistent 7 or 8 out of 10 ers. It looks like there's a possibility of at least two of our back 4 leaving. The you have Gardos, who we must surely be looking to move on, and we're potentially left with two centre backs, Pied, Targett and McQueen. At a minimum we would need to sign two centre backs and a right back. The throw into the mix an underperforming keeper and you do worry about our defensive organisation. Fortunately, I would say Puel and Black, whatever you think of them, do seem capable of drilling a side to play in an organised way, which should prevent next season being too calamitous at the back. Of course, if we replaced them with someone who is not so good at that..... Then we really do need to strengthen in midfield and get rid of and replace some deadwood up front. We could bring in the best manager around but if they have to cope without VVD, Bertrand, Cedric and without proper strengthening in midfield and upfront then they aren't going to be improving much, if at all, on this season.

Yeah, they could. If the owners wanted to do that, and Zola and Terry wanted to do that, it could happen.

Like Pochettino and Koeman did 90% of the time...?

This is correct. I like the idea that we should implement "exciting football", as if this is a common phenomenon in the Premier League and some sort of glorious Saints tradition. The fact is that very few Premier League teams play more exciting football than us. Most of the teams below us play proper ****e football. What people really wish is that we'd scored a few more goals. Which is quite reasonable but something entirely different. The most exciting things about Koeman's teams were Mane and Pelle. Occasionally we had matches where everything clicked and we battered teams but goals breed goals and the problem this year has been not converting when on top and then conceding with the opposition's first attack. Plus missing penalties! The most unexciting football I have seen from Saints in a long time was the turgid long-ball crap served up by Koeman at times. There was nothing exciting about our 3-2 comeback win against Liverpool until Mane single-handedly undid them. We were terrible and lucky they weren't well out of sight at half time. There was nothing exciting about our 6-1 league cup defeat. There was nothing exciting about the two tactically inept performances against Midjetyland. There was nothing exciting about the embarrassing display away to Bournemouth. There was nothing exciting about the FA Cup beating by Palace or the narrow scraping through over two monotonous and poor performances against Ipswich in the previous round. I wasn't very excited when Sheff Utd knocked as out of the League Cup the year before. The fact is, the league was always going to be unexciting this season once it became evident we had nothing to play for - which was some time ago. The EFL cup run was very exciting. Goals are the problem. So, the real question is: do you want to finish 8th or 13th and score more goals. Well, ceteris paribus, that would mean conceding more as well. Either way neither 8th, nor 13th, is likely to be very exciting. Relegation battles are exciting. Winning things is exciting. Qualifying for Europe is exciting.