Tom28

Yeah, agree, horrible club, always have been but I would quite happily see them run away with the title this year, winning every game except against us. The more points they take, the less there are for everyone else, and the more chance we have of making the playoffs. Here's to Charlton doing the same thing too...! And Norwich. And I'll quite happily take 4th, 5th or 6th place, confident that we'll do the business in the playoffs.

Really? You think he was playing better for us than he has for the last season or two for Bolton? His first spell with us, he was just getting good, but he's a much better player now. He seems a lot more comfortable with his role, he's a leader now, and if Peter Crouch, Carlton Cole and Emile Heskey suffer injuries or drops in form, he's next in line for the 'big' striker role for England. Kachloul I agree with. Gareth Bale is an obvious one although possibly too early to say for sure.

Anyone know if these are valid from the Brighton game or until, say, the 11th or 12th Home game?

I agree with most on here saying the subs changed the game but I was so impressed with the midfield three of Wotton, Hammond and Schneiderlin in the first half and then Hammond and Schneiderlin second half. They were at the heart of everything good. Doubt there is a better centre midfield in the league. Hammond looks like a winner-constantly harassing and gee-ing up the team, making them work right to the end and leading by example. Schneiderlin has become the player we all hoped he would have been last year. He's box to box, great in possession (he had 20 thousand people screaming at him to shoot and instead he picked out a great ball to Antonio who dropped it back to James for the cross for the first goal), but the best thing about him that we are seeing more lately and didn't see last season is that he is a lot more physical. He clattered through a couple of players yesterday which was great to see. Those two dominated their centre midfield throughout. Good sign. Also like to note that MK Dons were abysmal. Sunday morning down milbrook rec abysmal. All they had was the long ball and Trotman and man-mountian Jaidi absolutely dominated back there. I absolutely believe 3-1 flattered them. Great stuff.

Not that I wish to gloat (I do) but Ive made a small fortune the last two weeks. £50 on Lambert to score first and Saints to win vs Gills and £2 on Trotman to score first in a 3-1 win at Southend. This week I'm going with Lallana to score the Saints goal in a 1-1 draw. People saying that anything less than a win is a poor result should have a word with themselves. Clean sheet would be nice but we just can't seem to do it.

Kelvin Wotton Jaidi Trotman Harding Waigo Lallana Hammond Mellis Saga Lambert

Kelvin Thomas (Murty) Jaidi Trotman Harding James Lallana Hammond Mills or Holmes Saga Lambert Lallana is too good in possession to play out wide - he needs to be playing down the middle, pulling the strings. James on the right and Milles or Holmes on the left gives natural width. Yes we lack pace still but I'd rather go for quality and strength, than pace, especially in this league.

One of the most ridiculous things I've heard this week.

Some free transfers available (and according to wikipedia, not currently on trial anywhere) that might play League One football in the positions we need to fill or need depth... Michael Mifsud, Steve Kabba, Leon Mckenzie, Danny Mills, David Noble (seen this guy play and was good, midfielder, 27) Noe Pamarot, Ricardo Rocha, Antoine Sibierski, Sam Sodje, Moritz Volz, Jermaine Wright Dwight Yorke (currently training with Tranmere) Zheng Zhi Personally, Leon McKenzie, Sodje (although dont think he's drop down), and Anotine Sibierski (if we lose Rasiak) would be my preferences.

What do they need a shed load of money for? As long as they have enough to pay off the debt and keep the club afloat, what else do we need right now? You think a big war chest is needed? Wake up - we're in league one - very few players worth any money at all will want to join us. The biggest thing we need right now is someone to unite behind. Someone to inspire the club again. I really despair at some of you lot on here.

