Window Cleaner

I think NA learnt his lesson from the AP situation because let's face it, the "Wilkins era" was a total disaster.

about 16K a week in the NPC, 800K per annum, think it was for 2 and a half years. Was on his website I think, something like that. Probably a whole lot more than some of our "star" players at that time. Probably at least twice what Morgan or Fonte were getting for about a quarter of the end product.

Well of course he did, he was on borrowed time from the day we lost at home to Sunderland if not sooner. The preparation for that game was obviously insufficient given that we'd had about 2 free weeks leading up to it. Not to mention his scandalously bad handling of the keeper situation leading to points being lost where they'd had already been won.

The problem for Lee is not playing. He probably wants to be part of the Japan set up for the next WC but if he's not playing he won't get a look in with them because they have some decent players (but not Havenaar who replaced him). Suspect he's pretty miffed about the whole situation with us tbh. If he thinks the new manager will treat him as badly as the last one then he'll ask for a move sooner than later. New Japanese season starts in about March I think so I'd expect the situation to become clearer before then. Gives us a bit of time yet though.

Chelsea already have Thibault Courtois in reserve, a player who actually performs at a high level week in, week out. When they're ready to pension off Cech Courtois will replace him. Butland's agent obviously doesn't have much imagination. He'll end up at Villa or something like that.

De Ridder was in front of him on the bench, we now have a new manager and coaches more likely to appreciate the technicality of players. Think we'll see a lot of changes in style although maybe it will take a while. De Ridder is a headless chicken, runs around a lot but very little end product at present.

I gave up watching Adkins' pre-match press interviews in the end, heard one heard them all; A total non-entity information wise.

Perhaps they'll all fall about laughing and we can stick them for 3 or 4 goals whilst they're doing that.

Once again a total non-comprehension of the contract and transfer system. As far as I know Hangeland is out of contract in June, that means that if Fulham want to "sell" him it has to be in the next few days unless he goes to Russia or Japan or the US where the window is slightly different. If his contract runs out at Fulham and he doesn't want to renegociate a new one he just walks away free to sign wherever he wants. He won't be worth 10 million because he has just a few months of contract to fulfill. As I see it he's keeping his options open but one of them won't be signing with Saints.

Think we need to wait and see what Pochettino and his coaching staff can get out of all of our players. Still not convinced that the Adkins,Crosby,Wilkins combo got all that much extra out of some of the players. Think on the coaching side they were out of their depth, mainly because they hadn't enough experience with the quality of player they were asked to coach.

who needs a smart helmet when they have pharmaceuticals

you mean someone has actually told SDR he's sh*t ?

I've written it off anyway, Saturday is far more important. As long as we can get AL a bit of a run-out at Old Trafford and have him fit for Saturday that's OK, no other injuries either. Still I guess the players and management won't see it that way. They'll want to win, but we probably won't. I noticed on the Poll on the OS only about 30% see us losing.

I would dare to predict that should De Ridder actually start this game he will get sent off before half-time. Our LMF player needs to defend, De Ridder can't do that. In fact I'd rather have anyone from the first team group than De Ridder.

Unless of course Forren can actually play efficiently at LB and it's not something someone made up.

You never know what a bit of better coaching might do for them. Or a different game plan. We'll just have to wait and see. Didn't someone somewhere say something about our coaching being "stale".

who is no doubt a better keeper than Given these days. Don't know why people want old hacks all of the time. If Given was any good he'd be playing at Villa cos Guzan isn't very good.

Perhaps MP is going to play his game and doesn't care what the opposition supposedly don't know about (although they always do).

Luke, Fox at LB.

what another spectacular Jonno quick signing.

could be back by Saturday I suppose; Might need some better coaching to be really worth what we paid for him; Saw him playing for Zambia the other day, looked totally lost, willing runner but didn't seem to know what he was doing (or supposed to be doing) half of the time. Raw talent, needs refining.

in fact only losing 3-1 probably wasn't bad at all

no Morgan= big problem, no Morgan + no Cork = end of the world.

Don't really see what we need anyway. Everything is covered and there has to be a pathway for the young talent...apparently. Don't think NA paid anywhere near enough attention to that point.

couldn't play modern " right way" football on that pitch though.