david in sweden

We must be the same generation as Saints were Div 3 sth when I first saw th. However, the 1-7 defeat at Watford surely pales into insignificance when compared to the 0-7 on the televised game at Leed in 1972. Worse for me the firm I worked for at that time had their Head Office in Leeds......and all they could talk about was they had advertising hoardings around the ground and how good the company name looked on TV. Sh*t to the football.! But I agree with you. We have never been a club to win things or even get promotions, but all the same we have seen some great seasons. Over 100 goals. a season... on MORE than one occasion....Paine and Sydenham, (surely two of the best wingers ever to play at the same time - for any club, anywhere. The 5 man forward line in the same generation. 1966 promotionand although we struggled to survive every year, it was good to see (and sometimes soundly beat) some top sides at The DELL. Would we ever have had the great cupwinning side of 76, if ...we had sacked McMenemy after we were relegated in 1974.? Perhaps not ! NO.... Ball, Osgood, Shilton or Keegan in the Saints stripes. Then the second promotion 1978 and those great years that followed. The times we had teams like Liverpool, Arsenal and Man.U at the Dell and outplayed, and sometimes even disgraced them. The tragedy of 1984 when we almost won the League. There are those fans who say that had the season been 2 weeks longer ..we would have overtaken the fading Liverpool and actually won the Title. Two great FA Cup semi-final; 1984 and 86 - when we sadly lost out to both the Liverpool side in extra time. McMenemy's sudden departure and the arrival of Chris Nicholl, who IMHO was a much better manager than many gave him credit for...and who was sacked the day before the Board sold Rod wallace to Leeds for .......(wait for it ).. £1.6 million (quite a large sum of many in those days, too). Sadly, the last 10 years have been a procession of managers playing musical chairs first at the Dell and later at SMS (which is one of the few things to give RL credit for). His "man-management" as Lawrie called it is - very poor. Strachan... and the Cup Final were highlights - since when it's been a downward spiral. So to younger /newer fans ..hang in there, and I hope that you can look back in 40 -50 years with some pride because just now..Saints are roughly in the same situation as when I first became a regular fan, but it's been great. Sometimes excellent, sometimes tragic often frustrating but always .....SAINTS !!!!!!!!! COYR !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry .......did my outburst totally quench the debate on Svensson ? Does anyone disagree, or ......?

This was an interesting item, Andrew. Considering all the comments that went back and forth during his time, and the wrangle over .. ' arry, I wonder if he'd dare set foot on the car park. Anyway I think he can't be chairman of TWO clubs according to FA rules, but just in case he eventually turns out to be Saints saviour ....whatever happened to the first statue that was supposed to be Ted Bates...? I thought that looked more like Mandaric than Ted. Maybe it be could erected in .......(NO stupid idea, sorry ).

well 1952-53 was a bad season. We went down that year from Old Div.2 being second from bottom. Despite scoring 68 goals...we won only 10 games and our our defence leaked in 85 and didn't have much coordination either. (Plymouth only scored 65 that year but they managed to finish .........4th.) of course, 1973-74 was also a bad season. We won only 10 games of 42. It was all the fault of that new manager Lawrie McMenemy. We should have got rid of him at the time. Everyone said we'd never get back up to the top flight, or win anything with him ! and sadly ..our recent (costly) demotion from the Prem. cause a few to shed tears........off hand can't think of too many more downers....except losing the Cup Final to Arsenal.

.....well, I'm due to retire in afew years, so perhaps ....before........? No, I won't think about that. Can I have another vitamin pill please ?

rather provocative question Alpine...................... 45 years since I became a " regular " Saints fan... ......who else would you expect me to support !

sounds like the choice between a rock and a hard place....No deal!

That's a bit unfair...you make it sound easy to analyse, and maybe he (Svensson) should give then the red pills next match instead of the blue ones, and then everything will be alright. Coaching /Training is an on-going process. Every match is different, diff.moves, diff. tactics - it's not like driving a F1 car round the same track 50 times in a row....and isn't something you learn like ABC. The main problem with a great many football teams is that ...half of them never learned their ABC... and the other half have forgotten it ! It's one of the few professions where someone can get paid enormous sums of money without any real intelligence.... and only by using his FEET! Now, you're expecting players to use their be brains, too. If we only hired players according to their IQ many teams would be hard put to it to field 11 on a Saturday..or any other day of the week. There aren't any Einsteins in our squad, or anyone elses either. We're all good at analysing, but if it were that easy we wouldn't be where we are now. oops just re-read that...apologies in advance, but the red mist just hit me ........but the truth is in there somewhere.

Well it's hard to disagree with anything you've written here... (except of course the bit about the 82nd Airborne (they were a Yankee outfit BTW) and the 8th Army, which it wasn't )...but you know that by now, However....As we only have finances to loan players from other clubs...do you suggest we " loan a manager " from someone ...if so,......... who did you have in mind ? Ferguson, ? Scholari ? ....Managers of that pedigree could take care of our lot on their day off.. and still be able to pick a team for Saturday, too. If we take on "another manager " sorry Rupert.. another coach . ..it'll take him 3 months to find his way to SMS every week and by then ... we could already be in League 1.

really funny, Gordon just take a look at some of the other clips, especially the Celtic ones.

still only 37 has left Lees by mutaual agreement and is a free agent ! NO NO NO NO NO NO !! I'm not saying ANYTHING ...

No sorry, Larsson says he's not coming back to UK... My guess is ...if he continues to play, (he's 37 now) he might return to one of the richer Spanish clubs for a season.

Amen to that ! ....if he gets his act together now he's staying, he could be better than ever.

Jonas Wellerstedt..? think St Patrik, a fan here in Sweden - mentioned it was in one of the sport pages over here, but haven't seen it myself. He's unknown to me, but that's not saying much. There are a lot of good youngsters around, but none of them have been to England except on a " school langauge course ", I expect.

