Clifford Nelson

I couldn't agree more. He was cute, had pace, showed good technique, shot twice and was involved in several dangerous episodes in the box. Thats how it looked to me from the Chapel end of the Kingsland. The boy can play football, that is clear.

I am delighted about the win. At this point I think it could come either way, it didn't have to be beautiful. Some comments on players must be made. Schneiderlin is usually hailed as a terrific passer of the ball. I have never had the pleasure of seeing that, and yesterday was no exception. With monotonous regularity he passed the ball to those fellows in green. On two occasions he would have created one-on-ones with the goalie if he had chosen his own player instead. I put my head above the parapet and state that I don't think he is half the player he is made out to be. Papa Waigo, in spite of several off sides, was cute on the ball and provided something we have been lacking: Danger in the box. I hope it doesn't get coached out of him. I also hope that somebody tells him not to pull the socks over his knees. In my section it became a long running joke that his suspenders were showing. However, the boy can play, and I know now why he was playing in Italy. He has got pace and technique. I hope he has got character as well and he will be the complete player. Fish must start on the left to at least give us one wing option, and he also takes better corners than Lallana, who I otherwise thought had a decent game. Jaidi was the leader at the back we have been missing. Hammond had a good game but will benefit from a stronger defensive midfielder beside him so he can start running into the box. He can, so he should be encouraged to do so, but Schneiderlin is not the partner to rely on breaking up a quick counter behind him.

On recent lack of performance Gobern isn't good enough for our first team. I don't know what he's good at. Doesn't seem to be up for it and doesn't show any speed. Very much like Thomson. If he can't get into our team, why would he get into MKDon's side who are up towards the top of the table? This is one of the strangest loans I've ever seen.

Everyone can't cross a ball. I should know, because I could. It was the only thing I could do with a little bit of success apart from being quite quick. On the other hand I didn't have any tricks or any subtlety. Without the crossing ability I would have had to give up the game before I got into my teens. The amount of players I've played with who I have envied every move they ever made. But they couldn't cross the ball! My hometown team used to have three conditions for signing a player or taking on a youngster: Technique, pace and character. I used to coach boys, and those traits you can spot without too much difficulty. Saints academy has signed youngsters failing in more than one department, and don't seem to ever have signed anybody with crossing ability. (Coming to think of one or two of recent youngsters I think they might be failing in two departments.) This is telling us a lot about how badly run it has been. This will have to be remedied to make it useful for the club. Until then we have to mend and make do with the best signings we can get. Mind you, there is possibly Fish and Holmes on the left already in the club.

Couldn't agree more and I struggle to understand what the objections are providing whoever is appointed is neither an interfering busibody or a patronising prat, neither of which would treat a manager with the respect required. Somebody who knows how to 'direct' in other words. I wonder over the reasons why people can't seem to accept that the manager is not supposed to be a dictator.

Why on earth did you need to spoil it all by dragging that old "rubbed out from the shield of previous chairmen" into a perfectly intelligent argument.

NC has made it very clear that he wants somebody close to him to do the directing, whilst AP will carry on doing the managing. With the right person in post who understands the distinctions and without any urge to rush out on the training ground this is a very possible job to do. In an ideal world the director would have been in place first, with the responsibility to find a suitable manager to fit the club's sporting strategy. Circumstances made this impossible. There could be many reasons why the appointment is important, but not urgent. None of those needs to be sinister in any way. And with recent evidence to judge from, we won't have a clue who it will be until NC decides to announce it. Let's not get ourselves up in a frenzy.

Even a mediocre player in Serie A ought to be a sensation for skills in League One. AP clearly borrowed Waigo with something in mind. At the time I tried to read his mind and thought about our lack of a pacy right winger, Now I'm not too sure. He scored tonight in Hungerford, which must have brought his mind back to his childhood in Senegal. I'm certainly looking forward to seeing him producing the goods against Yeovil. Partnering Lambert is my current prediction.

However lighteningly fast he is, he is three yards slower over some fifteen yards than the Colchester left back, who didn't look very special to me. Neither did Thomson, who may be many things when he has blossomed into a first team player, but fast isn't one of them.

This is a wishful thinking thread. These players can't get into the squad of a League 1 side! Who is going to buy or borrow them? We've just seen what happened to Tommy Forecast. Who will ask to borrow him after that debacle? I really would like to see a clear out of several players who struggles to get on the bench for the reserves, but let's be realistic about it.

The attendance so far shows that there is about 20.000 core fans, who if treated with respect by the club will turn up. If we start winning we will get a good amount of fair weather sailors (no, not that sort) as well. And this is League One!

The arguments are so peculiar. The fact for me is that I felt combinations of outrage, depression, incredulity etc. etc. over a period of years, and so did such a large number of supporters so that they stopped going to the games. In the end the club crashed, which was the only way to find an ending, since all those involved were looking for pay-offs and selling their shares before they were prepared to leave. No argument in this world can change the way I felt, or the fact that I feel fine now, happy, purposeful, optimistic for the future, full of support for the club. Unless you think that this is just a random chemical reaction in my brain, which has had nothing to do with the appearance of the new regime, then accept that for many of us the old regime did horrible things to us. Did RL really mean well? Do I really care? I'm happy and interested again, and that will do for me.

