St Marco

Hehe classic. I've said it too but it falls on death ears. He is not up to this level and that is why he spent most of his career in division 1 and 2. You can see why he was released at Plymouth really. Spends so much time trying to be the general that he forgets his own game. He has been guilty of ball watching and being out of position so often this season and this game was no different. I hate to think what will happen when we come up against teams with actual pace if he gets done by balls over him by slow players. Makes Jermaine Wright looklike Ronaldo at times. However he has a battling attitude and i'd prefer that to DMG's any day of the year.

Well because they should probably be out on the pitch on the training ground learning something? Lookng at the squad i think we had 4 players away. Of which only 1 actually played a game during those 2 weeks. In my view we are not in a position to be able to let people have such time off. Especially since Jan said on the radio that the players don't know how to play another way then 4-5-1 etc.. should be out their teaching them a different way because if they don't learn a plan B the rest of the season will be just as bad as the first quarter of it.

Well that is not what i was told. He let them have 7 days off from 8th to the 15th (weds to weds) due to the 2 week international break.

I agree with Mickey. Can't say we didn't have any luck or it wasen't on our side. We can't use that as the excuse. We were very fortunate to get 2 penalty's like we did. I can't remember the last time i saw that. The goalie was in line with 1 of their defenders so a yellow was correct. Only a red if it is the last man. The two penalty's were shocking. DMG was up there with the worst ones i've seen and Wotten just hit it down the middle. The two penalty's were pretty easy to save. More a lack of skill on our takers part. Even after those penalties the score was still 0-0 not 0-3. What happened was we were poor in defence and poor in control. They knew what they were doing, they came to rough us up and that's what they did. We should of dealt with all three of the goals and we didn't. Kelvin made some good saves and had a 1 on 1 which he stopped. We had few proper chances on goal and the ones we should of taken were down to errors on our behalf i.e DMG and lack of shooting skill. We missed chances Watford would of taken. They had bodies in the box and caused trouble and rather then deal with it we just froze, we were second to the ball. That is not luck. Luck is taking a shot and it is going miles wide but hits someones arse and goes in. Or the ref sends of a player for an imaginary foul etc.. all the things people say is luck was in our own hands. The name of the game is football and we couldn't get our foot on the ball. Simple as that. Lack of skill and poor tactics nothing else.

Indeed. I overheard someone in the row below me (you can probably hear everyone now actually) say "This is a reserve team, a poor one too". I think that really does ring true. We have a young team out there which is out there because we are trying to do everything on the cheap. This season is a huge gamble and it looks like it is back firing. After today's game i think it really is now just a case of hoping Forrest,Doncaster,Norwich and Barnsley continue losing too.

Guess he didn't realise we got our club back now and the real culpruts i.e Big Mac have been removed!

I have it on good authority that in the international break those who were not involved (pretty much everyone) were allowed to go away on holiday. It was Jans decision. Now im not having a go here at Jan or saying what he did is wrong, but surely if your team had been thrashed 1-4 and you had won only 3 times in 10 games (11 if you want to include the cup) they should of been using that time for something better then sun tans?

After listening to his match comments on the way home my answer is no. What he said is disgraceful and shows he has zero understanding of football at this level. I am not calling for the guys head but he cannot come out and talk about how if the players had done what he said they would win. He can't come out and say he left things as they are because they players needed to learn. We need points and we need our home points badly. We are not in a position to be able to have someone with an ego calling decisions like he is. We needed to change system at half time and be positive in our formation. I have lost count now how many times we have been like that this year. We have played pretty much now a quarter of the season and of those games we have been so lucky with the wins. Today showed if you can't take your on a plate chances you are up the creek. What worries me is i just can't see him having the abilities to get the team up to play if it was vital to win a game. If he was in charge of the game last year where we had to get results at West Brom and beat Sheff Utd i just can't see him being the type to put the winning drive into the players. He accepts none of the blame and for at least the last 2 games he is to blame. He needs to get realistic and realise this is not a league where you can play poor at home with negative tactics of 1 up front. You can't play poor players like Wotten in defence who are slow because they will get murdered. This league is so hard to progress in and just throwing the points away as he is with the "there is always next week" attitude will cost us. That is what we did last year and it took the board a run of awful results to realise the direction needed to change. If we get nothing from the Sheff Utd game and more importantly the Swansea game then we have to change system or we will be down. It is what happened in 2003 all over again and while i think Jan is a really nice guy and feel sorry for him he just isn't at this level and because of that we are where we are. We have got rid of players who would of done a much better job. Ostuland,Wright,Safri,Viafara etc.. all did poor last year but the players who have replaced them are even worse.