Apparantly the FA has granted extensions to final deadline signings due to the weather delaying actual signings, IF the clubs can prove they both agreed terms BEFORE 5 pm, but that the final details, medicals, signed contracts etc. aren't actually registered by that time.

Let's hope we see the best of him and he doesn't sit brooding on the bench every week. If Wotte can get him playing, the way that Burley thought he could then we're the winners without signing anyone new.

at last.........I came to the end of the thread.....and there he was ...the spirit of Christmas PAST!

I think we've all seem this "spin" before. Swansea won't be held to ransom.! YEAH YEAH, we won't be rushed. But overdraft or not, we may be hard up ...but we "ain't mugs either, boyo ! " My goodness 500K... isn't even cheap chicken feed, and they are talking about breaking their club record with that sum. If they are serious about challenging for a play-off and winning the 3rd spot, they're in for a real shock in Premiership land, where £5 million is normal and no guarantee of quality. IMHO Swansea have had a good run with a very promising manager who has turned a " very ordinary " CCC side into promotion challengers and he's done it well ...and without spending a lot of money....so far. Swansea should quickly learn that in the Premiership (if thats were they want to go ..500K doesn't pay a top player for more than a month or two....and they will need a whole team ful of new players if they are to survive. In this market, even in our situation; a player like Dyer is worth AT LEAST £1 million plus a bonus ..IF they go up..... AND 25% sell-on clause when he (eventually) moves on to a " bigger " club, which he surely would.

I know this is a loaded subject St Jason, but I've been living (and teaching) in Sweden for 25 years. I've taught many different nationalities and to be fair, I think you may have " over-read " his choice of " wrong vocabulary." Answering spontaneous questions, even if you can anticipate what they will be, is not easy. Having listened to 5 months of JP interviews, I can confirm that Wotte is considerably better at explaining himself than his predecessor was, but still he makes simple mistakes. MY Swedish is far far perfect even after all this time. The brain can make confusing choices when you think in one langauge and have to speak in another, I know from personal experience. Harmless-sounding words and phrases in one langauge can sound quite provocative in another. At the risk of seeming to jump to his defence (which I'm not) I think he means.. THEY nearly went down...(although it's still Saints) but "THEY " is another side -with another staff - and of course ..HE (Wotte) wasn't here then. You and I might say WE, (its our club) but he wasn't involved then so " THEY " are someone else (he didn't know about). This happens a lot with wrong usage of personal pronouns; Swedes (for example) are notorious for mixing " her " with "she" For him to say WE suggests that he was involved with the side - which he clearly wasn't. "Those people" suggests (to me) he meant the people who were protesting (yes they were fans,) but it was a negative reaction from them. He's still thinking in a plural form but using the simplest form he knows. He may read " FANS " (your word) as those who were openly supporting the team (positive) and probably not those who were protesting. (which is anegative reaction -even if we know its justified ) we're ALL fans -whether we protest or not. Maybe he didn't understand why people are protesting about Lowe when, as he says, Lowe wasn't here last year - and it was Lowe who offered him the job. He obviously hasn't followed the club history closely enough in the last few years... or he'd understand the protests. Sorry if I sound like a teacher - but I am. I analyse langauge usage, and errors in vocabulary. Having seen a video snippet of Wotte being interviewed I felt more satisfied about his body-langauge than any incorrect vocabulary that he used. He sounded very committed to me.

Good quote ....... and for those who've never heard of Benedict Arnold, he was a general (?) serving in George Washingtons "rebel" army fighting the British, who went over to the British side with information in the last days of our colonial occupation. Soon after that, GW declared independance in 1776 for the 13 colonies and wrote a constituition allowing everyone to "bear arms" (not bare arms ) in order to be able to protect themselves against the British Army. 230 years later the Americans still manage to slaughter around 35,000 of their fellow citizens (with guns) in order to exercise their democratic rights. Who said Benedict Arnold was wrong ? (not a lot of people know that, Michael !)

sorry that sure to be wrong, ...if it was Ronaldo, he's buy the solid gold one!

I'm inclined to see your viewpoint, Norm. Seeing snow in So'ton is like finding an oasis in the desert, isn't it ? ..... but I can remember the snowy winter of '63 ..before the FA Cup run started. In Sweden, we are also responsible for keeping the front of our homes " snow-free " in case some stupid drunk should fall and break a leg. Believe me, in heavy snow weather clearing away snow three times a day is NOT a fun hobby. Maybe Master Bates and Pancake can get drunk enough and go to SMS after work..and start the job? .....I say to you ....GOOD LUCK ! It's nicer in the warm.

I pity you all in So'ton....all that snow. We are well used to it in Sweden but many roads in Stockholm are snow-free, even at this time of the year ! Don't expect too much activity on the transfer front except for lots of poor rumours , or unless your brother-in-laws neighbour is a taxi driver picking up some " star player " from the airport, or works for a removal firm who've just got a booking to move *********'s furniture into a new house !

He has EXPERIENCE and (as Ballie once said) he has " others with young legs around him to do the running." He can pass a ball into space and give the lads some good support. If he was (once) good enough to play internationals, he can't be so poor that he can't hold his own at the bottom of CCC.

..putting aside his summer antics, Dyer does have some potential and has more experience than some of the Academy lads we've had to use this season....PLUS why are we talking about signing ANOTHER striker when we have TWO experienced strikers out on loan already. There's no guarantee a " stranger " coming in on loan or otherwise, would do any better. I'd take Rasiak back NOW, as he's not getting better sitting on Watfords bench and then coming on occasionally to score against a slowly-tiring defence ...he can do that here...and earn us some points instead.