Before I write what I want to say - just a quick pat on the back for myself - I knew the Pinnacle withdrawal was a bluff. See below...I did however get the motive for the bluff wrong! http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?p=352132#post352132 Anyway, I think we can all agree, no matter what we think of Pinnacle, Michael Fialka or Tony Lynam, what we need more than anything is someone to unite the club and Matt Le Tissier at the helm of the club is the person to do that. Although, its worried me that some posters in recent days have even turned against him - it really does make me wonder about some people. Matt Le Tissier running Southampton Football Club is the thing we need most right now. No, he probably doesnt have much business acumen, but he's a common sense guy and he'll know that, and to mitigate it, he'll surround himself with guys who do know their way around the books. What he will bring is someone who understands what the fans want, someone who, unreservedly wants unconditional success for Southampton football club, and someone who will inspire players, managers, coaches, staff, and fans alike. As fans, we will all have opinions over which players we should buy, which manager we should appoint etc etc. Whatever decisions MLT would take as Chairman, regardless of whether I had a different opinion or not, I would support him, and support his choices. Say what you like about him, the guy stuck by Southampton year after year when any other player would have gone on to a bigger club. He made the club, single handedly, what it was a few years ago, and you could tell, week after week on Soccr Saturday what it was doing to him watching his club fall down the league, out of the top flight and then out of the Championship. Pinnacle buying Saints would give us MLT at the helm of the club and for that reason, I hope beyond hope that they tie up a deal.

Anyone else think this isn't the end of Pinnacle and that this is a bit of a bluff? The guys in charge at football league will not want to see the end of a club the size of Southampton. Not only will the FL be seen to not help the club (as is their obligation as governing body), but they will be seen to have actively forced the winding up the club by not allowing an appeal of the 10 point penalty they have imposed, and therefore causing the leading potential bidder to drop out of the race to buy the club. My guess is that news of Pinnacle dropping out is circulating around the football league and they will be calling emergency meetings asap to look at finding a solution. I dont think we've heard the last of this. I wouldn't be surprised if the FL came back with an offer to Pinnacle something along the lines of allowing them the chance to appeal but with the condition that a greater points deduction may be applied if they lose the appeal.

Anyone on this forum ever bought a house? (Silly question, you're all 15-18 years old). Right, well it takes 2-3 months to buy ONE HOUSE - even after you've made an offer. 21 days to buy a FOOTBALL CLUB and all the things that come with that such as; countless players' contracts; staff contracts; debt and associated creditors; stadium; third party contracts; to name just a few of the biggies, is not a lot of time. In fact, I'm surprised that the period of exclusivity is only 21 days. They're not buying a new shirt, or a car, or a house, they're buying a FOOTBALL CLUB. So will everyone stop panicking.

Well played sir.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!! On a forum that, on a daily basis, serves up all manner of pointless and erroneous threads, you have managed to post the most factually incorrect and idiotic post ever to grace this website.

You want research? When good ol' Crouchy was in charge, our revenue dropped from 23.3 million to 14.9 million. That was NOT his fault - that was a combination of dwindling attendances, loss of sponsorship deals and I think parachute payments ending (although I haven't been able to verify that). However, as Chairman, it was his RESPONSIBILITY to take note of this and reduce our costs in line with that revenue reduction. In the period that revenue dropped from 23.3 million to 14.9 million, what happened to our costs? Cost of Sales went from 21.5 million to 22.5 million. He acted irresponsibly and gambled on the future of the club my INCREASING COSTS (wages/player purchases) in the hope that the additional expenditure would translate to success on the pitch, and result in promotion and the additional revenue that brings. Under Crouch we managed to lose £4.9m after a £12.7m profit on player disposals. He was running a player/coach wage bill of 81%. Now, these numbers are ALL fact and I urge anyone who disagrees with these facts to check out the Annual Report. The only non-factual bit is my interpretation of Crouch's intentions. I do believe he was running this club as a fan and he always had the best intentions. As fans, we want to see good players coming to the club, we want to see good players attracted by high wages and big signing bonuses and we don't care much for the financial impact *****il we end up in a situation like this when we start pointing fingers and assigning blame). I think Crouch was doing what the fans wanted, and was trying to get us promoted, which in itself is fine, but as Chairman, he did have a responsibility to ensure the future of the club would not be placed in jeopardy. Which is exactly where we are. I'm not saying that he is solely to blame - far from it, but he is a big contributor to our current situation. I commend him for his efforts to raise money to keep the club alive whilst we await a buyer but I have to agree with the original poster and say that the club would be better off with Crouch well out the way and a completely new regime in place. He should go back to being a fan, and sit in the terraces with the rest of us, and leave the finances of the club to someone more intelligent.

