St Marco

I think it depends a lot on what our expectations are in the championship? Those who went up last year are in the chase to go up to the prem league this year. At least one of them will go up. Personally i think our aim should be the same as this one, playoffs at bare minimum. But that really depends on how backed Adkins will be in the transfer market. If we have just signed that nipper from Plymouth for £125k then i think you have to say chances are he is going to be backed pretty well. With that in mind i think the squad needs to be strengthened in nearly all areas. Keeper - Davis has done really well overall but has started to make more mistakes then he normally does. It is time to get a new number one. Defence - Jaidi is getting on and we will need a big strong centre back to partner Fonte. Midfield - Lallana,Chambo (assuming we keep him) Morgan and Hammond is a good midfield. However we will need to get better cover for the wings. If we can get Puncheon back and sort his head out then he will do. Attack - Lambert and Barnard will be ok. However we seriously lack a pacey striker. And in the Championship and beyond if you don't have that you can be seen as predictable. So i think a proper pacey striker will be needed. But as i said it depends on what our expectations are. The team as it is now should easily be a mid-table championship team. If we want to go on from that then we are going to need a few more class players.

I sat in a different place today (swap with mates now and then) so thought i'd record what the atmosphere was like. This was just after our 3rd goal. Thought the crowd was pretty good

Well just back and delighted with the win! However i think we can count ourselves very very lucky. The first half was up there with the worst i have seen us play. We hit way too many long balls and crosses that were aimed at nobody. Sloppy passing and mistakes. Second half i don't think we started any different to how we were playing in the first half. The difference was when we made the subs. Forte was in the right place at the right times and credit to him. But he had a lot of luck with how the balls came to him. They were not passed to him or he did not take anybody on. They were deflected or scrambled out into his path. The second one was just a tap in from a deflection. But he took them and that is what matters so fair play to him. Barnards goal was a really good shot and i can't wait to see a replay of that. But up until that point i think Barnard did very little. Same could be said for Lambert. My man of the match was by far Lallana. He tried so hard to make something happen and was the inspiration for the come back. He did some great runs with the ball and some nice twists and turns. Didn't stop running until the final whistle! Other notible performance in my opinion was Jaidi. He was a rock at the back and won most things that went his way. Overall i think we were better then them and deserved to win. But most games if you play like that and go 0-2 down you won't come back from it. We are not playing as'well as we have been but we are grinding out results and getting some luck. Hopefully we can learn from this result and realise punting the ball upfield is not the way to play football. We are better when we are passing, moving and running at defenders. Another mention has to go to young Dale who i thought did very well in the time he was on.

Was a great day out. The only time i have seen us win a trophy! Hope Carlisle win as after last year spoke to so many of their fans after the game and they all seemed pretty decent to me. So hope they win it.

He was one of them for sure. He had some good games but for the most of it just really ****ed me off tbh.

Must win. Any losses/draws now puts more pressure on us to win the next game.

Sort of the same as people who say we were in the **** after our first 3 games of the season. What those people never seem to mention is that after those 3 games Brighton,Hudders and Saints all had 4 points. We had the same results. If we fail to get promoted expect to see that excuse used a lot more!

Got nothing against him as a person. Just don't want to see him or his friends in any shape or form involved with the club in any of it's decision making. It is good that people have some nice things to say about him but let's not kid ourselves, he was a huge factor in why we sunk as far as we did. It was not a case of bad luck, it was a case of poor decisions. I would take what we have now over what we had with him any day of the week.

Well just home. How we didn't win that i will never know. Up until like the last 5 mins or so they did nothing. I couldn't even remember Kelvin having to do much if anything at all. So a bit ****ed off we threw it away with some **** defending but it isn't the end of the world. What worries me though is that in our 2 games in hand that we have now played we have got a massive 1 point from them. Meaning having games in hand means nothing if you don't win them. Hopefully our injuries today are not serious as losing AOC and Lallana for the next game would be a huge loss.

