Clifford Nelson

Under estimation is something we have been historically good at, and this is a tempting team to under estimate. If we can avoid that we'll be OK. I can understand why Barnard got the starting berth yesterday, but I'm a bit shocked to see that he is preferred by so many after the performances Guly have given us. Maybe we don't really want that kind of artistry? The choice is clear between the two of them, neither is a winger, nor a CM, although they are entirely different. My mind is pretty much made up when it comes to Puncheon, at least until he shows something different. I think he is slowing down our game as well as nullifies our fullback (see what happens to Harding when JP plays LM), his delivery at set pieces is dubious, there are preciously few assists and no goals. Many posters see something completely different, but I can't understand why.

Oldham came to SMS to deal with a home team which likes to pass the ball around. So they didn't let us have any time on the ball at all. They were very good at it and their no 20, Dale Stephens, pretty much ran the midfield as he liked it. We will have to get used to other teamd not letting us play as we like to, there is nothing exceptional in that. It was different in the days when very good sides came to assert their right to play their brand of football. We used to spoil it when we were at our best. In the third division we're the big boys and will temporarily, I hope, have to put up with it. We did change our way of playing, but the long balls make things riskier. What concerns me is our midfield, because just as like Derry pointed out that a 33 year old who has never played higher than L1 controlled things for Rochdale, this time a youngster did the same for Oldham. This is not a new problem, but one which is going back years. Whoever we buy as a promising offensive midfielder with a goal scoring record immediately becomes goalshy when playing for us. Hammond used to put them away with regularity for Colchester, so what has happened? There must be a tactical issue about how we play the game, as well as the midfielders we buy. As for players I am surprised about the enthusiasm for Chaplow. So far he hasn't managed to pass the ball half decently, and I can't recall he did so the last time he was here either. I don't think that he is a solution to anything. There is a view on these pages that somebody "will do in this division". This shortsighted thinking is only leading to us having a large number of players hanging around for a coupe of years after we have been promoted, bloating the squad. As for tactics we haven't looked dangerous in CM since AP abandoned the 4-5-1 formation. This is not a call for a return of that, but whatever formation we are putting out we need somebody in there moving the ball about and regularly arriving late into the box. If the current crop won't do it, then we need somebody who can.

The whole idea that we wouldn't have known how things would have panned out if AP had remained in charge after Bristol is rather far fetched. We know extremely well how he wanted to play football, and the way we played didn't vary from the spring to this autumn. The difference was between doing it successfully or not. He relied entirely on an offensive side who could pummel the opposition into submission. (For those who are interested, this is a view held by me and other back in the spring as well, so it is not a response to his sacking.) It worked during large periods last season, and call me hard to please if you want, but I enjoyed the wins, but not the football. I didn't think that such simplistic power football would bring us back to the PL. I argued that it wasn't an affordable tactic, because it kept relying on that we had better players than the opposition, and whilst we can afford it now, we can't compete in that way in the PL. We were also likely to be found out. Setting the abysmal pre-season to one side, we came out again in the league with the same attitude of hitting them hard and continuously, mainly by balls to Lambert's head, until they surrender. But this time we had indeed been found out, and apart from the result against Bristol, the whole thing was poor and unsuccessful, which made our confidence drop, which made us worse, etc. etc. You might not agree, and think that the style we played was what you wanted to see, and I respect that. But it wasn't different between last season and this one. It is also different from the kind of football that NA is wanting us to play, whether you like it like I do, or not. What really chocks me are the posters who can't see the difference.

I was pleased last season that we had the past behind us and that we were winning games, but the longer the season carried on, ther more troubled I became about the style of football we were playing, and that at times we were falling on comparatively simple hurdles, when three points would have made a real difference. This reminded me of Saints through the years, and one of our most unattractive sides: If there was ever a striker who hadn't scored for twenty outings they were sure to score against us; an easy draw in any cup was always a loss; etc. It just seemed that increasingly our steamroller tactic wasn't always working. It wasn't very attractive to watch either. It was alarming, but not surprising, when pre-season looked awful and equally the start of the season. Game after game I couldn't see anything which attempted to change things on the pitch, no tactics, no change of formation, no change of players. It certainly appeared to me that this was the way AP wanted to play the game. He actually dispensed with the flowing football we played for a while when Lambert was the only striker in the club, because it wasn't what he wanted to see. That the long balls to Lambert happened to have effect against Bristol wasn't too surprising. It was going to work sometimes, surely. I really didn't want AP to fail, but the scenario which was playing out over many weeks was not encouraging, and when the axe fell, I felt relieved. I am perplexed that there are posters here, who don't see the difference between how we used to play, and the way we play now. I am delighted with the passing style of football and apart from winning games, the football is entertaining me. I can't say that I had spent any time thinking about Adkins before, but he has got my entire support for what he is trying to create. The change was absolutely necessary from a football point of view. Whatever else was going on I know as little about as most others.