http://www.ccfc.premiumtv.co.uk/page/SeasonTickets/0,,10269,00.html If you check you see it works in a different way to ours, it is not about tiers it is about time. If you see it says season ticket cost £390 if you buy BEFORE 1st August. So thats in Coventry's case £110 cheaper then ours. Then after that date it goes up to £470 and then £499. Still £144 cheaper then taking a ticket at our club late. Then for people paying on the day the ticket is £22 for an adult. See now Coventry have a named manager and a few good players, think they are in a playoff spot and doin ok. Things have got better for them in comparison to most of us who were near the bottom last year. So in contrast i'd say £390 for a season ticket is quite good value. Are we really being realistic by saying for the early birds you can pay £110 more and the late people can pay £274 more then Coventry fans? That is not right at all. I have said before as a season ticket holder i would be happy to lose the money i have paid this season if they reduce the entry price to something comparable to our actual situation for the people buying tickets. It makes no sense to keep the stadium empty and charge people £24 to £28 to see us play, were not worth that. If the stadium was heaving full of people and there was a high demand to see us play then of course you can charge that. That is what happened at the dell. But times have changed and our position in english football has changed. People today don't see clubs as charitys, they wont give their cash away simply because they support a club. They want value for money and right now they are not getting it. I really hope we have a big turn out tommorow i really do.

Well a lot last season depended on what was happening in the board room in regards to those going for early bird deals. I have to be honest and say i waited before buying mine as was unsure if i would renew or pick and choose games i go to and just pay for those. I think most people thought like that really. And no the performances don't determine if you buy the ticket or not but how much you thik it's worth. If you are a team going for promotion with a team who are established and a manager who is known etc.. then yeah you would pay those prices. Love or hate Burley the season before he had got us to the playoffs and i think paying the prices was justified. Majority of the games we got value for money. However last season was just **** and does not warrent the price people had paid. This season even with the early bird price of £500 that is a rip off. Take into account similar teams. Norwich = £366. (£15 per game) Coventry = £390 (£16 per game) Barnsley = £260 (£11 per game) etc.. etc.. We are a team that is in big trouble with a team largely of last year reserves and a manager who has near zero experience in top league football. Add to that we came off of a season where we survived by the skin of our teeth from going down. You can't sit there and say we should be paying nearly double what teams around us pay is fair? That is just crazy.

Guess i didn't explain it right. They thought the tickets should of become far more cheaper this year. And the people who go to the away games are the ones who go to the home games i.e all season ticket holders. I think it is a very valid point that say we do survive this season (fingers crossed) and your asked to pay £644+ next season (£28 a home game) would you think that was value for money? Most people who didn't buy a season ticket based it on what they saw last season which lets be honest here was pretty bad. A far cry from the season before. But talking about QPR they have some pretty nasty ticket prices this season. I guess that is to do with the new owners? Away tickets were £20 if i remember right? Still cheaper then our home tickets. It would be interesting to see a table of this league's ticket prices and where we would be in comparison. I'm guessing we would be amongst the highest?

Exactly and im sure majority of the fans agree that is how it is. We have had some good times and we are having some bad times. Lowe is a reason for some good and some bad. But so many other people are the same i.e the manager,the players etc.. I dont think there are many glory hunting Saints fans

