alpine_saint

Indeed it was, thankyou. Put in a 2min call to my Mum and confirmed which of the deceased I am related to.

I was at that game, and I agree with you completely. Austin is going to be a f**king nightmare on Saturday.

I think some revisionism has been going on here. Yes, Redknapp did not improve us enough to save us. But the damage done by Lowe and Wrigley was already terminal, imho.

That would be tasty.

Yes Doesnt mean we cannot change. Time for NA to earn his crust.

An interesting development. Seems NA may be acting on those players who havent done what is expected of them. Whats going on with Butterfield ? Richardson, Harding and Fox seem to have been some of biggest underachievers recently.

Everything on this thread has been said before in the past couple of weeks a thousand times on other threads. There are two bodies of opinion : Those who think we should be eternally grateful we still have a team to support, and would be banging on about how lucky we are even if we were in the Blue Square League, let alone having topped the Championship table for a few non-relevant weeks in the middle of the season Those who are also glad we got bought, but recognise it is time to put the past behind us and look to the here-and-now, note that we surprised everyone by topping the Championship table, but are disappointed and/or worried that we have been unable to sustain it since it is not a given that we will get such a good second-bite-of-the-cherry next season, the season after that, or the season after that. And remembering what happend to SFC when Burley blew our last bite-of-the-cherry, makes us even more nervous. And it seems there is no middle ground to share between the opinions.

England manager by the middle of March, part-time until the end of the season, I reckon.

So f**king what ? If you dont like it, dont read it.

Yeah, I saw earlier. That's plain absurd.

聖人たちは行進して行くとき

Struggle to stay in play-off position. Might just make it. But will have a good chance to win the play-offs. We may "still be 2nd in the league", but I think automatic promotion is gone - the momentum is with the other teams.

Try telling the team that.

Sadly, I expect us to lose 2-0. Austin (obviously) and J-Rod, to complete the set of our striker targets scoring against us.

And england manager before Euro 2012.

Yep, highly unlikely we have a jury of 12 who have never heard of him, and everyone loves 'Arry and Pompey....

apart from the fact that until 2 weeks ago it was "We're still top of the league"

Why do you think that ? The "minor blip" had lasted about a third of the season already, and not much has improved.

Jesus H. Christ - who has said the manager should be changed ? A few people have said it is time for him to stand up to the plate and show his worth; that's all...

Its a valid comment. I dont think throwing money at the situation will work now - we've had a great window in comparison to the teams around us. The issues for me revolve around physical presence, aggression, motivation, and tactical dexterity. Motivation, aggression and physical presence could maybe be solved if Chaplow regains form quickly; it seems something is lacking in the two of Cork/Morgan/Hammond set-up. Otherwise lets look for an aggressive midfield general on-loan. I am hoping this would rub off on some of our other players. It feels like far too often the opposition get in our face whilst we are trying to walk the ball up the pitch and into the goal. Tactical dexerity is the real challenge. Does NA have the ability to mix it up ? If he does, lets hope with almost the full squad available again he can show it. Otherwise this is a bit of an intractable problem under the current management.

This is at the back of my mind the whole time.

I dont see it as an individual thing. I am talking about looking forward to the rest of the season and the prospect of winning promotion - as a team. I cannot believe when they get together for training today that the atmosphere isnt subdued.

Plans dont always run as intended. NC was probably surprised at our progress up until November, so has committed funds in the window to bring in NAs targets to bring the plan forwards to this season. I seem to recall he did something similar in the January window with Pardew, and that ended in tears.....

I find that Wes tends to speak sense, but the part of your post I've highlighted I agree with completely.

Come now, Monsieur, you know that the strikers are a means-to-an-end, not the goal itself. They still need to be correctly employed.