St Marco

Hooper because it would send a huge message to clubs like Celtic. Signing a striker from league one wouldn't send the "we are ready for the big time" message I think we need to send. Hooper would take the club to the next level.

Again how is your £2.2m new striker Mohamed Bangura doing? 20 games and no goals? Great scouting you got up there

That is the way I see it too. Plus if you think about it getting to the PL means you get about £100m in tv money. In the big scheme of things that is a small gamble to take because as you mention if we were in the PL and wanted him the price would double. If we pay £6m for him then he would be the first proper transfer that is made with the PL in mind. Our previous deals have been with clubs lower in the championship or in league one. We can't do that anymore as anyone we now sign really has to be better then what we got. It has to be with a view to the next year or two in mind. So I got a feeling this has legs in it OR it could be a smokescreen being used to force another club to sell. If we have put in an offer for someone else and they are stalling or want more money it sends the message we have other targets and will go elsewhere. He would be a great signing for us I just hope we as a club realise that to get good players, especially from european competition playing teams you have to pay big bucks. You can't offer a club like Celtic £3m for their top striker. If they are serious which I hope they are they need to go in there and part with the £6m-£8m he would cost. If he continues his current form and we do get promoted we would be looking at possibly £15m or so. Which means as you say now is the best time to buy him.

All i can say is how is your £2.2m star striker you bought in the summer Mohamed Bangura doing? What is it now 20 apps and still no goals? If he can't score in the SPL he must be amazing! Money well spent!

Shearer/Le Tiss/Bale/Chambo said to say hi Also the SPL is probably league one standard. Look at how you guys have done in Europe recently in comparison to teams like Birmingham/Stoke etc You would struggle in the championship. Celtic are a big club in Scotland. If you were in "English" football you would be average.

Used them loads of times and they have been great. To be honest though I built a new mega pc recently and money wise was a lot cheaper to go through these guys http://www.overclockers.co.uk/ everything i ordered got here the next morning. Had a bit of ram that was faulty and they replaced it next day too.

To be fair you could probably buy Celtic for that kind of money these days!

Was a great performance from us I felt. Thought we had a few close shaves and Jos did very well but overall even with 11 we were clearly the better team. The motm was probably their keeper as it really could of been double figures. At the time I was not sure if it was a sending off as you see it week in week out. But having now seen the footage I think the Forest fans need to hold their hands up and say they got it wrong. They gave the ref so much stick and Connolly. He clearly get's whacked hard by an elbow and the modern game has no place for that type of behaviour. Some of our players were a bit out of order getting involved but they were right in that it is a sending off. Steve the mong Cotteril was just using that as a way to try and take pressure off himself. By trying to blame our staff/players for "influencing" the ref just hides the fact his team played poorly. In fact I would go so far as to say they are the worst team i have seen us play this season. They looked a lot worse then they did at our place. Was true hit and hope football. If it was not for Camp he would be sacked now in my opinion. They were lucky Lambo was not there as he would of bagged loads today. All in all great result for us and nice to get a win at the ****ty ground.

Have to say regardless of getting him or not it does make me happy that we have the nerve to go in for a team like Celtic's top scorer. The futures bright, the futures red and white

Have to say that is pretty amazing that you never lose online without knowing how to use the new defence system You can actually make real money from playing fifa 12 now in game. Maybe you should look into doing that as I am sure your make a fortune!

Man that really sucks, thoughts go out to him and his family.

Indeed. It is a great site. It is the Radiohead of forums. Always loads of fun and joy to be had there....

Don't get to listen to what he says much as am at the games but when i do have to say i agree with most of things he says. Tactics wise over our last 8 league games or so we have struggled. Tactics have been off. Based on those games we sit 4th to bottom. I was at the game yesterday and first half was up there with the most boring i have seen from us. I imagine he said we got it wrong and we did. We had no width at all and that was the same issue from our previous games. We changed it in the second half and were much better. We took our chances. I just think some people can't handle the fact we are no longer playing well and don't like people pointing out obvious faults in our game. Our tactics over the past few weeks have been pretty strange (morgan as a striker anyone?) so i think he is right to question them. As an away going fan especially it was nice to get a win yesterday as had been a long time since (over 2 months to be exact) we last saw one.

As a person he is a top top bloke. Does loads behind the scenes so would be sad to see him go. People don't realise how much he spends with the community/charities. But as a footballer it simply hasen't worked out. In the modern era you can't really have a player for 4-5 years who plays around a game a season. It just isn't worth it. Someone else who is healthy and offer something on the pitch week after week is more important. I know that sounds horrible but it is the truth. Footballers should be playing football it is that simple. If they are injured and have been for years then it is time to move on. I think if he wants to keep trying then he needs to do that elsewhere. If we are planning for life in the PL then you can't be carrying anyone. Maybe we should offer him a role behind the scenes.

