Wes Tender

The statements made by the board and the owner that we have no intention to sell players we wish to keep ought to be recognised by the media as being straight from the horse's mouth as it were. Instead, they prefer to rely on unreliable information from outside sources, believing that if Man Ure, Citeh, Chelski or whoever express an interest in buying our players, that is the more reliable source. Well, it isn't. The players or their clubs are the most reliable source and the media only fail to recognise that because they can fill many column inches with speculation and rumour that will titivate their readership, which largely comprises a multitude of plastic fans who support the teams who are bidding for our players.

They say that Shaw's future should be decided before the World Cup. Really? Why? From our perspective, surely it if preferable to wait until it is over when a storming performance from him will only increase his value. They also say that we would want £35 million, but might have to settle for £30. If Shaw wishes to leave, then yes, we would settle for as much as we can for him, but as of now, there is no evidence that he wishes to leave, neither is there any evidence that we will have to sell him if we don't want to. If he stays with us another year, his value will only increase. The media are reduced to a frenzy of speculation on the basis of wrongful assumptions made about our financial position and flimsy conclusions based on his Twitter postings, which he then changed. One could understand this sort of dross from the red-top rags, but the broadsheets really ought to be a bit more circumspect about the tone of their articles, which comes across as shrill, rather than balanced.

Why would Shaw want to sign for a team just one place above us? I really think that he ought to be a bit more ambitious. What is the point of moving if he can't get CL football?

I'm impressed with your contribution. Although only short, it's unusual for you to use punctuation of any kind and for it to make grammatical sense. Well done.

Yes, but that's something you'd probably put in Ralph's plus column, isn't it?

We have replaced a very ambitious Chairman with a very determined chief executive. I like what he says and how he says it. Since he's been here, I see nothing so far that causes me concern.

I'm not totally agreeing to everything you said, although if it arouses you for me to agree that we are a provincial club (well, we are in the provinces rather than the big metropolitan areas, duh!) and that I accept that any club is a selling club in this country at least, then go and cream yourself. And now I note that despite your earlier position that "there will never be a Chelseaesque or City revolution", you have softened your position now to saying that it is highly unlikely. Why would they come to Southampton? Maybe because of the infrastructure that is in place here? The investment opportunities? The lack of other major clubs in the vicinity? Why on earth did Markus Liebherr invest in this little provincial club? Before he came, you would no doubt have claimed that anybody suggesting that we would be bought by a multi-billionaire would be living in cloud cuckoo land, wouldn't you? It's you that's in denial - as usual.

Really? So although we have a billionaire owner, it is entirely impossible that we would ever be owned by the likes of Abramovic or Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan who would spend the sort of money that they did in the top players, is it? The trouble with some like you on here, is that they make generalised statements based on the precedents established in their experience of football and take them as a hard and fast rule. The experience of some doesn't go far enough back in time, whilst others are blinkered to anything different because they lack imagination or fail to recognise ambition. Some will have you believe that there is a hierarchy of the top four clubs who will always be there, regardless of whether Liverpool sank well down the ranks recently and Man United have followed suit this season. Yes, we are an average sized provincial club at the moment and yes, we cannot keep players who wish to leave for bigger clubs. This is exactly the same scenario for the bigger clubs, where United couldn't keep Ronaldo and Spurs couldn't keep Bale. But although we might be an average sized club at the moment, we are above average in a couple of respects. We have wealthier ownership than most others, including many clubs much bigger than us. Also there are few clubs in English football with the benefit of a production line of academy stars for the present and into the future. The fact that there are 4/5 players in our current team who are coveted by top clubs here and abroad is testament to that. At least if we have to sell them, we will get a shed load of dosh for them which if invested wisely in replacements could make us even stronger, with the benefit of other academy products still in the pipeline. When it comes to selling players, the top clubs can outbid most others, but even then there are mittigating factors. A squad can only comprise so many players and there are now additional rules affecting how many can be overseas players. So once this handful of top clubs have filled their quotas, there are still far too many good players left for the next strata of clubs. Like our academy players are cheap to us because we produced them, there are also yet to be discovered gems, the next Henry and Drogba are out there somewhere. Nothing is as clear cut as some like to make out. And even when the wealthiest clubs buy the best players, there is no guarantee that they will play together well as a unit either. Anybody who ignores factors like that is also an idiot.

We'll lose the matches against Villa and Swansea and win against Everton and Man United. We're Saints, that would be typically us.

Nobody else with any thoughts on the blatant Cardiff handball that should have given us a penalty?

