Minty

officialsaints: "Southampton Football Club has appointed Mauricio Pochettino as First Team Manager having relieved Nigel Adkins of his duties. #saintsfc"

Further to ozzmeister's general good advice, a few other things: - Check what admin fees are for either renewal of a lease, or even termination... some agents have check out fees! - Check whether it is fully managed, part managed or tenant find only... i.e. if (when) you have problems, who do you contact, what hours are they available, what response times do they have etc. A good friend of mine was left without any heating or hot water from Dec 23 to Dec 27 2011 because the agent was useless and the landlord worse. Ideally, speak to current tenants of a property if they are there when you view. - Even if it is managed by the agent, ask for the landlord's contact details just in case the agent is crap and doesn't pass messages on or liaise promptly. Any decent landlord should be happy for you to have some contact details, if not a mobile, some means of getting in touch. - Re: the BT line, they may have one, but check it is still connected and hasn't been terminated when previous tenants leave... a new line can cost £50+ depending on who you go with. - Council tax bands can be checked using the VOA website for the tax band (http://www.voa.gov.uk/) and the local authority website (for what their charges are per band)

So what was the actual score!?

Not signed up for any yet, but getting nicely back into the swing of things with a new 10k PB of 45:30 on Friday evening. Chuffed with that, wonder what I can get it down to. Ant of you lot on Runners Forum (http://www.runnersforum.co.uk)? Found it to be a really useful and friendly place.

I can understand where Gemmel is coming from, and I've always been wary of throwing money at football clubs if they can't sustain it in the long term, but I think we have to allow a certain amount of trust in our Chairman and judge things as best we can with the information available. A bit like Geoffrey Boycott's 'would it be a good score with 2 more wickets down?' mantra, I always wonder how the club finances would look if the club were sold or offloaded in some way by the current owners, and wages and transfers debts had to be picked up by a new owner. It's impossible to know. I will never blindly trust ANY owner of the club, nor will I be cynical and suspicious of them all the time. We seem to have some fans in both camps. We just have to judge things as best we can and put some trust in the owners (and management) to act in the best interests of the club.

As much as I hate to do this, neither the report nor Whittingham or the players interviewed blame the pitch for the result at all. We've got so much ammo to use on that lot down the road, we don't need to start making stuff up!

Just one of 19 over the years... always worth reminding ourselves: http://www.soccerbase.com/teams/head_to_head.sd?team_id=2471&team2_id=2049

to @nagoyapompey and all our visitors from down the road.

I believe The9 alluded to it earlier but from what I've heard, Mr Robinson is hoping to shortly complete a lucrative deal in the Birmingham area, selling some land he owns to a developer who wants to build a new conference venue, and so would then comfortably have the cash, and who knows what other deals he has on the go. As much as I laughed when I first heard some of his company figures, I believe he probably has more than enough cash... it's just whether he wants to go through with it or not.

They must have the best pelvic floor muscles in the world down there, what with all these anti-climaxes...

Sounds more like 2 UNlikely scenarios, and 1 probable...

1:34 on here... [video=youtube_share;iXOdV0cBtVI]

Stop it, it's too easy...

'Inspired'?! Of course. This never ending tale of bankruptcy, fraud, deceit, non-existent money, shady ownership (x many), dodgy deals, tax avoidance, f*cking over charities and local businesses and all the rest of it... what an inspiration!

It would be the best thing for them too, most of them just don't realise/want to accept it though.

And we think Saints can spin stuff sometimes... that's pure fantasy.

I'm not one for personal abuse, but having just read the Pompey News piece on the court case, I then found myself reading a couple of recent match reports by Neil Allen... oh my god, they are shocking. I literally have no words to describe how badly they read. The Coventry one is particularly good, given how he tries to turn it into some rousing call-to-arms after they finally won a point for the first time in eight games... Journalists get a lot of stick, I've stuck up for them in the past, but Mr Allen is so poor... It's like Pompey got the journalist they deserve.

Yep, I know and I agree entirely - Maybe I should simply have written: "Every so often through this saga, I do stop and think just how f*cking grateful I am to Guy Askham, Rupert Lowe, Michael Wilde, Leon Crouch AND Markus Liebherr (RIP)." Or even better: "Every so often through this saga, I do stop and think just how f*cking grateful I am to be a Saints fan."

Exactly the point I made when it was first mentioned a page or two back. 'Fit and proper' is a phrase that simply should not be used anywhere near that corpse of a club.

Agreed - I wasn't going to go into it all, but the bottom line is we are where we are thanks primarily to Marcus. They are where they are thanks to... a list too long to mention!

Every so often through this saga, I do stop and think just how f*cking grateful I am to Markus Liebherr. RIP.

Only just restarted my running this week after a good 5 or 6 weeks of not doing a lot because of work and illness. Had got my 10k time to 46:30, and did 48:15, so considering my time out, i was happy enough with that. Just good to get back out there. Need an event to aim for in the New Year... any recommendations? Want a 10k first, and then looking to do up to a Half Marathon at some point later in the year (so probably the GSR amongst others). Keith - I would suggest using something like the Bupa training schedules if you want to structure it a bit. They tend to focus on time running rather than speed initially, but if you can comfortably run for 50 minutes that's a decent start and you probably want to start doing some tempo work to increase overall pace. Don't worry about speed work just yet... just get the miles into the legs at a comfortable pace.

I think that has been said about every kit we've ever released...

I would of course be happy with survival, and for everyone who thinks the same, they need to remember that that means defeats, mistakes and poor performances along the way, amongst the good games and crucial points we do gain. We will drop in to the relegation zone a few times along the way, even if we do stay up at the end of it. It will be a battle. So next time we have a bad run of results, some fans need to take that into account before starting any knee jerk doubts about Adkins. Our recent form is no guarantee of survival. A poor run does not guarantee relegation. If you will be 'happy' with 17th, then you need to be comfortable with the fact we're like to be around that position the whole season, adjust your expectations along the way, and most importantly, support the team and manager throughout to achieve it.