No of course i don't really hate the guy, i understand his view just i disagree with the way it is presented. It feels like he is saying this is the main problem when it really isn't. Last season i used to attend home games with 6 people. All season ticket holders. They are massive fans of the club and have spent many thousands of pounds supporting them over the years. 3 of them and myself go to regular away games. This season only 3 of us remain for the home games and all still go to the away games. The reason they have stopped going to home games is down to the fact they simply can't afford to pay £28 a game to watch pretty dire games. That works out at 31p a minute to watch our team. That is expensive without including travel and what not. However the away games are cheaper. Look at the Sheff Utd game. That cost £10 to get in. Why are we being asked to pay nearly three times as much to see home games? So as i mentioned it is very few people if any who are not going because of Lowe. I don't think i have met anyone who honestly is not going because of him. I dislike the guy and didn't want him to return. I still go because i love the club. However im pretty certain those who are not going don't care less about the club. My friends who have spent thousands down the years don't now think **** southampton fc. This is what Nick sounds like he is saying. There are so many factors involved with the demise of the attendence that pin pointing the anti-Lowe issue as the issue to be vocal about is just stupid. There are so many other things that need talking about. So many things the fans need to know i.e the state of the finances, why tickets are so high, will players need to be sold in january and so on. So my point was i am pretty certain if the tickets were value for money i.e say £10+ not £28 then we would see many thousands return to the stadium. By calling on the anti-Lowe to forget about their view on him and come back i just can't see being more then a few hundred which wont make much if any difference on the clubs finances such as he implies. So no i don't hate him, i don't know him, so for that i appologise for my imature rant. However i'm tired of his remarks in the paper such as this which in all honesty don't show much understanding of the fans; if he truley believe this is the reason people are not going.

Sorry Ron but i don't buy it. I couldn't care less about this guy and his beliefs. The guy has done a lot of things for the club in terms of campaigning as you say but that does not give him the right to assume he can speak for us. I do a lot of charity work for Cancer does that mean i speak for those people? He should not be saying people should forget about Lowe and go to the games. He is implying the fans are bad. That is totaly wrong. He is implying that those people who are not going are not going because they dislike Lowe, he is implying that if they don't go it is they who are hurting the club. That is just pure ******** and i'm tired of it. The reason people are not going is because of money and the current climate in the financial world. If we had a team full of known names and were doing well the attendences would be a lot higher. If Saddam was in charge and we were 1st in the league the stadium would probably be near full. It is all about value for money and right now we are seeing just how much people are prepared to pay to watch our team. So people might disagree with me such as Carlos, fair enough that is your opinion. My opinion is a bit of campaigning to increase your ego does not make you a better fan then me. And does not give you the right to say those who are not going to games are hurting the club. The prices that the board set are hurting the club because they have priced out a lot of people. So Nick should not be slagging off people and telling them to go regardless of their views on Lowe as that is not the problem. How he gets to that is baffling. Now that is my view, most of you will disagree but that is how i see it. If i was in that position i would be using my resources and position to try and get the prices down. What is the point in having a near empty stadium? It makes more sense to lower the prices by like £5-£10 and have a bigger attendence which makes more money for the club. keeping it at the prices they are now means less gates and less money. That is what i would be doing.

Watford are doing pretty crap at the momment. 1 win in 6 games and a defence that leaks a lot of goals. Normally you would think they would be there for the taking. But this is Southampton and teams seem to end their bad spells by beating us ala Coventry. However i think Watford have similar problems to us where scoring goals is difficult and based a lot on luck. I think this game has 1-0 written all over it and i'm thinking it will be us. So 1-0 Saints win and i will be happy with that

I really really hate this guy. I'm not the type who just hates people for nothing! The reason i hate this muppet is because he talks as if every "real" fan thinks the same as he does. Or if you don't share his view then why are you at the games? Like this article for example, he obviously has no clue about what is actually happening with the fans as he assumes the reason people are not attending is down to Lowe returning. Sure there will be a fair few who are not going because of him but it will be a tiny number in comparison to those who actually can't afford to go. So where is this Nick muppet Illingsworth**** article about reducing the price of tickets to allow people to actually afford to go? Where is the article aimed at asking the board why they feel the need to keep the prices very high to watch effectivley a reserve team play? And so on. But our supposed spokesman who i forgot to mention is a muppet blames it all on the people who dislike Lowe....So now those people are to blame for us having the 2nd biggest attendence drop in all off football? (2nd to Morecombe). Could the guy get any further up Lowes Arse? Please Nick do the fans who actually bother to pay these out of control ticket prices a favour and shut the **** up. You know nothing about the club. Your prophecy of us being taken over by arabs this week came and gone. You speak for yourself and nobody else and i doubt very few if any believe the real reason we have dropped from 32k to 14k is because of Lowe returning.

