shurlock

Thought the runners from midfield/flanks were getting closer to and going past Lambert a lot quicker than usual - not that it didn't happen under NA; just that we sometimes stepped off and confused penetrative football with possession football.

So petty and insecure by the club. Rise above it ffs. The only way it will be able to move on and bring the fans with it.

Your average fan on the board type - should come with a health warning

You really don't understand, do you dear. Looking at one year's spend which is very high by premiership standards is meaningless. Most established prem teams have had the luxury of several years to assemble their sides over several years. Take West Brom, which have been held up as the poster boys of prudence and incrementalism. I remember seeing Chris Brunt score against us in 2008 and he is now their club captain. Look beyond the headlines of shortening managerial tenures and you discover that squads exhibit a great deal of continuity. In an ideal world, we would have kept the likes of Dyer, Surman, Jones, Baird and perhaps some our superstars. But history is what it is and we've been forced to spend in order to rebuild and catch-up. One implication is that it makes sense to look at our spending -not over one isolated year but over several years, especially as many signings in L1 are still first teamers. It also makes sense at the needs that motivated this spending. For instance, our best current CB was brought in as a direct replacement for Chris Perry, an old warhorse who was ready for the glue factory. Put in proper context, our spending has been pretty modest. So try to engage with an argument and facts rather peddle your usual pious condescension.

Didn't Pards take the squad away to Spain in Jan 2010?

Not much to judge him on admittedly but Mayuka probably had his strongest game for us as a half-baked right winger (against Spurs).

Agree- I had no problem with Pards firing (said so at the time as I felt we had become too one-dimensional and predictable under him). I do have a problem with this decision -as much from a footballing perspective as ethically. The problem is that Cortese hasn't suffered any real setback to date which in his view (and wrongly IMO) vindicates his more bizarre decisions. Of course, he may just have been lucky -a bloodied nose time to time might serve as a decent reality check and remind him of his fallibility.

Agree- still unclear where the occasional hesitation on Lambert came from. Still remember Lambert's early struggles under NA and NA's experimentation with different options e.g playing Forte furthest forward. Always struck me that NA dating back to his days at Scunny liked more mobile strikers. Or possibly it's Cortese -and another parochial example of his belief that foreign is best and that a 'big-boned' (euphemistically speaking), 30 something scouser is an anachronism in the brave new world of the 'southampton way'. For me, this is one of the more intriguing subplots of the management change.

Fair enough to the OP -having called the original post 'moronic'. Take a thousand of those posts over some self-righteous piece in the nationals for whom we're the soapbox du jour.

On pardew's removal, worth asking whether the fallout was seen in Wilkins brief reign? It wasn't just or even that he was a s**t manager but he had to deal with all the aggro, confusion and uncertainty that came with quite a brutal decision by NC. Adkins was fortunate that by the time he joined some of the more raw wounds had begun to heal. Still remember the atmosphere in the JPT cup against Swindon and the run thereafter - for those who say you can seperate support for the club and anger with the board, think back to that period, not Adkins arrival.

Agree-it also begs the question of what benefit does NC expect to gain sacking NA now? That we finish a few places higher than we would have under NA? That's a trivial, practically meaningless gain. That NC felt that MP will keep us up while he fears that NA would have taken us down? That might have been more convincing a few months ago but less so now. That NC thinks a change in management will allow us to secure signings in what remains of the transfer window? Who knows we haven't signed anyone yet. That NC wants to give MP a settling in period ahead of a good crack next season? Not worth the risk. That MP became available only recently and NC had to have him come what may? Hard to believe given NC had penciled in several targets. Still don't understand what NC had to gain doing things now...

Fine its not an article, though I respect a fan's analysis -and probably hold it to a higher standard than your average journo. And I couldn't care less if an article is negative - I didn't interpret this piece as particularly negative. I just think the whole formation line is pretty irrelevant in the grand scheme of things -hence why we've argued about it on a few occasions. In a similar vein, I don't like single cause explanations -or the idea that there's always someone to blame. Alas that's the common currency on a mongboard. That pretty much explains my position on everything -not any great love for Cortese or besieged need to rally behind the status quo.

We tried Jrod on the left at the start of the season but it didn't work. Guly came in -and did OK imo but will always have his critics. Recently, it hasn't been so much whether Ramirez is going to play on the left or in the hole but whether he'll start at all -and I've got to admit the decision to leave him out at Stoke (at least till the second half when we desperately needed to retain possession) and Chelsea was pretty much spot on.

Article is full of holes - Ramirez was moved to the left out of necessity, not choice due to Lallana's injury. And at times it's been very difficult to distinguish whether we were playing 4-3-3, 4-4-2, 4-5-1 or 4-2-3-1.

My thoughts on article are that Adkins got his way on some things and not on others -surprise, surprise such is life when decisions are made collectively. What didn't we already know? Moreover, the article only cites one or two examples, possibly because they were most high profile areas of tension. But we didn't just sign yoshida or ramirez over the summer (and who knows maybe the committee was right to override Nige on these). What about all the other transactions we completed -rodriguez, davis, clyne -there's good to reason to think that NA was pretty involved in these (Jrod for sure).

Agree that support for Adkins won't have much of an effect but that same support and the motivation behind it could turn into something more hostile and counterproductive very quickly. And no we wouldn't have to be bottom of the league in April for it to happen. We lose on Monday and against United I'm pretty sure the atmosphere against City won't be pretty - regardless how we get on against Wigan. Would be interested to know of examples where managers can be separated from the chairmen - usually if a manager is brought in by an unpopular chairman, they're seen as willing puppets and accomplices.

Agree -and Nigel was fortunate to get off to a fast start which helped snuff out the discontent, though I remember it was quick to resurface around Xmas time 2010 (before we beat Huddersfield at our gaff). The difference is that the new guy doesn't have the luxury of having a championship squad in L1.

Context my friend, context. "It is fair to say we are going to need to bring another goalkeeper in as Bartosz [bialkowski] did ever so well for us but didn't play enough games. "We've allowed him to move on to Notts County and I am sure he will have a great career up there. We will bring another one if not two goalkeepers into the fold"

He was talking about keepers in the context of replacing Bart who had just signed for County and Forecast who was still around the club. Read your own quotes....

A replacement for Bart then while Forecast was still on the books - not quite the same thing. Either way, once Gazza came in, it was never the same priority as CBs (can't remember many, if any references thereafter), though many still saw it as a glaring weakness.

Because our situation is more comparable to Chelsea's. As with Benitez, Cortese's actions are fundamentally intertwined with having a new manager, so attacking one is more likely to spill onto the other. Singing one Nigel Adkins is innocuous enough but you can easily imagine that sliding into more personal abuse against the new manager if he doesn't get a fast start. Either way he's operating on a much shorter leash which is not helpful in the middle of a relegation dogfight. At united, it's easier to keep protests against the Glaziers and support for the team separate - its not like they've fired fergy or made any other unpopular decisions with clear outlets on the pitch.

It does add up - its not an either/or. NA got his way on some transfers (no doubt the case with Jrod) and was overruled by the committee on others. Such is life when decisions are made by a group: you win some, you lose some.

CBs maybe -don't remember the quote about keepers.