I can't see it in any other way. Lallana will be in the starting line up and AP will never take the risk of starting Papa on the wing without knowing how he plays. At home possibly, but never away. Then, of course, I'll prove to be dreadfully wrong.

Any team who has won six on the trot is coming closer to the first loss and any team who hasn't won in six is coming closer to the first win. We're the underdogs, but if we can get balls into the box and get midfielders into the box anything can happen.

Hear, hear! You put that better than I did, and I'm pleased to see somebody understanding the differences well.

I think we have to agree to disagree about what is the reason for the disasters because I have repeatedly seen the same or similar disasters in industry, where every manager sees it as his duty to stick his fingers in the pie being baked by the manager below him, and the directors are meddling as much as anybody else. "Director" is often an honour title for a senior operating manager. That is not the experience I have had working with and for companies from northern Europe and the US where hierarchies are flatter and you are encouraged, or even taken for granted, to make decisions and take responsibility for them. Here you have to ask the boss who will have to ask his boss who will have to check with the director. It's a mess in my book. In a similar vein I want the Manager to take all the decisions on footballing tactics to win games. But there are also other, more strategic decisions to make.

And the foreign clubs who dominated for years before us had DoFs when we didn't. Does all this prove anything?

Football Managers do these things because that is what they have been hired to do, i.e. everything. Our owner and our chairman doesn't want it like that. So they will appoint a Director to do the directing and the Manager to do the managing. You're merely confessing to the usual sin, which is that most people in Britain can't understand the difference between the two as little as that between strategy and tactics. As it works elsewhere why should we be so pigheaded about it.

How very right you are. He needs to be given a proper chance by this proper manager and with proper instructions and coaching. The coaching set-up is certainly there to do it now. If his game still doesn't become a force in L1 then I'm afraid conclusions will have to be drawn. In footballing terms he isn't a youngster anymore.

You won't find much defacing of plaques around either at Saints or elswhere. That somebody felt so strongly that he (or she) had to eradicate the name is a sign in itself about the strength of feeling and how widespread it was. I'd suggest to leave it exactly as it is now, defaced, then both RL and the anger gets remembered in one fell swoop. What irritates me more than any defacing is people who always chunter on about upholding the law, rules, dictates or whatever else for as long as it doesn't upset their precious order. I would never suggest lawbreaking as something good in itself, but sometimes ordinary, and usually law abiding, people are provoked beyond where they can't reasonably be expected to contain themselves. At that point I'm squarely behind people and and against the arrogance of people in power who think they can act to suit themselves without consideration for others.

I have finally this season discovered Lallana's talents, but I have also discovered his comparative ineffectiveness. He needs two things to progress to a level of football when we can stop debating him. Firstly ONE position, and secondly a clear idea of what he is on the pitch to achieve. He has appeared most effective on the left, but I think that might be because he has worked up an understanding with Harding, and with James in CM as well it worked even better for him. However, we have both Fish and Holmes (if he ever stays fit) who are both left footed, so it seems a bit silly to work Lallana into the position where we have players already. We haven't got a RM, though, and fill in there with whatever is available. I'd leave Lallana on the right with strong instructions to stay wide and provide ammunition and move into the box when the ball is coming from the left. Sounds simple to me. All calls for him to play as a striker or in an offensive CM role are overrating his talent. Maybe one day if he can find that next gear it could be considered, but he isn't there or even thereabout yet.

Svensson had one problem he shared with many signings at the time, which was being played out of position and in fits and starts. He was better than he was allowed to show. His competitior for a place in the Swedish national team is Kim Kallstrom, who I think is even sharper as a creative player. He plays in France and I haven't heard any rumours of him coming in this direction. On the other hand, would he like to?

Nice to see an intelligent comment about this. There used to be a saying in industry that "directors direct and managers manage". British industry and even worse football clubs have had serious difficulty with that, whilst it doesn't seem to cause any friction anywhere else. There is a role to fill to make sure that the strategy for the company, laid down by the owners, is translated into a footballing strategy. The manager will work within this strategy to fulfil it. The director should have other and more long term matters on his mind, about recruitment policy and the Academy, for instance. But he would also be available for the manager to consult, not least in terms of new signings, transfers, youngsters for the future etc. What makes the set-up permanently sour is when the director is seen as some kind of uber-manager who steps into the shoes of the manager when he is being sacked. That is not what a Sporting Director is about, it's a British aberration.

There were one or two of us who did talk about the lack of a winning habit/winning mentality before AP was appointed and I was absolutely exstatic that he spotted this shortcoming immediately. Since he hasn't yet managed to eradicated it he is taking further steps to do so. It is very comforting. Some posters think that the problems we have should have been sorted out now, like Charlton did, for instance. They forget that our problems have been rubbed in over years and seem to have acted like some virus infecting everybody associated with the club. APs job is not just to design a tactic and take charge, it is more like purging some kind of plague, or bad blood.

With some shame I admit that I was championing Wotte who I thought under the circumstances had done as well as could be expected. I had no idea that we were int the running for this kind of set up in League One. This is just no comparison! Since AP and his crew appears to have sorted or defensive frailties he now has to concerntrate on the offensive shortcomings. Wally D seems to be the man to keep the defense together and obliterate the psychological weaknesses. By october/november we should be a power in this division. Late according to some, but it will bring our spirits back and more than ready for next season.