Did anyone else notice last night that the front two got away from what they've been doing the past few games? In the last few games, when long balls have been played up front, Euell has gone up for them, and Saga was always 5-10 yeards away looking for the second ball, and it meant that the ball was sticking up there. Last night, everytime the ball went forward they were 30-40 yards apart, Euell would get the touch and no-one would be there. Last night seriously exposed our lack of pace all over the pitch. We have no pace in any position. Now, normally we combat that by moving the ball around, but that wasn't happening. We were crying out for someone on the bench with a bit of pace, but there was no-one there either. I know most of you dont like him, but Smith has to be on the bench with McLaggon out injured.

haha, yeah I had noticed that but I'm just putting those comments down to temporary insanity and delusion due to the fact we've won two in a row... When people are that happy, they'll blurt out all sorts of rubbish...

I know its opinions and all that, but you are just wrong. I made a point of watching him as much as I could today. He was always behind play, either deep when we were attacking, or too far forward when we were defending. On the ball he is one of our better players, but he rarely makes runs to get into space to receive the ball. I find him frustrating because if he had the work rate of someone like Gillett he would be a seriously good player. I don't want to complain today though, great team display, and DMG got the winning goal so all good.

I literally cant say enough good things about the way Gillett played today. He was outstanding. He has completely proven me wrong - I thought he was hopeless. He was everywhere today, breaking up Cardiff attacks all game long. This 70 minutes, ran out of steam nonsense is rubbish - the game turned into a long ball affair as Cardiff were pushing for the equaliser and sadly that doesn't suit someone who is all of 5ft 6! However, I wouldn't have blamed him if he had have run out of steam, he was all over the pitch today, he was always available to receive the ball when we have possession, he broke up Cardiff attacks, he was composed, everything you want from a centre midfielder. Class act today. And he had to do the running of two players today because the lazy DMG showed up today and didn't fancy breaking into a sweat. Other notables, the back 4, all quality today, and Skacel linking up with Drew cut Cardiff up everytime. Euell and Saga first class centre forward play - held the ball up brilliantly, gave the rest of the side a breather and never stopped working and chasing. Only disappoitments for me today was the lazy DMG turning up, and Lallana not in the game enough, or providing enough width on the right.

Do you really think that the Southampton board would waste their time planting people on this moronic website filled with 12-16 year old socially inept and moronic posters, so promote the work they are doing? Do you have a ****ing brain in your nut? I bet you go on some 'sky at night' forums too and start conspiracy theories there about how the US Government covered up the existance of aliens. And George Bush had explosives planted in the world trade centre buildings to collapse them. Alpine, is that your mum calling you in for dinner?

I agree. Lets face it, he's talking about most of you lot on here who whine and moan like children about how this club has fallen like we have some god-given right to be further up the league (s) and out of this mess. Always looking for someone to blame; its boring. Most often you're blaming Rupert Lowe, but occasionally to change it up (presumably, because even you lot are bored of it), you'll find another scapegoat to get stuck into. I'm sick of it - this will be my last post on this site - good luck to you all and your negative, hate and blame filled existances. Oh, and incase its not infered by my post, I agree with everything Mark Wotte said. GoodBye...

I looked at remaining fixtures and worked out (rather optimistically) that we will finish with 51 points. And that included a defeat at Ashton Gate tomorrow. So I think we'll lose 2-0, and any sort of result there I would consider a big bonus. But do not despair, I've worked it all out, and a defeat tomorrow is all part of the plan, so I don't want to see anyone complaining on here at 6pm tomorrow...

We absolutely have to change something at the back coz we're conceding far too many goals. I think Surman has always done a decent job there, and with Skacel ahead of him, they can interchange and we will be fairly solid. I think we have to make a change on the right side and try and find a solid pairing at right back and right midfield. When you think back to the 'glory days' we had such solid wide players - Bridge and Marsden on the left, Dodd and Telfer or Telfer and Fernandes on the right. We need to get back to that.

------------------Davis Schneiderlin--Perry-----Saeijs-------Surman James-------Wotton----Euell-------Skacel ----------------McLaggon ------------------------Saga Subs: Bart, Liptak, Molyneux, Lallana, Gillett