Lighthouse

You guys are getting a bit sidetracked here. Saints are a top of the Championship and bottom half of the PL sized club. We've shown over the last few years that we can sell out St Mary's consistently in both leagues. Talking about this seasons form is like saying you shouldn't book a holiday in Mallorca in June because it's forecast to rain tomorrow.

That's an absolutely nonsense argument, so have Redknapp, Pellegrino and Selles. Say what you want about Martin and SR, there is no reason on Earth to think that Graeme bloody Souness would be a good DoF. Brighton, Bournemouth, Villa, Forest and all the other flavours of the month seem to agree on that unanimously.

I’m not saying there wasn’t but there’s a big step needed from there simply being a business case to someone actually putting it into action. if the last few years have shown us anything it’s that our attendances are robust enough to withstand some sustained periods of poor football and relegation to the Championship. People who own football clubs won’t make short term, rash decisions based on volatile indicators like current form or league position. Decisions will be made on long term investment returns and the increased asset value of a larger stadium.

Clearly there’s a case now for expanding the stadium that wasn’t there a few years ago. When we’re consistently selling out whilst playing this badly in the PL and basically sold out the home end in most of our championship matches, it would seem like we’d be able to sell a fair few more tickets if we had the seats.

Nobody is dismissing Souness’ views on football, he’s a decent pundit who’s well worth listening to. However I wouldn’t want him as sporting director of my football club any more than I’d want Paul McCarthy as director of my record label.

Complete conjecture, you’ve no reason to think Souness would be much better than anyone. We could be fighting Pompey for relegation this season, having finished mid-table in the Championship last year and been forced to sell anyone half decent in summer. SR are getting it wrong, no doubt, but this is far from the worst that things could possibly have been.

He’s the age Fergie and Bobby were when they retired. Not exactly fresh ideas and building for the future. Who decided they were the only two options?

He’s a decent pundit but why anyone thinks he’s qualified as a technical/sporting director/DoF in 2024 I’ve no idea. He has no experience of that kind of role and hasn’t managed a team at all since being sacked by Newcastle 18 years ago.

What on earth makes him qualified for that? He's 71 and hasn't been involved in football management in any role for coming on twenty years now.

If anybody wants to watch a pungent mix of compost and horse manure being regularly turned over…. You can finish that joke yourself.

That’s when Countryfile finishes. HTH.

Ricky Martin will be distraught.

That’s lovely and all but it’s nothing to do with the point I was referring to. We aren’t ’Southampton nil’ at St Mary’s.

People care more about the most recent games, we haven’t drawn a blank at home for three months and before that we’ve done it twice this season. Whatever your criticism of the team, we aren’t ’Southampton nil’ at home.

We've scored at home in every game in all competitions for the last three months, how is that being selective?

We haven't failed to score at home in any competition since we played Man Utd in September, and even then we missed a penalty.

I'd have said he deserves a pay rise and a substantial bonus but not an all new contract, with a longer term. I think that's perferctly reasonable and if his agent had refused I'd have said, "f**k off, you manage Swansea not Juventus." We were quite clearly the bigger attraction than he was in the Championship last year.

Just the small problem of the fact that if we did that, nobody credible would ever want to manage us again, knowing that we hand out contracts not worth the paper they’re printed on and basically say, “yeah, we’re not going to bother giving you that.”

If you kill them all it’ll only encourage them.

The seeds of this were sown when Kat sold to Gao, which was followed by years of stagnation and lack of investment in the squad. SR were just the ones holding the parcel when the music stopped. We were sliding down the league long before the SR takeover. Basically they needed to get their first summer here spot on to steer us clear of a relegation fight and they didn't, then they sacked the guy who'd kept us up for four years and the writing was on the wall. I'm not defending SR but let's not pretend the bought the club which finished three points off the Champions League under Koeman and took them straight down. We had years of MoPe, Carrillo, Hoedt, Boufal and Forster's bizarre new contract in between.

It was memorable but it was also one of the very few instances of a Puel team attacking with pace and purpose, and against a team who'd gone gung-ho trying to find an equaliser from a corner. We'd have lost that game quite comfortably nine times out of ten.

This West Ham - Wolves game is dog sh*t.

I wouldn’t want Marian’s legacy here to be tainted by any kind of associated with this shower of sh*te, not that he’s a realistic candidate.

Don't forget it was independantly verified by a guy on Twitter with 'ITK' in his handle. If that isn't the hallmark for authenticity on any sports related news, I don't know what is. Personally I still expect an 11.30pm, transfer window style announcement.

It’s about 50% above where the actual cutoff is likely to be, not that it matters we won’t make 15, let alone 51.