Was in Dallas a few weeks ago on business and got a chance to look at the new PS Vita. The guy told me that it will be on sale in feb for $220. I thought thats great, i will be able to get one back home for about £150! Check the UK prices and it is £229 + £39.99 for a card you need to install i.e memory card. So a item that cost $220 in states costs us technically $336. So we are paying $136 (£88.) more. Now that is just a console, doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things but it makes you wonder why we have to pay 40% more on it. The prices here in the UK are way over the top for a lot of things and need to come down.

Sounds more like your a blind COD fanboy mate which is pretty sad. BF3 is a huge leap up on BF2. The fact you don't think it is shows you probably never even played it. Mainly because BF2 was released nearly 8 years ago....That is like saying the PS3 isn't much of a leap on the PS1. Either way that is a pretty funny comment considering there have been SEVEN Call of Duties in that time. Four of which have been out in just over three years.... I guess they were all step forwards right? MW3 isn't even popcorn gaming, it is like Apple products. Release the same thing every year and put on a different number/letter at the end and all the idiots will rush out and buy it thinking it is the greatest thing of all time. The new one being you actually now have a subscription to play it.....only blind fanboys would think paying £34.99 a year AFTER paying £40 to buy the game is a good deal. And it is a higher level experience. In every single area in regards to gaming it is better and that is fact. You might not be able to handle that but it is the truth.

Also Gamespots awards were just handed out and BF3 won best multi-player http://uk.gamespot.com/best-of-2011-special/awards/index.html?page=16 MW3 was not even nominated.....

Haha what a load of ******** mate. You don't blow anything up in MW3. You just shoot at each other, get killed, re-spawn, go find someone to shoot at and die again. Rinse and repeat. No different at all from its previous versions. But 10 years old suck it up and ask mummy to get it for them. MW4 will come out in 12 months or so and again it will be rinse and repeat. There is a reason it has an 80% metacritic score and that is because it is ****. BF3 has destructible enviroments meaning you can really blow stuff up. It has vehicles that you can drive, jets that you can fly, zillions of different weapons/gadgets for you to try out. Loads of maps that are far more entertaining then just running around in a bunker or someones back garden.....the sound effects are by far the best seen in any game/movie to date where as MW3 uses the same sounds for pretty much every weapon! etc etc But hey i don't want to get into some kind of nerdoff but BF3 has over 80 awards including best game of E3 2011 which is one of the most prestigous awards out there. I appreciate you don't like it but saying it is over-rated or under performed is laughable. As for the it being £20 now comment. I think your find most games drop down to that price 3-4 months after its release

or.....one of the most annoying songs of the 80s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c98qdFQF7sw

BF3 all the way. Basically total opposite of what View said. If your interested in online gaming then BF3 is the best fps online game there is right now. Just check out the reviews and the awards it has won. Most people gave it online game of the year. As Hypo says MW3 is pretty much the exact same-thing as MW2 just worse. Which you would expect seeing as the people who made MW1 + 2 didn't make 3. If you want a Call of Duty game go for Black Ops. Has a great online community and is a lot more fun. At the end of the day it all depends on your play style. If your more into just running around shooting people then MW3 is the one to go for. But if your more into realistic battles and care about things such as working as a team then BF3 is the one. My advice would be to watch/read the reviews of both then make a decision on that.

To be fair if we finish 3rd we will have well and truely ****ed things up. We were 9 points clear going into playing the two bottom teams. People talk about Burley fecking up but that would be right up there. In all honesty i don't think any of us are surprised about that result. And if people are then they have not watched us play for awhile. The last 4-5 weeks we have struggled. Tonight was no different. We were up against a Bristol team playing exactly the same way when we played them away. The players all chasing the ball down, putting their foot in, trying to be physical and generally in our faces. We played the same way we played there. Tried to break them down and couldn't, got frustrated and started hoofing it hoping lambert could do something. The reality is we HAVE done very well this year overall. One of the best years i have seen as a Saints fan. The lads should be proud of everything they achived. All runs come to an end eventually. But as i said the warning signs have been there sometime. Adkins has got away with many results when playing people in strange positions i.e Morgan on the right or up front. But now we have been found out. We have lost that neat quick passing style that we had, and gone more to a punt it up to Lambert/Guly style team. Which isn't always a bad thing. Norwich and Wolves played like that and they got out of the league. But we are making too many mistakes as a team. We are trying to play direct too often. We need to mix it up and change things around when they are not working. And that is my concern. Adkins has stuck to his guns and won't change to a plan B. Maybe that is simply because we don't have the players to be able to switch it about. We are very light on people with pace. In the window it is obvious we need a young striker with Pace and enthusiasm. Someone who we can play throughballs to around the half way line. If we had someone like that they would score loads of goals in this team. We also need a proper winger on the right and a back-up winger for when Lallana goes through a bad patch. Defence wise i think we are fine but others need to help them out more, learn positioning and how to pick up players. We will still get promoted but we can't continue playing the way we have. That is why people are frustrated because it isn't something new.