Let's not work ourselves up in some real dislikes of these western neighbours. They are desperate for us to hate them in return, and nothing deflates them more then a curmudgeonly attitude of "it must be nice for you to do quite well with no money and a mad chairman and all that, well done". We've got our derby which will never change. What have they got? Weymouth? They'd love to wind us up. Let's not get involved and let them remain that 'nice little team from the seaside'.

I seem to think that over the last few years we have been longing for a playmaker. We seem to have found one in Guly, although he wasn't a CM as maybe we expected. He arrived here as a "Number 10" as they call them on the continent, somebody who collects, distributes and possibly arrives late into the box. With his background I expected him to be good when he finally got to play in the position he is used to, but I didn't expect him to be that good. With all the silky skills one could expect him not to be terribly efficient, but there was a thought behind every move, every backheel, every twist and turn. Now, when exactly did I see something like that in a Saints team? What I want to see is him now playing regularly so that the others around him gets used to the unexpected moves he makes happen. In this league, and in the next, this guy could be deadly. MoM? Oh yes! Other good things is that Hammond now looks like a proper footballer with a purpose around him, Lallana is back nearly to full fitness, Lambert looking a little bit more agile, Puncheon just about starting to play as part of the team, etc. NA has given the whole team a lot of confidence very quickly. I walked away with a feeling that I wonder if any team can live with us when we're playing like this...Then I remembered that Tranmere wasn't a very good side, but then again, how many will look like good sides when they play us if we perform like this. The optimism by folk around us was palpable. We can look forward again, and possibly believe that we will get promoted this season. My small question marks are very small indeed. Chaplow looked like he hadn't played much for a while. His passing wasn't very crisp, and he looked like he was looking for a role on the side of Hammond, which is probably not very surprising. I can't see him keeping Schneiderlin out. Butterfield is Ok, especially comparing with the lack of right backs we've had for a while, but he is rather one dimensional. With Richardson coming back fit I wonder if it will take long before we'll see him. And I think that's all. Upwards and onwards, then!

An unusually sober response to this thread by most. This was once a seriously beer swilling, pub crawling and early morning partying club, and that was only the players. I only just managed to avoid running over four of them as they fell off the pavement on one occasion. Those days I hoped had gone, and I expect better from professional sportsmen. 3.00am in a notorious nightspot counts for two mistakes, and that is before anything else happens.

I'm feeling very convinced that somebody rang Eddie Howe when the S****horpe chairman went public and difficult and asked the very reasonable qurestion "are you still interested", trying to sort out plan B is the succession. EH didn't fancy being second choice and said "no thanks". He then felt obliged to tell his boss about his decision and probably said something like "I've turned down Southampton". Their chairman took that to mean that he had turned down the job he had been offered, which patently hadn't happened. He then, and that is the silly stuff, felt obliged to shout his version of events to the local media, which created the first bit of nonsense. EH is now in the unenviable position to steer his boss right by essentially pointing out that he has behaved like a prat. EH feels awkward, because who wants to call their boss a prat? Chairman, emboldened by his good fortune in the press, then decided to wind up the interest for the local derby some more by wildly accusing NC of banning him from the club, still believing that his outburst about the offered job was correct. He also completely neglects to mention that he didn't pay for the champagne he and his friends swilled whilst at SMS last. I don't think there is anything in this which is to his credit. Nor, to the credit of the S****horpe chairman. Both were far to eager to be noticed, pretending to be big cheeses. This is really a moral lesson in the nature and character of club owners. With whatever mistakes having been made by somebody with no experience of managing in the glare of the media before, I think I'll still to our chairman any day.

