John B

Continue the momentum from last season so that the team will be capable of challenging for promotion in the following season

I thought you were never wrong anyway Still think Adkins will not succeed with the current squad but should do with a few additions

I completely agree with you lets hope Adkins does prove to be a very good manager and not like Darren Ferguson who did well in League 1 but not the Championship

He was OK nothing Special If he had been outstanding I would have said so He was rather small but got stuck in

Despite the abuse Pilchards Adkins seems to agree with you with his team selection

I saw him play at Farnborough last season did OK but nothing special

Born in Southampton lived there only for six years started watching them in 1962 followed them ever since. My parents lived in Southampton for nearly fifty years in fact my dad died there ten years ago today so I was always going home for the weekend despite living in the West London area since 1964 to watch the Saints

I think one of the boxes was for boys only and around 1963 to 1965 my brother tried to be the first one in the box sometimes he succeeded. I stood in the one nearer to the West Stand for a number of seasons

I dont believe they pinched them from their clubs I expect the players involved were delighted to move. However I just think that you are over optimistic in the power of Mr Cortese who may not be the messiah you think he is bot only time will tell. I am looking forward to the new season but at the moment have little idea how we will perform but expect us to win as many games that we lose

There are two problems with your scenario as I see it 1 SFC and other clubs do not produce enough Academy players capable of playing in the PL The top teams have loads of foreign players a few English players and even fewer who have made it through their Acadamies We have Barnard Forecast and Cork and perhaps others who have not made it despite being in top class Acadamies. 2 Talented young players want success and money and will want to join top 4 PL teams to play in the Champions League I forget their names but both Man U and Liverpool have signed young players from Blackburn and Sunderland recently

Well I hope you are right but I am almost certain that unfortunately it will not happen. Just because Cortese is now in charge it does not mean that the Academy is going to produce more PL players who want to play for SFC

I have no idea how successful our Academy is compared to other clubs but I would have thought pretty competitive. My point is that Cortese's plan in the PL is to have a team with a fair number of academy players although I agree with this approach I find it highly unlikely it will happen.

Yet another one not capable of playing at a high level Very worrying that Cortese is expecting the Academy to supply players to play in the PL dont think it is going to happen

OK - I only saw Reeves once so I dont really know what he was like but the best I saw Huxford was in a night game v Derby County (I will check in Match of the Millenium which I have here signed by both Ted Bates and MLT ) We won 6 4 with Huxford in goal because of injuries to Hennigan and Godfrey April 1 1964 no substitutes 9 men

I would like Tony Knapp replaced by Mel Blyth or Jimmy Steele Derek Reeves by Mick Channon and Cliff Huxford by Brian O'Neill Any chance?

There are at least three reasons why the guy left He got a better job - unlikely He was not up to the job - Possible He did not get on with Cortese - Possible

I watched the Friends Provident Final at Lords when Daren Powell was bowling for Hampshire in 2007 when we had Darren Powell on the books at SFC

You must be joking he is a good signing He is very good Championship player nothing else lets hope he develops into a good PL one

Well at the moment Adkins appears to be able to attract quality players to the club but that could easily change and he has put one quality player Puncheon is in the naughty corner. Although posters feel that the team is pretty good at the moment and I agree there should be no problem with the being able to compete in the Championship this season with the addition perhaps of a couple of players that is not the point if the main goal of the club is to get to the PL in three years time. As the team is plainly not good enough to do that especially if there are serious injuries to key players. I feel that if the club wants to get to the PL it will have to pay over the odds in fees and wages because of the competition from other clubs and it maybe this factor and not Nigel which is stopping players coming. It is easy to say CMS is not worth £2.5m but in today’s market he clearly is and we seem to have bid for Billy Sharp at £3.25m ourselves and Nugent‘s wages are excessive but we paid high wages in the Crouch/Wilde era too To posters who don’t want to discuss threads sensibly and want to ridicule contributions on the forum I would like to say I am not moaning just saying what I have observed and looking forward to the new season which will be the fiftieth in which I have watched the Saints I don’t want Adkins out and I doubt whether anybody does I am just responding to the point raised on the forum and how I see it

Well he is a big name ex manager and whats more is still alive He was a big name when he signed both Keegan and Ball after 1976

It does seem to be a bit of shambles at the moment really not a lack of ambition as players appear not to want to come here. But that may change and things could look better in a week or two as currently we may be bidding for players we just dont know. Perhaps we should be discussing this thread if nothing happens with regard to transfers in a couple of months time not now.

That is rather simplistic Who is going to give the authorization for money to be spent by SFC. There may well be a budget which Cortese can spend but is he able to make significant purchases when the budget has been spent I dont know it was easier when Markhus was around because he was involved emotionally with the club. But money may begin to flow who knows - it is unlikely that we will get to the PL and stay there with a vast amount of money being spent

You obviously have no knowledge of Project Management then Where Projects are managed to produce the desired results and amended as you say when things go wrong. However I doubt whether it is possible to plan to get to the PL without spending vast amounts of money it is just an aspiration like most of the clubs in the Championship. But now Markhus has gone where is the money coming from

Seems like is everbody is happy apart from the Professor and the plan to get to the PL in three years time. I am not so sure as there seems a lot of clubs trying to do the same thing unfortunately If we are to succeed we will have to spend loads of dosh . We never spent much under Lowe and got relegated we spent under Wilde and got into administration I wonder what will happen under Cortese

Sorry I meant that George was probably playing for Swansea in 1965 when we played Wolves because he played for them before joining Walsall and after leaving Coventry Didnt Knapp also go to Coventry too