So if we don't get taken over tommorow then can we say it is official Nick Illingworth is a tit once and for all?

Firstly my Japanese was made up by my Japanese collegue to test you = you obviously put it in a translator so thus have no clue about Japanese. Secondly your Japanese is again obviously taken from a translator because it makes zero sense. I get the jist of what your trying to say but lets put it this way i'm sure you probably have a lot of experience in that area so would know all about them Thirdly again with the assumptions. I never once said anything about Fantasista....I have no idea what your talking about. All i can remember about that is we were talking about Be a Pro in Fifa and in PES. I said they have revolutioned that by making it 10vs10 online and by allowing you to have a career where you play as one person and move from team to team via transfers and maybe get called up to the national side and so on. You replied by saying Fantasista revolutioned it, i never argued that. However after doing a bit more reading i find it is not quite what you say. It would appear your talking about Winning 11 2007 and talking about "Fantasista Mode". Also i read on the Evo forums that it doesn't work in the sense there is loads wrong with it. Mainly your team mates get the ball and run straight into an opponent and lose possesion.. So while they might have technically done Be a Pro first this generation the two modes are very different it would seem. But either way the point is not how it plays but the fact they came up with it first. Which they didn't. Another point which you clearly missed was i mentioned games that came up with the idea of controlling one player long ago. There is a game called "Total Control Football" that was made in 1996. That is 11 years before Konami did it. There are various other games too which allow the progression of one player in lots of different games. In 1992 Nintendo made a game called Super Soccer that had the on the pitch view. So no i never claimed to know about World Fantasista. I never claimed i know all about PES (even if i have played every version since ISS excluding the Jap versions) and so on. I based my views on what i myself have seen and read. If i read others views such as on the evo forums now and read their complaints about this years game then again that is their opinions. A lot of their opinions i agree with and a lot i don't. I don't claim to know everything about the series in terms of it's history of Fifa and PES. I'm just a guy who plays them. I have PES09 for my PC. It's ****. But it can be updated with various patches/files and i can live with that. So now we have gathered that i don't know everything about PES your point was what exactly?

See nickh i hate to do this to you as i guess you don't follow football to close but Boyd is actually Rangers top scorer this season. He has played 5 games and scored 4 goals. That is prolific. So i guess you had been reading what Burley said about why he wasen't getting picked at Rangers etc..? Well he has been injured and has started to come back. Ironically he has been playing more recently and scored 3 goals in Rangers last 5 games. Which just makes Burley's reason even more baffling. He has lost the plot once again and rather then take the blame for his mess ups he has tried to shift the blame onto someone else,again. Boyd has actually only played 29mins for Scotland since Burley arrived. The fact he came out after the game and slagged off Boyd even though he hasen't played for the previous 3 games including the game Burley is commenting on is just poor behaviour on Burley's part. My scotish neighbours said to me i'm more scotish then Burley. So i'm guessing that is a big thumbs down from them! Burley has screwed up

Billy Dodds wrote his views on it as he knows Kris Boyd http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/7666305.stm It makes things a lot clearer. The problem seems that he has been trying really hard in training both while with club and while away on international. He has a 50% goal ratio for country and has scored 54 times in 82 games for Rangers which is outstanding %. He is not some run of the mill player. He is a goal scorer, a proven goal scorer. The thing which he is unhappy about which was echoed all around the media is that it is right to try new things if games are not going your way. People deserve to be in the squad on current form. BUT that should not be in important games where it is vital to win. With 10 mins to go he brought on Iwelumo for Mcfadden and Steven Fletcher. Two forwards who have a grand total of 0 international goals between them. Add to this their strike rate for their clubs is pretty poor. Iwelumo has started well for Wolves and scored 6 goals in 6 games. But his tally is actually 303 games with 77 goals. Not very prolific. And Fletcher has 130 games and 34 goals. Again not very prolific. Where as Boyd has 235 games at higher level football (champions league etc..) and has 117 goals which is nearly 50% goal ratio. As Dodds said at some point you need goals so you must use your top goal scorer. The fact he has been overlooked for 2 inexperienced at that level strikers in a vital game is a huge kick in the teeth. But as he also says it isn't down to that game it is the whole period under Burley and being pretty much under used in the 8 games or something. It is very similar to what happened here, Burley has an obsession with being different even if he finds the right set-up. As with the Midas comment i disagree, they are all saying they should of won the game, they are a better team. The fact they drew and at home is hard to for them to take. They have gone from playing great against teams like France,Italy etc.. to losing to teams like Macedonia. They were 1 place below us in the rankings and looked set to go on to the next level. But Burley has come in and changed the winning formula just for the sake of changing it. That is what i think has ****ed most people off. Again very similar to here.

