red&white56

I was at both games - what I saw at the Dell was written above - I didn't see any trouble at Old Trafford but I heard about Saints fans smashing up a take-away.

Here's my view of the game; We didn't have a midfield in the first half as Mellis was virtually invisible, even when he got the ball he did little with it. He had a one-on-one with their defense, if he broke through was in the penalty area with no-one around him and only the goalie to beat - he managed to kick the ball against the defender's legs (is that Chelski academy teaching?) With him on we had effectively a 3 man midfield and as Lallana was pushing forward frequently we had a 2 man midfield most of the time. This is where Colchester beat us to almost every ball and this allowed to break up our play. In the 2H, even with 10 men, Colchester played 3 men up and 4 in defense, and created problems because they bossed mid-field. Things changed dramatically when Fish came on, we looked like scoring. Yes, his final touch let him down but he started creating things. The defense played well and I thought Lallana and Lambert looked good up front. Lallana has the skills to create something from nothing - which he did on a coople of occasions. Paterson was weak, offside, knocked off the ball or our of position so that he was ineffective (the game was crying out for Saga!). Overall disappointed that we lacked the creativity to break Colchester down, frustrated by the head tennis in midfield which always ended up with them winning the ball, but inspired by several things on the pitch.

Don't know about trecent years but I remember being at The Dell for a FA cup against Man.U (might have been 1977), the atmosphere has been ugly all day and at the match. The United fans invaded the pitch at the end of the game and then some Saints fans went on the pitch prompting the Man U fans to charge them. Most ran off except one guy who stood his ground and took out the first Man U fan to reach him - then he was swamped, knocked down and kicked sh*tless. The sight haunts me to this day. Was he brave or foolish ???

I thought the booing was aimed at the Colchester team who had employed time wasting tactics in the 2H and were then giving it large on the picth at the end of the game.

My point is that if you look far enough back we didn't have an ingrained sense of failure. It has over the last 5 years developed becuase of the events that happened. I chose to highlight 'arry, because he seems to done a good job everywhere he's gone except for us. We, the fans, did what we could, but it (IMO) was beyond our control, we just had to sit there and watch our club disintegrate and suffer double relegation.

It can't be ingrained in this club - I still remember seasons at the Dell where we only lost one home match - our away form was toilet though! IMO it all started with Harry Redcrap who was too busy looking for his next job to sort us out - then we've passed through so many managers that the club has lost its way.

It was naive of him to think that this type of betting was "harmless". Disappointed.

Did we sign "Wooton", where's he from?

A good song but they sing about going down to the Chapel end and the Northam doesn't get a mention!

MLT at 34%!

Be interested to hear from anyone who attended to night - the 5 live folks were giving us real praise. If we can bring this kind of form into our league games then maybe we'll be all right this season (i mean not in a relegation fight)

Rugby league is not without it's contingent of nutcases - but yes i agree football does attract a fair few who like to cause trouble.

What's wrong with wearing a shirt ???

So was it handbags or something more serious??

Predict 17,500 - I'm not going 'cause I'm going to see U2 in Cardiff!

If these signings are as good as they are supposed to be then yes, we should start winning games. I've ony been to the Milwall game, so I've only seen Murty and Harding, the former looked OK and the later looked good. Reports from other games suggest that have continued to perform reasonably well - but we lost both games in a poor fashion.

It appeals to me - is she going to do any more ??? Maybe we need to buy her a season ticket to really get her creative juices flowing!

Back to the question - I also would like to know as I'm opting for a 100% revamp of the team, so let's get as many new faces as possible !

Hey, let's buy the guy one so he can have a proper photo taken !

I know I should be more reasonable, but I can't quite get my head around the fact that the season has started and we're 3 games into it and we're looking pretty cr*p - possibly going to struggle all season. Now I'm over the shock of Swindon (not just the result but also our poor performance) I'm willing to be patient with AP.............

It is strange to post a picture of Pulis without a saints shirt - what kind of message does that send to him, to us and to the rest of the squad? The poor guy is doomed ..................

I'm glad you mentioned this because I was thinking the very same thing. I would also like to say that our academy was supposed to be producing CCC level players and the current batch playing for us were recruited way before we hit Lge 1 - so why aren't they capable of cutting it playing at supposedly a lower level? I'm moving to the position where i think the only answer is a complete clear out - there's just too much baggage with the this sqaud for it to succeed.

Yeah, we lost 1-0 rather than losing 3-1, that's better isn't it???????

If we can at least win at home then I'll not panic. Saints are not good travellers (at least not in the past few years), but if we can pick up points at home we can consolidate this year. For me the real test is Saturday. Brentford will come looking for a point, but hoping to steal 3. They will be up forit - big stadium, big club, big audience - it will motivate them. This game will be a test of our character.

We had one last season, he wanted to stay - bring back JPS!