After the wild stuff that has been written on this thread I have made a decision. There is one or two things NC has done which surprised me, and I have commented on it at the time, but I don't want to be associated with much of what has been said, and I don't want to inadvertently fan the flames. It is something that we don't need and I will therefore not comment on it for a very long while. We are supporters of a debt free club, a good team and a manager to be proud of, and a plan for bringing us upwards in the league system. I think I will be grateful for that for some time. All this "love" and "hate" nonsense is at best for kids.

It's interesting to see so many feeling that the PL is not the be all and end all. I share that feeling and I don't want to see Saints debt laden from desperately trying to hang in there, run by a bunch of dishonest pretend tycoons. If that means competing in the CCC, so be it. But there is still that Roy of the Rovers hope that we somehow can show the b*stards without becoming like them. Maybe my mistaken belief that there is still some fairness to be had somewhere for hard working and honest people. My experience tells me that it isn't so, but could I stare at myself in the shaving mirror and say "I don't care"? No chance, I will dream on.

It's not necessary to be ITK. Some of us may know more than others, but at the moment nothing is certain before it has been confirmed on the OS. Nevertheless it is valuable to speculate, provided it is built on some kind of evidence and some kind of assessment of likelihood. The opinionated nonsense I give a wide berth, but I generally like your posts.

I don't know if Tony has got hard information, I'll doubt it, but the assumption is clear. Our chairman is a banker by profession, who has spent some time on financing deals within sports. The five year plan was his as much as it was ML's. If we have learnt one thing about him is that he stands by his decisions. He clearly intends to see the plan through to the end, and if the family at one time or another want to divest I would have thought that he already has got a plan for how to finance a transfer of ownership. I can't see any property developers, second hand car salesmen, or for that matter letting agents getting in on that deal.

I don't know what is so terrible about being ITK. Surely we don't just want to post unsubstantiated speculation if there is any real information to be had. I the time BC (Before Cortese) the club was leaking like a sieve, and everything which was going on was well known within hours. Things are different now, because the evidence suggests that what is posted on the OS is authoritative, and NC certainly knows how to keep his mouth shut. More of a problem is that the communications are so few and far between so that it is nearly impossibly not to try to fill in the blanks, trying to answer the question: What is going on? A few posters have got contacts who are close to the club, which means that their views are more valuable than others. Others think that they have such contacts, although old players who were here many years ago don't know any more than the rest of us. Still others make it all up and pretends to be conspiratorial about it. Irritating? Only if you keep reading it. By now I would imagine most of us know who's posts are worth reading, for what reasons, and what is best left alone.

I'd be delighted if you're right. At the moment I'm setting my ambition to him having created a really competitive team which doesn't go losing to Tranmere when it really matters. I can put up with losing against the top sides, they are good sides as well, and I can also accept a bananaskin if it is at least three years between them, but a properly prepared, tactically astute, well motivated team of superior players have no business losing some of the games we lost last year. That is an inconsistency which we need to lose if we are to advance towards the PL, and I expect it lost by the end of the season. Let's not forget that NA has also said that there are those players who fall by the wayside. Under all that positive stuff there is a very determined person. I don't think he had Pulis in mind.

I noticed. It wasn't very analytical, so I'm not convinced. He played 39 games and scored 9 goals in a key position in the team to take it to Serie A. Complete crap don't do those sort of things.

Every time I hear Adkins I get more and more impressed. A positive person who isn't a bull****ter. They are rare. He doesn't seem at all desperate for new signings, judging from todays interview on the Saints player, so maybe the rest of us can relax, sit back and let him, the team and NC do the work. A really competitive, football playing team come the end of the season and I will be happy. I might even be slightly surprised if we don't reach the play-offs.

I think you're spot on. NC has always acted in accordance with what has been said, so there ought not to be this nervousness around. But it is, because we have had a lot to be nervous about over the years, lots of underhandedness, lots of large plans, and little or nothing to back it up with. It leaves it's traces which I think we can see often here on the forum. And because we are getting information from the club comparatively seldom, and mostly only on major occasions, it leave large blanks. Any psychologist will tell you what people do with blanks. They fill them in! In our case, not surprisingly with more of what our experiences have taught us is likely to come our way. We're not cured yet, but probably need the whole of he five year plan behind us before we believe that there are roses also in the blanks

We still have Guly on loan. His favoured position is as a "no 10" which usually means somebody playing as we say "in the hole". That should do us, and if he isn't good enough we know not to sign him in January. He had an outing in the U-21s. Did anybody see him? What wouldn't I give for young master Waigo to still be here...

