syd_barrett_saint

fair enough! thanks for clearing that up, and apologies if i jumped to a conclusion (i thought maybe you were replying to me but had forgot to quote me) Burley may appear to have been successful if you look purely at the points won stats, but if you consider the money spent and the squad he had, he was a complete failure for not getting us promoted automatically in the play-off year, and a lot of that was to do with him never even trying to aim for 1st place (he was happy with the play-offs, and in the end we almost didn't get that). if we had had a good manager that year instead of Burley, we wouldn't be in League 1 today (but then, we may not have a Swiss billionaire in charge, so it's not all bad)

IF you were replying to my post (quite possible - your post came right after mine, and it appears to be a direct reply), then may I suggest you READ people's posts more carefully before responding to them. Thanks!

To be honest, Burley is one of the main people responsible for the fact that we are in League 1 and almost went out of business. OK, so maybe not up there with Lowe, Wilde et al, but almost... With the money Burley spent, and the squad he had in the playoff year, we should have been promoted automatically - a decent manager would have achieved that. But Burley basically sabotaged that by declaring in public that we were aiming for the playoffs, which was not the positive attitude needed to get promoted. In fact, in the end we were very lucky to get into the playoffs. The thing is, I used to really rate him before he came to Saints. What exactly happened to him at Hearts? You hear rumors something strange happened, but I still have no idea what exactly. Are people just referring to the alleged alcoholism?

yep, we'll do norwich in the next game. i think pardew might go back to 4-5-1/4-3-3, with connolly and antonio on the bench again, so that we have better options to change the game if needs be. with 4-4-2 and both of those on, we have no where to go if things don't go our way. although i don't like wotton, i would bring him back in again to protect the back 4, as it looks like it needs it. but then in january we'll need to buy a better replacement for that position. i'm not sure about moving james there, as i think it helps to have a "hard man" in that role.

obsessed?

Subs: Bialkowski, Lancashire, Mills, Paterson, Saganowski. Seems that Pardew really doesn't rate Holmes at all...

OK, thanks! With Mellis not available for the next game/s, I believe, maybe it would be nice to see some proper width on the left too. Perhaps Holmes or Mills in for him, so that Lallana can concentrate on creating and scoring goals up front with Lambert... :-)

To those at the game, how exactly did the formation line up, and did it change through the game? Merrington was saying that Mellis was playing in the middle of the park, and Lallana seems to have been up front with Lambert, so who was playing on the left of midfield? It can't have been Wotton surely?

To be fair, in tonight's line up, with Lallana supposedly up front and Mellis on the left, it would be the inclusion of Mellis (instead of Mills or Holmes) that is causing the lack of width. I wonder if Papa Waigo is hugging the right touchline and providing width on that side, or coming inside? Will be interesting to hear from those at the game... Edit: Ah, crap. :-(

Well, to be fair, he'd probably be right

Get in!! Lallana, we never doubted you, right

Escape what? edit: ah, ok, saint_stevo just explained

Maybe there is some kind of pressure from Chelsea (written or unwritten) that Mellis has a certain amount of playing time?

Cheers! Good news...

Is Hammond going to be ok, FFS?

Great stuff. When Marcus signs Kaka up (he did after all joke about NOT signing him, not about signing him, right?), we'll have to nip in and bag him as our player to sponsor! And it's fantastic that it looks like there will be money left over to help Saints in the Community too :-)

An interesting article from just before the cup final with West Ham: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2006/may/07/newsstory.sport1 I like the fact that he has some more "real life" experience due to the fact he got into professional football later than most, and also that he seems to speak his mind. All in all, looks like a good appointment, if he can put the Charlton blip behind him now he's going to have the more stability and backing at Saints. In fact, it must be a good appointment - it's coaxed me into my first proper post on here in a very long time! :-)

http://archive.thisishampshire.net/2004/11/23/17279.html [Mr Roberts said trouble started when 26-year-old Beattie "stuck his face in a bowl of muffins".]