Clifford Nelson

Which also translates into how attractive we are as a proposition for players to either sign for us or stay with us. Considering Trotman, for example. If we are a solid, winning side in January, with gates in excess of 20000. Would he like to go back to Preston for a future career in CCC as third choice or does our future look more attractive? I wouldn't hurry back up t'north without thinking about it first.

If you with "lately" mean 'not since yesterday afternoon, you're right. After another great win it will take a day before the doom mongers come out to play again. Just like the players lost their winning mentality, so did we, and for many fans it is taking a long time to recover after years of disappointments. I'm surely not the only one who have this little chap on my shoulder shaking his head, mumbling "it can't last", am I. Others are more badly affected and still meet every set back with a knee jerk moan about the manager.

So what has Pardew created so far? 1. A team that doesn't usually concede from fixed situations. 2. A team which scores freely from open play. 3. A team which can defend a lead. Is there anybody out there who thinks that we could do any of that when he arrived?

You have just won a price for the most moronic post of the week. Congratulations!

I agree. Whether you call it 4-5-1 or 4-3-3 is immaterial. It's two sides of the same coin. Putting Waigo, Lambert and Lallana up as the front three gave Lallana the platform to play from, and Waigo has probably played in that formation most of his time so far. That is what they tend to do in Italy. AP's next stroke of genius was to play the midfield three like a V, with Wotton anchoring the offensive Mellis and Hammond. All of a sudden we had players running at the opposition from all angles, and their back fours didn't know what to cover next. Against Bristol we showed the attacking brilliance, and against Gillingham it was clear to Lallana and Waigo that they needed to give cover to their own fullback (that's where 5 in the midfield comes in). The result has been that we have scored 8 goals from open play in three games. I call that 'having solved our problem to score from open play'.

As has been disclosed today, Jamie White's agent was trying to get a league club interested but didn't succeed. For Chrxst's sake that doesn't mean that the lad is "rubbish". He is very young and has had a series of injuries which has had an impact on his career. Similar to Connolly, actually, when you think of it. Many clubs rightly worry about things like that. Is he injury prone? Is he good enough? The answer is that we don't know. He has gone to Eastleigh which is the second biggest club in the area. There he has a chance of starting to prove the doubters wrong. If he plays, stays fit and scores a few goals then the league clubs will be interested. It must be better for him to play regularly than to hang around our reserves, since his chances of starting a game for us at the moment looks remarkably remote. Let's wish the guy the best of luck.

If he's a great success he'll be with us for a couple of years, which is great, because then we ought to be looking at what we need for getting into the Premiership. These signings will not always be successful, I'm doubtful about Antonio, for instance, but there clearly is a plan and a management team which intends to put it into practice.

So the L2 clubs were queuing up for him, were they?

I'm just quite amazed that so many posters don't seem to realise that when Poortvliet was appointed this club was SKINT! And when I say skint I mean, nil money, overdraft having reached the limit, no chance of paying the wage bill etc. etc. etc. It doesn't mean we just had a bit on money. WE HAD NONE! The whole idea that we could have appointed Pearson and then given him some money to invest in a competitive team is a complete fantasy. I repeat: THERE WAS NO MONEY! If the truth had been told to him that all senior players were to be sold, loaned out, or given away and the whole season he could rely on last years youth team, how do you think he'd reacted? Last year was as bad for us as it could possibly have been for any club, ever. And on top of it we were led by somebody who despised us, said so, and therefore would never get the stadium more than half filled. It drives me insane to read people still thinking that there was some realistic prospects for the club in August 2008, and that the problem was a mad aberration of dutch football emerging in the chairman's mind. That was an excuse, spin, a lie or call it what you will, but the problem was that he had no money! Are you ever going to wake up to reality?

Many things he was, but a bridge builder to the great unwashed he wasn't. That was the crux of the matter.

A really interesting interview. I was especially delighted to hear him agree with what I have been going on about regarding the Sporting or Technical Director. HE should together with the Chairman appoint the Manager. The next time anybody argues with me I will simply say "Roy Hodgson agrees with me." No, by the way, I don't think he has read my posts on here. He's figured it out all by himself.

He could be a very good signing for us with a record of 1:3 more or less wherever he has been. It means playing two up front again, which will change the formation. I don't thing it will affect Lallana or Papa, but with one more striker there will be one less in CM. Hammond is a certainty and AP likes Schneiderlin, Wotton was expected to go back to the bench, so where does that leave Mellis?