New gameplay trailer just released http://www.ea.com/uk/battlefield3/videos/battlefield-3-fault-line-episode-2 Takes sniping to a whole new level

It is all well and good saying win our games in hand etc.. the problem is you actually have to win them. When we played our recent game in hand vs Walsall it didn't quite go so easy did it? Personally i think we will know our fate in the next 5 games. On paper we have a far harder run in then Huddersfield. 7 of our 11 remaining games are against teams in the top 12. 4 of those 7 being away games. Of Huddersfields 9 games left they have 4 games left against teams in the top 12. Of those 3 are away. The rest against mostly relegation teams. It is going to be really difficult and we have no more space to have a bad patch now. If we lose a game and they win we HAVE to win our games in hand just to get back on par with them. So really now each game puts pressure on us to win. Anymore **** ups and i think we can forget the top 2. And by **** ups i mean no more losing to the teams near the bottom i.e Walsall, if we want to get into the top 2 we realisticly have to win probably 7/8 of the 11 remaining games.

Didn't see a thread on it so thought i would create one Some leaked gameplay footage from GDC this month http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq-mu0pKos0&feature=player_embedded#at=188 The official gameplay trailer just released Can't wait, going to be the best fps game ever!

Personally i don't see how you could be a saints fan & write something like that. He basically takes the **** out of our history especially The Dell. That stadium holds a lot of great memories for us. How can you slag it off like that? The same goes with the players and managers comments. It bends the truth to create a false impression of the club and fans. One that is well out of order. He is saying we as fans are arrogant and he is right. We have earned that right through what we did in our past. We had a fall from grace. Our club is the biggest in league one, that is fact. But we respect all teams and other then this i have heard no issues with us from the other teams. Most of the time we are friendly and respectful to whoever we play. Didn't the oldham manager say only recently "they are too big to be in this league"? If anything i think the arrogance is from them. For years we helped them with loans, staff to help maintain the stadium and even donated money to them when they were in financial struggles. To me this seems nothing but a hatred article written with the purpose of riling us up. Sort of like a troll wanting a reaction because they love the attention. Like earlier in the season when they were taunting us for being higher in the league. If you look at their echo's front page it has "build up to the cup final". They are trying so hard to build this rivalry up that it is just stupid. We have no bad history with them and to try and create one off the back of this kind of thing is lame. We are your promotion chasing rivals nothing more. We have already beaten them twice this year and i don't recall us gloating all over them after those wins. By building the game up and we then win again our fans will gloat, and by doing so will once more give them the ammo to shoot at us. And if they win they will gloat. I can see the headlines now. Which is double standards. The other thing is by writing stuff like that can lead to trouble. There is no need to stoke the fire.

Think Solent are waaaay out of order with this one. The club were involved with the recent Wolves and Spurs game. They did a tribute on the pitch for him and had i think Claus holding his Saints shirt in the centre circle. I think those who use this as an excuse to slag off the club should go watch the tribute to Dean and then comment. While it would of been nice for us fans to have a momment's silence for him and show our appreciation we don't need to be in the stadium to do that, you can do it at home and by yourself. It isn't about where you show your respect just that you show it. The club raising money for the hospice is a really good thing to do.

I'd love it! Would mean at least 3 grounds that we won't have to travel far to!

Can't really see anything other then a win from this one. Sure you should not write off teams and underestimate them at your peril etc. But the two teams in terms of class are so far apart. We should win this one comfortably. Am going for a 3-0 win. We should close the gap on some of those above us tonight too i think. Brighton, Bournemouth and Peterborough away with tricky games. Positive thinking lads! COYR

A great win there for us. With all the other results going against us was vital to win. Sure we didn't play to our best and we had a lot of luck but a win is a win no matter how you get it! We now have a home game which i think we will win and i think some of the teams above us playing on tues will drop points. Meaning by this time next week we could be back into the top 2. Got to keep believing! COYR

