sidthesquid

Are you sure this lot don't just use these 'negotiations' to buy a football club to get free publicity?

One thing I do like about him is his willingness to change formation and personnel if it's not working. So many managers stick to plan A at all costs - two of our better (and my favourite) managers - WGS & Pardew were both guilty of this one. But several times this season he has conspicuously & successfully turned things about.

There seems only one possible reason that this guy would want to buy of Chainrai for £17mill, have a CVA of £14mill & a squad worth less than it costs to pay it, and that is yet again the dead hand of Arcadi Gaydamak. This deal makes no sense on any kind of rational level, so it must still be about churning funny money & they have spotted that our authorities really don't care if football is involved.

OKay, boys, I admit it - I am a Jonah. Missed the whole of the Orient game on Solent - we win 2-0. Listen to Rochdale, we lose. Listen for 83 minutes today, then say b0ll0x to it, I'm taking the dog out, it just ain't our day. By the time I'm in the car we are 2-1 up! I can take a hint & the radio stayed safely off till 5 o'clock.

I've long had a suspicion that the Corpulent one and Pete 'Give him the freedom of Southampton' Storrie are one and the same, or at the very least, a fellow member of Hayling Golf Club, happy to put Pete's delusions into print. His silence may not be unrelated to his consultancy having come to an end

And sadly there you have your answer. When did they last have a 'reputable' owner? As long as I can ever remember they have been a spiv's club, not paying their way, living on the edge of insolvency, but there must surely have been a time in their ancient hey-day when they had proper owners. Or was even their long-ago title season bought on the never-never & they have been paying for it ever since?

Sadly for us, if you are a Russian mafioso with hot cash burning a hole in your pocket, where better than the launderette/cesspit of the Poopey accounting system as devised by one P. Storrie to churn your funny money around to lose all trace of its origins. They've all been at it for years down there.

Just watched the Cardiff game on the Beeb - just like Mullins on Tuesday, Rocha was a clear red - he marched up to Bothroyd and at the very least shoved his face in his, but given he cut his own head it was clearly a butt. Cotterill is a prize kn0b if he can't see that. Ill-discipline & stupidity is the reason the skates are getting players sent off, not a global conspiracy.

Notice thye disclaimer - NB: Pre-war attendance figures based on media estimates and club records - both sources notoriously inaccurate I think you will find it was those pre-war years when the Skates maintained that they averaged 100000 per match to boost their claims to be better supported than us.

Comments on some of the above - I thought Lambert was crocked & about to come off when Barnard went down. I thought Hammond & Stephens did pretty well in a packed central midfield area - they were both busy and tidy and got the ball out wide as quick as possible. In fact I trhought we did pretty well overall yesterday. It was definitely a game we could have blown, and the sort we have all too often blown, but we kept playing the right way & we got our reward, which is what the best teams do. Incidentally, that is only our third 1-0 win of the season, which reinforces my past view that we haven't always had the bottle to grind out a result when things aren't going our way. I'm pleased to say that yesterday we did.

Today's match was the sort of game we would have failed to win six month's ago. A hard-working, unambitious 4-5-1 with a bonkers ref after a tough midweeker - it had everything to suggest we would blow it, but today we didn't. Even had we failed to score I would have been pleased with the display, because we kept our shape, kept working, kept probing away - not going headless chicken and clueless. It is the sort of game that flakey teams blow and successful teams win - just like we did today. Definite progress.

Re the last two posts. The DCFSBs are incapable of change, aren't they? Cheating and blaming others is totally endemic. Cotterill - what a kn0b - blatant, deliberate handball & their 8th sending off this season (v our one for Gobern's freak mistackle) & everyone a bad decision against the wafer-thin heroes. And Clampitt - shock horror, something they have known for at least a year (same scenario last renewal time) is unjustly derailing the carefully considered business plan. Either they are two very stupid people, or they are secretly very sly and only say these idiotic things to appease some other very stupid people - very difficult to know which.

Just answer me this - did anyone who has supported Saints for more than the lasty six months seriously expect us to cruise through to automatic promotion? It just ain't the Saints way. There will be more twists and turns than an Adam Lallana dribble before we crawl over the line in May, emotionally wrecked, heading for divorce and booking our first AA meeting. Never been any different.

I'm with your Grandad on this one. I've been supporting Saints since 1970, and I was still a nervous wreck against Charlton, 2-0 up and going into stoppage time against a team who had barely managed a shot on goal all game. I think it's a form of Post-traumatic stress disorder - our nerves are shot, I'm afraid.

Over five years, naturally, less expenses.

I don't think I confirmed any of that - just that we are decent people who don't hold a grudge. I thought he was useless and overrated & the theft thing was awful, but I am still prepared to give him a little bit of applause for the few good things he did and in gratitude that he is still not here

Ciftci has already stated he won't sign a new contract

The more you see and hear from down the road the more you are forced to wonder if all this season's goings on was one last throw of the dice. You can imagine Clampitt & Cotterill pleading with/convincing Chainrai to defer the CVA payments and blow all the parachute money on a quality over quantity squad for a sh1t or bust try for promotion to the promised land this season. They might still get there but it looks less and less likely. But realistically, this season was there one and only hope. Inconveniently, by next season the CVA will have to start, the parachute money will be seriously diminished, contracts will be up on their better players, Storrie could be banged up and blabbing to avoid being molested in the showers and HMRC have not entirely gone away. Only one more season in the Prem gains them £40million - worth a shot, because if it fails, Chainrai can still get his investment back from the corpse and move on, but the blue few should be planning for the Wessex League.

lol

We should have a poll on Rofe v Merrington then show it to Solent. I only hear him before/after or on away games but 'Uncle' Dave winds me up something rotten. Rofey is excellent, as was David Armstrong. It's time they pensioned the silly old s0d off.

I've not been a big fan of the diamond, but it definitely worked better with Dickson & Richardson because they are more attack-minded players. (To be fair Harding & Butterfield are better defenders.)

Because, as a bunch of fans, we are mostly nice, generous people who don't wish any ex-player bad. It was hardly a rapturous ovation - more polite applause, because we are bigger than booing off an ex-Saint. (Especially when he has made as little impact on us as he did last night....)

I was thinking as I logged on about starting a thread to the same effect. Admittedly it was a fairly easy game to ref, but he kept it flowing whenever he could and every decision, even against us, appeared correct. You can't ask for much more than that. Well done Mr A Bates.

I reckon Channon & Davies are 69/70, Gabriel & Stokes 71/72, McCartney early 80's I but had given up collecting by then! Is that website Nigel's something. I remember looking at it a year or two back & was inspired to sort out all my old stickers & actually sold some of my swapsies on e-bay for about £40.

Dion Dublin always seemed to score against. Just about his only goal for Man Ure was against us. Not really a hate figure, just tat my heart sank when I saw he was playing.