These things happens, but what would make me very surprised in case of a sale is the value of the club. A third division club isn't worth that much, not even an ex PL club with a good stadium. When we've had our promotion back up to the PL, then this club would be worth a lot, even if it had a modicum of debt. I actually think that NC has set himself a business goal, which is to reach the PL with Saints, and that anything else would count as a failure. The only sale I can imagine is one engineered by him, and one which keeps him in place. That would certainly not be a leveraged buy out. All this speculation, though, wouldn't take place to the same degree if there were some better communication going on. So far much of it has been of the type 'trust me, I'll see you right', but in such a paranoid world as football is, and maybe especially in our experience at Saints, it doesn't go far enough. This could be improved, but neither that, nor any other comments I have made in the past means that I don't support the chairman.

We are, of course, at the moment only surmising about our current owner, of whom we know nothing, Ron. Cortese is therefore more important to this club than ever. Even if the family has only got limited interest in this asset, it doesn't go without saying that the club would be sold to a skint arab or a british second hand car dealer. Cortese appears to have been doing plenty of dealing on the sports desk of his bank over the years, which is why he identified this opportunity for ML. I would have thought than he therefore has got as much knowledge as anybody about possible and genuine suitors in case the family would like to off load eventually. Let's not forget that the plans are Cortese's vision as much as ML's. I am not worried about our financial standing, nor Adkins, who I think is a good appointment. What I would like to see is some time of calmness, which could be achieved if there was a little bit more communication coming out of SMS which could calm the spirits. The team needs a few more signings, of that we're all agreed. The one who knows least about it at the moment is NA, who only arrived a week ago. I'm rather pleased that we didn't see a sudden influx of 'old Adkinites', which means that the current squad is getting a proper assessment. Even somebody like Holmes ought to be a good player at this level if fit. With good management NA could get us to the play offs, and if not I would be delighted to see that the team he is producing is becoming genuinely competitive and stop losing games against the relegation sides with regularity.

I agree, that is the problem I worry about if we played two offensive CMs. But that isn't an excuse for not playing any. I think I am fairly well known for not being an enthusiast for 4-4-2, but let us at least make sure that one CM gets himself into the box. I certainly wouldn't have any hesitation to start Guly in that role. If after two or three starts he also has stopped attacking I think the problem is a different one, but if we've borrowed the guy what on earth is he doing on the bench? We're not going to find anything out about him sitting there.

I'm not convinced yet that both CMs being offensive will help with the balance of the side, but I'm willing to have a look to see if we can cope with it. We seem to have a tendency of forgetting what is going on behind us, like when we left Colchester free to score all of a sudden. Are our players aware enough to deal with that as well as getting themselves into the box?

Thinking about Hammond and Schneiderlin I recalled that Hammond was bought as an offensive midfielder after having regularly been banging them in for Colchester. Schneiderlin could hit a five pence from sixty yards. Right now, though, both of them are doing the same thing, which neither shuts the back door, nor arrives with pace, late into the box. Why is that? If we are to play Guly, and why on earth shouldn't we, we must play him in his preferred role (I have had enough of buying players, playing them out of position, and then condemning them) as close to a continental no 10 as we can, so what should we then do with young Schneiderlin? My thought is that if we merely encourage him to get into the box as well, and I don't think that has ever been his natural game, we may look very exposed in the middle of the park. Maybe we need ourselves another two CMs, but right now we prospectively have what we are looking for parked permanently on the bench.

If we are to persevere with this formation, Dave, I would like to see us park Hammond on the bench, give Schneiderlin a role as a defensive CM and let Guly play the whole game as an offensive midfielder. Why on earth did we get him here if he is not to play, and how are we to know that he is poor if we have never seen him play in his favoured position. It was the replacement of the left side which made all the difference yesterday, although I don't feel like blaming Harding, who had a bit of a job covering the left hand side from end to end without even token assistance from the nominal LM.