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Clearly Ramirez is a great signing, but it's also equally clear that having spent so much well-publicised time and effort on negotiations with Bologna, Cortese had to seal the deal. However, many of us also questioned the final absence of any defensive cover. Thankfully we did sign Yoshida - and that was a good (and relatively inexpensive) deal by comparison, but in retrospect I think a number of factors blurred the management vision (and mine too).....and didn't alert us to potential problems. Clearly we had to replace Jaidi, but having loaned out Aaron Martin (who should have be getting game time instead of bench time at Palace)..and sold Dan Harding (a good move for him) and the uncertainty surrounding Dan Seaborne's future...... things seem to have fallen onto Luke Shaw's shoulders and having seen the £4 million to Arsenal hype in the summer we all expected to see another emerging Gareth Bale, but it came at a time when Shaw clearly wasn't ready and he sustained a minor injury and was later ill, and is probably still short of full fitness. Of course we may never know the full details of the " non-signing " of Buttner, but clearly Cortese wasn't happy with the double-dealing rumoured to be going on behind the scenes... and so it didn't happen. Now without Martin, and Clyne and Richardson injured we are in the s****t, but the final question has to be ....Were there any suitable top class CB candidates that we really wanted to sign - and didn't get? Looking around at the time it was difficult to see any "available " player who'd be willing to come, or whose club was willing to sell ....who everyone agreed would have been the prime candidate? In retrospect we've been unlucky with injuries / loss of form..... but we may have better luck finding the right men in January.

there you go with those hypothetical questions again . you'll upset Turkish you know. Certainly RL has lots of experience of scoring against lower level sides, where perhaps the " cultured Prem. style " of pretty football doesn't always cut it. But it's not unusual for top sides to struggle against the minnows in such fixtures. I'm just reading reports about Sweden's game against The Faroe Islands yesterday. They are the Nordic equivalent of San Marino or Andorra, and play on a plastic surface, as the Arctic-like climate and the strong winds make it difficult to maintain a grass pitch of any quality. Faroe Islands actually took a second half lead, but it took a 2nd half subbing to bring Anders Svensson into the game and tighten up their ineffective midfield rabble. Sweden eventually scored a goal and only a goalie-battering late effort from Zlatan Ibrahimovic gave them the points (won 2-1). We will never know what Rickie might have done,in the England match, but it would have been fun seeing what he would have done with some of the chances we had and failed to convert.

?? I wonder if that was the same fella who was in goal in their famous win over Australia in the Asian Cup Final ? Can't recall his name, but he kept a clean sheet until Tadanari Lee popped up with his extra time winner.

The Hagiography books.... are a load of BULL ! David Bull is one of the most-knowledeable and accurate historians on the club's history and especially the post-war period when Saints had the finest team NEVER to get promotion. I've had periodic contact with him, and am always impressed by the depth of his background knowledge about the club, its players and personnel. I'm sure he wouldn't mind younger journos using some info. from his privately-acquired interviews - if only they bothered to check the source properly. It's pretty shoddy work from The Mirror to produce such fine photographic publication but not bother to quote people's names correctly, and even check basic details.

I can recall the exitement over the (then Saint) 17 year old Gareth Bale, being quickly tempered by harsh comments about his shortcomings as a defender..... Few players in the World can overlap and attack as Bale does, but he is no longer asked to play the defensive role he once had. Similar criticism about Daniel Fox (perhaps not unwarranted at times) doesn't take away from the fact that he is the most effective left-sided threat we've had in a decade or more. Eleven assists last season shows how effective he can be, but like Bale, he's not particularly strong in the defensive role. Are we playing him in the wrong position?

But surely Turkish.....the success of a team is what they do on the pitch, not how many people they get through the turnstiles. When they get back into the SPL - and win something they can brag a bit. I don't think they are even PL top 6. Looking back at those (rare) occasions when Rangers or Celtic drew English clubs in some Euro. competition, I can't recall the Scots winning too often this side of the border? Finally ...their " past successes " (that means winning SPL every other season) never seems to be repeated when they end up as bottom team in their Euro group...and let's not forget that the reason they are in SC3 is that they overspent disasterously and went bankrupt.....Throwing big money into a black hole is called the " Portsmouth Syndrome " down here. If Chelsea hadn't been baled out by their Russian saviour, they'd probably have been in L2 by now.

