Legod Third Coming

You've been through it too then

True, but in reality when you have ever heard of an 'instant dismassal'? The only way that happens is if you drop dead on the premises. If these stories are true, Pardew and coaches might have been suspended first and then sacked - perhaps they were and they are going through compromise agreements at the moment? You are probably right, their contracts will prohibit them talking to the press in the event of a dispute - but then they wouldn't talk anyway if they value a career in football.

If that guy worked for TEAM and was any good there, he will be fine for us. We laud their approach to rights management as about the most effective sponsorhip case study anywhere. When I worked in racing, my guvnors used to bang on about us operating like the Champion's League... we would have done too, if they had as much balls as they do brains, but that's a story for a beer not an internet forum.

They will, don't worry. The media need us as much as we need them. I don't think many future fans read the Sun tbh, but you be assured they will cover us winning the league. They may do it cartoons, but you know what, that's as likely to do us as many favours as bad. What we need to do is win on the pitch. Simples!

I'm happy to run the marketing under anybody to be honest. I didn't come here to make you believe in Jesus, you either do or you don't (Don Draper)... Either people can take professional advice or they can't. If they can't, I'm wasting mine and their time, and I care about mine! As for Saints and its brand values, I agree although I also worked in sports marketing for a while and I know that the value of rights in the media is a really tricky area. Part of me thinks Cortese is acting now as though we are already a Premiership Club. Take Manchester United, it won't be long before they think about selling their rights directly to the media, rather than in the collective SKY agreement... They know they could make more money this way. But then, they have the brand to justify it. I think our spat with the media is overblown. Most of those papers wouldn't have covered us anyway and wouldn't have put a picture in. If (or should that be when) we beat Manchester United in the FA Cup, they'll pay up quick enough, trust me!

And will he bowl a no ball in return for 150k?

Unfortunately, I work in marketing. And twenty years of that, and 13 of Alistair Campbell have made me a cynic... What can you do? A very quick way for any board to justify an unpopular decision is to 'blame circumstances'... and then be pretty unspecific about what they are. Leaving the great unwashed to murmur, "ah circumstances, that was the the reasoning..." Create a hole and let the internet rumour machine fill it.

My biggest concern is the availability of someone who can do this. Equally, I am not hung up on an 'inspiring' big name manager. To be honest, when Pardew was revealed I was a bit underwhelmed. Two of my best mates are Charlton fans (in fact I'm out with them tonight which will be fun!!) and they had (prior to his appointment) given me plenty of evidence of his shortcomings. But over time, he won me over. He saw the same games as me, identified the right problems and fixed them bloody quick. He saw faults three previous managers had overlooked - he gave us our first spine in possibly a decade! So it's not about Martin O'Neil for me, it's about someone who can do the job. The problem is, with the possible exception of Tony Mowbray I personally haven't seen a name listed I think can do the job, let alone do it Holloway or Mourinho style...

I hate these markets. Before Scolari was installed at Chelsea, I had a call from a pal saying that Brian Laudrup was favourite. And I can't say who/what he was, but let's say there was only one/two people better placed to know. So I try to have a crafty bet on Laudrup at 50/1 and even just for asking they slashed his odds to 33s! And then let me have no more than £50 on... Still I got the last laugh when Scolari was installed... err....

Personally, unless we can see some concrete rationale, I have lost some trust in the judgement of a Chairman who fires a manager when Pardew was fired. If other reasons materialise which represent gross misconduct then Cortese would have my support assuming he was presented with no alternative. However, I don't believe this is the case, or why would our Chairman not hesitate to ensure we understood this was the case? It was apparent to everyone in football that Pardew was nearly sacked in June/July and if, as I expect, this was simply an inevitable consequence, it represents very, very bad management. Not that this makes me any less thankful to Nicola and Markus. As regards Rochdale, you know as well as I do that football is about momentum as much as anything. The players (with or without Lambert, Lallana and Barney) should be good enough to beat Rochdale. No, there's no guarantee we would have won the game under Pardew - but I think you would be mad to be more confident or as confident without Pardew than with him, wouldn't you?

You are right, that's not quite what I meant. What I meant was, I feel worse for not knowing that we may have a manager with proven ability in charge versus one who I felt/feel had the proven ability, qualities and strength to win promotion. Clearly, the club and playing squad is far, far superior. Which also begs the question - if you and I can see that, whay can't the Chairman?

There are no more examples of this with Pardew than any other manager, if you ask me. Soemtimes changing things makes things better, sometimes worse and most of the time no difference at all. If Harding buries a chance my grandmother could have scored with, then would you have hailed Pardew a tactical genius? It was, after all, the sub who set him up with an inch perfect ball via Lallana's missed header... Those are the margins in sport. If we'd gone down 2-1 despite dominating the entire game would Pardew then have been a poor manager criticised for making changes? I think there's a naivety sometimes that assumes one manager is dictating the outcome of the game without any input from the other, or from a bit of luck - hitting the post twice, bar and having a left back miss a bloody sitter! At no point during or after the Orient game did I feel we wouldn't get promoted once things started to click. Seven days later we hammered a decent team 4-0 away from home... Did anyone think after that game we wouldn't murder Rochdale tomorrow? Do we think that now?