I agree with a lot of what has been said but i do think we need to get behind the team now more then ever. We haven't had the best results recently but we are still in the chase for 2nd. As of right now Bournemouth deserve to be where they are. They have been far more consistent then us and with everything they have been through you have to take your hat off to them. It is frustrating we are not in the top 2 right now but it doesn't mean we can't be by the end of the season, we do still have quite a few games to play. But a lot of those games now look quite difficult on paper. A lot of away games. Adkins has not done as good as the guys at the top. If you actually base the results from the 6th game point which was his first game in charge we actually are 3rd on his results. Nicks table although correct actually misses out a whole bunch of games that took place only hours before he took over. Meaning we start at game 6 and everyone else starts at game 7. It isn't a fair account of the results as basically gives him a head start. Point being Adkins hasen't done that well in my opinion. Some stats are used to make it appear good when if you look at others they sort of cancel the good stats out. He has almost as many losses as we had for the entire season last year under Pardew. In a far easier league in my view. But i have faith that he will come good in the end. He clearly cares about the club and cares about winning games. I am sure with every bad result he is just as annoyed as us lot. He isn't here for a pay cheque i really do think he has the desire to want to win stuff. The question is does he have the talent to back it up? We will see by the end of the season but i think until then we really do all need to pull in the same direction. Even if we finish 5th we are in the playoffs and still have a chance. It really doesn't matter to me how we go up just that we do go up and do so this year. Anything else and it would be mission failed. I am sure i am not alone in thinking i am so bored of this league now.

Massive game. Lose it and we let those teams below us back in it. Which will just put even more pressure on us. Hopefully the lads will bounce back and put in a promotion chasing performance!

Not quite the same is it....One had to build a team and club from scratch the other took over a cup winning team who only missed out on a top 6 place because of what happened the previous season. Adkins was not brought in to have time or to build a team. He was brought in to get the team out of league one this season. Having no pre-season means feck all after 25 games and having the team he has. As i said in my other post what will **** me off is people looking for excuses as to why Adkins shouldn't do well. There really are none.

As i said in the match thread his points per game ratio is good compared to last seasons table but this year there are a lot less big teams. How would his team do against Norwich,Millwall and Leeds? I don't think we would do so well. Where as last year we got results against all of the big teams. Adkins job was to come in and take this club up. Based on the last 8 games we have just 1 point a game average. We won't go up unless we improve. It is his job to make that happen. My other concern is that is now his 8th game in charge where we have not scored. That is basically 1 in 3 games we don't score. The 2nd highest fail to score rate in the league. With the midfielders and strikers we have that shouldn't be happening. I support the guy 100% but we have to go up this year as there are no excuses at all. He has a great team, bought in his own players, kept our star players, haven't had many injuries and so on. Some games you can't win by just turning up, you have to out think your opponent, change things with tactics to get the result. As of yet i seriously wonder if he can do that.

Based on last 8 games we are averaging 1 point a game. I am sure you all agree that isn't promotion form and shows we need to improove a lot. My main concern though is that someone above mentioned Pardews results. In Pardews last 25 games in charge he had more points then Adkins has in his first 25 in charge. It shows we have not progressed. Also if you look at the games we played last year and the teams we beat i wonder how this team would cope with them. Last season we had results against Leeds,Norwich,Millwall. If those 3 teams were in the league this year i doubt we would beat them. The teams this year seem a lot poorer and teams like Swindon,Charlton and Bristol have become much worse. If they were the team of last year again i think things would look different. This isn't to say i think Adkins should go or that i am against him as i support him 100%. But i think with the team we have and against the teams we are up against we have done very average. He should be getting on par with Brighton results. We should be beating teams like Brentford,Walsall,Hartlepool,Peterborough,Tranmere,Notts County,yeovil, Mk Dons. The only really top result we have had under Adkins was at home vs Bournemouth. We all know about what they have been through. If this Adkins team had to come up against those teams of last year i don't think they would do well. Which means i think Adkins points per game is good in comparison to last season, but based on the difficulty of the teams this year is actually not that great. This weekend we have a huge game now against a team doing well in the league looking to get into the playoffs. We have to go there and win.

They got the worst home record in the league and have let in more goals then anyone. I think we will win this one 0-3 Come on you Saints!

I was wondering if you could show us what the table would looklike if we used the starting point as game 6? Reason i ask is i noticed when Adkins took over on the 12th most teams played their 6th game on the evening before he took over. He then had 3 days with the team and we then played our 6th game on the 15th which was a weds. Reason for that was because we played in the jpt. So I wondered what the table looks like if we all start at the game 6 point as opposed to us starting at game 6 and everyone else starting at game 7?

Good win, needed win and very much an expected win. Made some ground on 2 of the teams ahead of us which is also a huge plus. Same result again on tues please!