You know what, normally i would come back saying your full of **** etc.. etc.. but i really can't be bothered. If you want to believe there is no rail system and it is ALL about passing then you believe that. I couldn't care less. I read what the guys are saying in their reviews as i have only played the demo, i never said i owned the full game, like with the Fantasista comment where did i say i played that?? Your pulling assumptions out of your arse to try and sound intelligent. I will quote a line from a review on thunderbolt The passing system is stuck in past generations, with players have to manually pass with the right analogue stick if they don’t want to pass the ball seemingly on rails between team mates. This is an awkward configuration, especially considering that FIFA allows manual passing as standard. http://www.thunderboltgames.com/previews/article/pro-evolution-soccer-2009-preview-for-xbox360.html So if they have played the full game and say it is passing on rails then i tend to believe them. Your entitled to your opinion just don't try and pass it off as fact as it isn't. As me and Rob said above, some might like the game and some won't. Don't cry about it. そう叫びはそれについての小さい雌犬行く

If it works then that is great. If it doesn't then well it doesn't. However Burley is being found out now to be the poor manager most of us knew he was. Anyone who watched Sky on saturday would of heard Charlie blast Burley on air by taking the team back to the stoneage. He said "what annoys me is i hear Burley on tv talking about his dream, well George stop dreaming!"

Personally i can see both sides to the argument but i think the view of booing is wrong is probably from the side who actually don't pay much to watch the games. I don't like it when players are booed. As mentioned it has a negative effect on the team which in turn just makes it even harder to win. However some games this season and many last season players deserved to get booed. They are people who make vast amounts of money out of our pockets and at bare minimum you expect a little bit of effort from them. If you or i were told "right you run round that pitch for 90mins and i will give you £8k" i'm pretty certain majority of you will give it your all. The problem is players can put in gash appearences and hide and nothing will happen to them. If you and i went into our jobs with some of those mentalities i doubt we would survive long. I'm not going to single any players out but some of their games have been nothing short of criminal. No effort nor any willingness to want to try. If they have that attitude and go out there and not give a **** then i expect them to take stick from the fans. Our club has been through a lot and over the past 4-5 seasons we have had a lot of players on high wages who simply have not produced enough for the club. This in turn has contributed to our demise on and off the pitch. But those players then move on to a different club and don't really care what happens to us. Only a select few do. That is football. If players do well they deserve the praise they get, but if they do awful and show an attitude of "i can't be arsed now" then they deserve all they get. Football is not cheap to watch, we are not there through charity, they are paid to be performers, that is their job. If they don't perform then they deserve it.

Few new updates New Castlevania announced for 360,PS3 and Wii Charted Waters Online coming to PS3 MAG will have a subscription to play on PS3 Gears 2 gone gold Millions of new XBLA games which i can't be bothered to list Way of The Samurai 3 coming to PS3 (i loved the first two on PS2) Packs for LittleBigPlanet are announced. They make it so you can transform your SackBoy Character into famous figures/other game stars. Such as Final Fantasy Characters and Metal Gear characters Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X announced for 360,PS3 and PC (a aeroplane game) Murmasa the Demon Blade announced for Wii Arc Rise Fantasia announced for Wii (haven't a clue) Valhalla Knights: Elder Saga announced for Wii Think tonight will be some big announcements hopefully.

Thats a very good write up Rob and i agree with pretty much all of it. We all like different things and we all like games to have certain attributes. Some games which are panned i really like (Fight Night,Force Unleashed). As i said higher up somewhere if we don't have fifa and pes then nobody will be pushed to make a better game. I still play PES5 that is how high i rate that