So what's new?

I think we'll have to agree to differ on Pardew's record. For my money, post October we showed Championship winning form. Did we draw too many games, possiby, but I am also conscious that we went from a losing team to a wining one in under a season's length. I think people are too quick to write that off as being easy because we had money. Winning and losing are club mentalities and Pardew turned our mentality around. Anyone who cannot see the progress made by Adam Lallana in a season under Pardew isn't really looking. And we are not the only team in the world capable of having a bad day. We had very few last season. What time will tell is the real quality of Pardew's management. Although the new manager will have all the old excuses that a succession of managers had as a get out clause for our poor form/results. If we are mid-table or worse by Christmas will people change their minds? And if we are three managers into the new regime's tenure by next June, will people accept that perhaps our Chairman has got it wrong? I genuinely hope that neither of the above transpire, but after Saturday I was confident (and so was Steve Claridge) our season was underway. Now I feel we are worse off than when Pardew arrived. That needs to be fixed quickly or gates will drop, the team will revert to a losing one and 18 months into a five year plan we will be no further forward other than alive and debt-free (themselves massive achievements of course).

I hate to disagree but a quick resume of Ferguson's career or Mourinho's will illustrate that managers maketh clubs. Had you ever heard of Porto before they won the Champion's League? That was pretty much the equivalent of us winning it in our top flight days... Ferguson had a 58% win ratio at East Stirling years before winning a European Trophy with Aberdeen. Not any manager would have made a decent attempt at the play-offs. Plenty of managers have had money and failed abysmally. Pardew did a good job. Only one club in history has received a points deduction and been promoted subsequently. Yes we had money. We also had no-preseason and a fair share of hard luck. Without a points deduction the manager could easily have finished second (the team taking its foot of the gas once all chance had gone). Time will tell if a better manager is appointed, but the timing and manner of Pardew's sacking represent very poor planning by any standard and could just as easily cost us another year in this league. Then what? Back to the managerial instability that served us so well? I am not one for holding onto unsuccessful managers, but ones who win football matches and trophies I'm all for... You say the JPT was meaningless. Was it? Or was it part of Pardew's thinking that this club needed to establish a winning mentality?

We will see over the season, not just on Saturday. But failure to appoint a new manager soon and we could be facing the same deficit as we started last season with, which would be tough on any incoming manager who will be forced to work under extreme pressure to deliver - the kind of pressure which frankly most managers at this level will never before have endured. The reason why people like Mourinho and Ancelotti command such sums is that they are used to dealing in gazillions and playing with their billionnaire owner's toys. League One managers don't have that experience.

Championship form would be around 2% higher than the greatest living manager is able to achieve... according to your assessment.

Not really, Pardew will have been forced to sign a compromise agreement asking him to keep shtum to get his pay off. He also knows the game - speak out-stay out... It would be a simple matter for a Chairman to say either that someone has been dismissed for a breach of club discipline or because of performances on the pitch. The timing is lousy, the void left has been filled with speculation and I'd like our Chairman to explain what part of his 3/5 year plan involved sacking a manager at the worst possible time following a period of what this club would ordinarily consider relative success...(his win ratio of 53% is only 5% worse than Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger).

At the end of the season we'll know, but life without Pardew seems to be going really well so far The point is the Chairman can now hold his head up whatever the results are and say 'you see I had no choice' nudge, nudge wink, wink... I want a reason. I want honesty. Is that too much to ask for 40 years of my life? This innuendo is a bloody poor show.

How do we know these rumours about Pardew are not put about by a hapless Chairman looking to exonerate himself from a major f u c k up? Answer: we don't...

Fecking hell, we have some moron fans but if you can find a man alive who has purchased a ticket to watch Southampton play who would be unhappy with either of those managers, I will show you a candidate for our local village idiot, or perhaps the next Chairman of Southampton FC...

If you don't sack a manager for performance reasons, you must be a fecking idiot. Because what the feck else matters? We were winning games alright but you should have seen some of our coaches swearing and some of the players puffing and panting in training... Feck me. I hope he was sacked for performance reasons and nothing else. If he had won the league he could have ****ed in my car and taken my wife up the arse for all I care.

Hmm not sure about that, try and sell a copy in Liverpool...

I would encourage anyone to download last night's fivelive sport and listen to the debate among Chairmen (Gould, Whelan and Barry Hearne) on giving managers freedom to buy players. There are pros and cons, but for me Hearne summed it up when he said 'how could I bring a manager in, judge him on results, but not give him the freedom to make decisions about the team?' or words to that effect... Call me old fashioned but not a succesful manager alive has not been handed the freedom to make selection choices based on his own style and process. Sure, they all have budgets to work within but good managers are better qualified to judge than Chairmen, that's just bleedin' obvious...

Amen to that list.