Couldn't care less who the presenters are i watch it for the highlights/goals. The thing is though if this happens then i think i will join the whole "We should no longer be forced to pay for BBC" bandwagon. Simply because with F1 gone the only other thing i watched was the footie. If BBC are trying to cut back by the 25% or so then surely our bill should be cut to seeing as we will have less choice/programmes? I wonder how much of that money is pumped into getting celebs on those dancing shows? People can bash Sky all they want and blame them for all the problems in the world. But the reality is i will pay to watch football. If Sky didn't show football or other sports i like i wouldn't pay them. If BBC don't show football or things i like then again why should i pay them?

I don't think he did anything special to get into that position? He was played a ball on the right which was ahead of him from a corner if i remember right? They had most of their players forward trying to get a goal. They had two defenders and we had Steve/Lambert/Lallana and i can't remember the other guy in there. All he had to do was play a simple pass left field and it would of been 3 on 1. I agree totally about people making scapegoats but in this case he deffinatly fecked up. He tried to run around the defender and be 1 on 1 but lost control of the ball and it went out. There are other times where he messed up too. Like when he did that shot from the 16 yard line right in front of goal and it went nearly out the stadium. If it was someone like Lambert/Lallana they would of got the ball under control then tried a shot. It is that knowledge that makes them the players they are.

I think the next three games will give us a better idea of where we will end up. We have had a good 3 months but the december month we have some issues. Ones which teams have been exploiting. I doubt none of the other teams top of the tables have failed to win a game in over 3 weeks. If we can change it up and get back to how we were then i think we still can win the league. But if we continue in the same way we have the past 3-4 games then we will fall fast down the table. On the contrary to what some others have said i would now think anything other then promotion would be bad. Especially when you think we were 9 points clear of 3rd place going into the 2 games against the two bottom teams in the league. I am sure if we fail to go up now most people would say we would have blown it. And i would tend to agree. The next few games will show if it is a blip or something more serious. If it is more serious and Adkins is given funds to fix it then it will show what Cortese wants. But you have to remember he has actually backed him quite a bit this season already (Fox/Cork/De Ridder/Jos etc) That is probably £4m-£5m already spent. If we add one of these expensive strikers everyone is talking about then chances are we could of spent £10m this season. If that is the case then again i think if we are not promoted that would be seen as failure.

I think it is a bit unfair to write the lad off just yet but i have to be honest and say i think he has been one of Adkins poor buy's so far. The thing i like about SDR is his enthusiasm/determination to be involved. He will run after the ball and try and get a tackle in. For effort he is 10/10 and the other players should take note of that. However in terms of skill/footballing knowledge he really is lacking. He can't shoot. He can't pass/cross and sometimes he makes really bad choices. Like say in the Blackpool game when it was at the end and it was 4 on 2. He could of played the ball in and we would of won. He decided to try and go on his own, messed up and we drew. The main issue i have with him is his ball control skills. I have watched him most of the season and noticed he does the same thing a lot. By this i mean he will try and run with the ball but will somehow knock it against his shin which makes the ball either go off to the side and he will lose possesion or he will over-hit it and the ball runs ahead of him and out for a goal kick. He doesn't have the ability to work in tight spaces like someone such as Lallana can. Unlike the comment above about Adkins seeing him as a striker i don't see it that way at all. I don't think Adkins has any faith in him and that is why he only get's 10mins here or there. In the Pompey game it showed clearly that he doesn't see him as a striker as he moved Morgan up there towards the end and put Guly on the right. Either position could of been used by SDR but he chose to not use him. Which is where i actually think the problem is. The guy is young and needs playing time. You only learn by playing. If he can get more control of the ball and run more straight with the ball then he could do well. Having 10mins at the end of the game when we are playing more defensive to protect a win/draw is not going to help him. He should be starting games on the wing ahead of players like Guly/Morgan. It is no coincidence that since Morgan has been on the right we have not played as'well. That isn't because he is crap it is because it isn't his natural position. He doesn't have the speed and endurance to play on the wing. In the next couple of games i would give Steve starts on the right. If he doesn't improve then we need a winger badly in January. But Adkins needs to give him his chance imo.