I'd read that ..as any club that has a good family centre, where the WHOLE family can go to a game without looking for a bank loan....where even the kids can see the whole game and WAGS don't have to put up with a place where they are surrounded by load-mouthed drunks and loads of bad language. Does that description come into the category of Fantasy Football.. .or do such clubs exist ?

me too. If we could dispense with the top 4 then the Prem. would become a far more interesting League. There would be a lot more interesting games.......and without everyone getting crushed by Chelsea, Citeh and MU

perhaps ......when Rangers are back as SPL Champions.... then he can start to brag a bit, but If I were him .....I'd keep a low profile for a few years ..... what size of gate do they get in Scottish League 3 btw ?

well the answer to that (Duncan).. is to have one site for the positive-minded fans and let the others battle it out in a wave of negativity on the other...... to see who can be the most depressing ! How about it Mods ?

....can't disagree with that part, but he was almost single-handedly responsible for our winning goal tally in the last 8 games. AND .....looking at the what happened to the "alternative " signings we didn't make ; Nicky Maynard and Lukas.....I think we got a good deal anyway......

I'm with you on that one, but I think NA is also wanting to give Gazzaniga a fair chance before changing him out.

however, the best example I can give of ....." unpredicatable inconsistancy " was local lad Martin Chivers (1962-1968)............(if you weren't of that generation ...the name means nothing....) BUT in the promotion season 1965-66, he scored 30 League goals in the first 29 games up until the end of February ...then failed to score again in the remaining 13 fixtures.... As I said previously..inconsistancy ..but it wasn't " unpredicatable " to guess that he would move on sometime, and he eventually signed for Spurs in Jan. 1968 for a (then) British record fee of £125,000 and went to to play CF for England in several seasons. So let's not condemn JayRod too quickly... .when he does find some form ..he might surprise a lot of people.

Oh dear. All that time with your head in the stats. book and you've missed some glaring historical examples. Dibden. I won't list them all, but how about us signing a £1 million striker, who managed only 5 goals in his first season.....and didn't score at all in his second. Actually managed to get into double figures with 11 in his third season... and fared little better...(12)... in his fourth. Rubbish! ---------let's sack him many said. it was season number FIVE before James Beattie got really going and scored 23 Premiership goals and only just missed out on the Golden Boot to ....Thierry Henry. (2002-03). Surely we can't expect strikers to score just whenever we think they should. Most of them are...highly unpredictable and inconsistent - by nature. Just for the record .in the above James Beattie example I quoted ..He didn't score his first goal until ....match 10. then scored 11 times in the next 8 games. like Beattie was .......Rodriguez is very new, and still quite young. I think we need to give him a bit more time before condemning him to the scrap heap.

you what ? do you think he has magic potions, or healing fingers and can banish anyone's injury?....maybe we should sack him and appoint Rasputin instead......

As someone who is partial to stats. myself Dibden, I mostly agree with the line where you state : this is very early to make such prognostications ....... I have said (repeatedly in the past) that I don't take a serious look at the table until after 6 games. WELL....we're not bottom (thankfully) and the opposition who've beaten us are all top six sides (except Wigan) and so even our present position isn't a true reflection of our performances, or our potential..... if you consider the teams we have played already. I really think that this is the sort of thing I'd look at in February and not October. The stats. of course are history and (I assume) correct.. but the bottom six teams we are talking about may well be in very different positions by that time. Liverpool may be mid-table...and Villa or Swansea below us? who knows? ..though we obviously hope that we can stabilise, which looks more of a challenge when you look at our present injury list, but that's football. I admire your work on the stats. but we ought to wait a bit until we start to name the clubs are most likely to meet the criteria stated.

I am well familair with The Peter Principle..... having read it decades ago and observed it in organisations that I was employed in (at that time ). However, based on your interpretation of it ....can you explain why the managers of the three clubs beneath us in the League haven't been sacked yet ?

...does he mean that Nicola Cortese's opinion is more important, or ?

No-one is born with the management skills needed to be a Premier League manager. or .... a banker, a computer nerd........or a fireman .....or Prime Minister (sorry bad example).. but it takes time to learn new things, and this is new for everyone at SFC. How would it be.... if every boss you'd had ....sacked you after eight weeks for poor performance?.

well, of course, his wife has that problem really, but I can bet he's not getting too many undisturbed nights !

I think you (and the other 5 guys) - are " the Adkins out posse." ....and the cavalry are coming for you ............

I'd bring back ........Lawrie McMenemy, before I'd consider 'appy 'arry ......not for me.