The ITKs have been around. It's been right here on the Forum that he was training with us.

If he is to shine he needs to play, and I can't see many league clubs desperate to sign those who can't get into our L1 team, because that is what we are. If JW does well at Eastleigh then there will be more interest elsewhere. Good luck to him!

Thanks FF, I stand corrected. I am intensely satisfied that all this historical chaos is behind us in any case, but it has put a kind of shadow over the thinking of most supporters which is difficult to get rid of. At one time we felt personally affronted by the madness, and now we suffer from having once been personally affronted by the madness. I don't think we've quite recovered. Maybe one day all of this will have receded into a paragraph or two in the history of the club, but we're not there yet.

I think you are missing an important point. The reason all experienced players were sent out on loan and replaced with youngsters was financial. Dressing this necessity up as a dutch coaching explosion, or whatever, was only putting a spin on it. If Pearson had known that situation I doubt very much that he would have been interested.

And that was very silly. Why on earth would FF, who is a respected poster and Saints chronicler have made it up? It is difficult to imagine why he was signed for any other reason. He was too old for the plans we had at the time of developing youngsters and he was also injured. Whatever the reasons I hope he will do well and earn himself a contract for playing football. It is very clear that with the new players we are signing he doesn't stand much of a chance of getting in contention, which must be a rubbish situation to be in. Let's wish the guy luch instead of slagging him off.

We know the story after Fitzhugh Fella told it to us. He was part of the deal which was to take Pulis Sr. to SMS. With the change of board this didn't happen, but the agreement needed to be honoured since it was us who changed our mind and appointed Portvliet instead.

Strangely enough Pearson never stood a chance to take us into last season. The Crouch board was to replace him with Pulis, topical today as the evidence is moving to Lincoln. 'Him who's name is never to be repeated' (unless they rename the bogs after him) had no intention of appointing him in the first place because he cost too much and he wouldn't have accepted becoming the manager of a boys team. NP did a good job when he came in and has shown since then that he is a good manager. AP came here under entirely different circumstances doing very different things. For the building job that is needed here AP has got the credentials, which NP somewhat lack, maybe. But would I have howled if he had been appointed? I don't think so.

I remember Craig Maskell for two things. Firstly Lawrie Mac's reply to a journalist's rather silly question about why we've bought him: "He's gonna score loads of goals and we all gonna be happy!" Genius! Secondly the one and only goal he ever scored for us.

Maybe you noticed that we only won last night by the skin of our teeth,whilst playing most of our first choice players? So why on earth you would think that our academy team would have produced anything but a huge loss defeats me. Losing is bad for any team or club, and it is our unwillingness to take that simple truth on board which created the complete lack of a winning spirit, which AP spotted immediately when he arrived. And now I read a supporter suggesting the virtue of going out to lose a few games. Even the Corinthians are playing to win these days.

Spot on. I'm quite sure it wasn't AP changing the formation, but some players started who didn't understand it and others finished who didn't understand it either. Too many years playing 4-4-2 for some, maybe, for them to be flexible. As I've written elsewhere, round pegs in round holes are probably more important than formation, but since we haven't got any traditional wingers in the club, can we please forget 4-4-2? It gets as tedious as listening to Merrington on Solent, the man with one simple solution to all ills, as if he is selling snake oil: "You must put on another striker", meaning: You must play 4-4-2. With 7 goals scored from open play in three games and us being able to defend set pieces AP has cured two achilles heels. And we started out with many of them.

Did you forget Mickey Adams? We also mostly missed out on one who was always played on the right although he was left footed, Jeff Kenna. Him and Benali kept Dodds in the reserves. Both of them were better players than Franny, who could never pass to one of his own, but they lacked his aura, whatever that was.

And by the way, Antonio. For a dedicated winger his crosses were very poor, and if he had all the pace people seem to have spotted, then why didn't he knock it and run? He looked what he is, that is a non-league winger who has never played anything else but a rigid 4-4-2. Maybe being brought to start a competitive game the day after he arrived was too daunting. Maybe AP can see that he can develop. But was he good yesterday? Oh no, he wasn't.

Amongst those players there is only Gillett and Bart who would generate interest from other clubs. Why would anybody be interested in players who can't get themselves even on the fringes of a L1 team? The horrifying truth is that NC and ML will have to look at the expense of buying out their contracts. Another legacy from last year to contend with.