All those who say that we didn't try and that there was no man of the match are really wide of the mark. Man of the match by a country mile was Cork, with honourable mentions to Davis and Schneiderlin. The defence was sound and so was the midfield and the possession figures as usual were impressive, especially as Cardiff sat back and gave away the ball frequently. However, as usual we had tried to pass the ball into the net playing the tippy tappy stuff around the edge of the box and their defence mopped it all up gratefully, combined with a few great saves from Marshall when we got a shot at goal. It was blatantly clear how much we miss Rodriguez, who gives us that extra pace and ability to run at a defence with the ball at his feet. In his absence, I would have gone for Gallagher from the start, but instead Pochettino favoured Ramirez, who had his usual game blowing hot and cold in equal measures. Do we really need him and Lallana on the pitch together? Both of them weren't at their best today, running into blind alleys and not attempting to shoot often enough. From today's showing, we're not going to get much from the last few matches without Rodriguez, so we might as well avail ourselves of the opportunity of giving some match time to the youngsters, more Gallagher, and perhaps Harry Reed or even Omar Rowe. Did the Chapel call it right that there was a stonewall penalty shout for us? It certainly looked nailed on from where I sit in the Chapel/Kingsland corner. The game would have been so different had that been awarded, as I have no doubt that Lambert would have scored, even against Marshall and then Cardiff would have had to chase the game, leaving them vulnerable. As it is, they leave with the points, being the poorest team this season to have done so at St Mary's. I await the replay on Match of the Day. If it is as stonewall as it looked, then there will be the growing clamour for video evidence to be brought in, as this was a key relegation scrap for Cardiff.

It will allow them more time to speculate on how many of our squad are already on the way to Man City, Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool, Spurs, Arsenal, Real Madrid. The additional time will also allow them to go beyond our top players and to dig for rumours about the next lot coming through the ranks. Expect headlines along the lines of "Harrison Read is expected to sign for ......... " and then the rumours for the likes of Matt Targett, Sam Mc Queen, Sam Gallagher, Jake Hesketh, Josh Simms, Omar Rowe, Jake Sinclair, etc.

I'd give up trying to debate this with Sour Mash, Lighthouse. He won't understand what you're trying to say, no matter how simply you state your case.

I'm not doing the same thing at all. I quoted something that was in the public domain that she is reported to have said. Now I accept that it might have been misreported, but I have not speculated on her thoughts or wishes, merely repeated what she is reported to have said.

The conclusions that you draw from what people have presented as their opinions - weird. Your comprehension (or lack of it) leads me to conclude that there is a possibility that English might not be your first language.

No, you inferred that some 4th officials might dither, i.e. take longer to decide than others. I'll ask you again, if you did not mean that, then please explain what you did mean. I have already advanced the opinion that if referees are capable of making snap decisions on incidents during the match, that there is no reason why the professional referees who act as 4th officials would not be capable of making snap judgements accurately with the benefit of viseo evidence to support them. Why do you find that so difficult to comprehend? I'll say it a different way if you like. The fourth officials' decision will take only moments beyond the time necessary to view the video evidence.

Expressing the wish that he would have stayed doesn't sound to me quite the same as thanking him for his service. But who knows, perhaps her English isn't as perfect as it ought to have been, or maybe she was misquoted. But of course, only she would know whether the sentiment was just an empty platitude or whether it was heartfelt. It really isn't for us mere fans to attempt to guess at what she really thought, although as usual nobody lets that stop them doing it on here.

If we're going to discuss semantics, when one writes a post expressing an opinion it is not up to the poster to decide what is inferred. It is up to the reader to interpret what he thought the poster meant. I asked:- You responded:- I thought that it was fairly reasonable concusion to reach from that, that some 4th officials might take longer than others to reach a decision based on the video evidence. If that is not what you meant, perhaps you'll enlighten us to what you really meant, and try to explain yourself a bit more clearly next time. And regarding what I said, no, you've got entirely the wrong end of the stick. I reckon that you are being deliberately obtuse. I'll correct it for you. Yes.

With Katharina expressing regret that he did not stay.

The bit that I have highlighted is the crucial bit. It isn't tricky, Tim. I have no issue with Cortese anticipating the massively increased revenue that we will receive this season to ensure that we will progress even further. You obviously do and you're entitled to your opinion, but I'm with those who look at the bigger picture, that the transfer fees were paid over a longer period, that there is money to be recouped on selling on Osvaldo, etc. Manchester United are massively in debt and propose "spunking" £100 million + on new signings this Summer. Just think how much they would have been able to spend if it weren't for having to service that debt too.

Spot on. We'll obviously have to await the more incompetant referees from third World Countries denying Germany or Brazil goals in the World Cup for there to be a universal clamour for the technology to be introduced. The pundits were asked yesterday on Match of the Day whether the poor decisions balanced out during the course of the seasons. Both said not. I would say that it possibly did for the top teams, but at the expense of it not balancing out for the lower down teams.

It was you who inferred that somehow some referees acting as fourth officials might become ditherers faced with making snap judgments based on reviewing video evidence. As you say, it is a bizarre assumption. My proposal involves the fourth official advising the referee on crucial decisions which are game changing, like offsides which result in goals, penalties, red card tackles. Whether the ball had crossed the line for a goal would have been on that list, but the technology is already there now, thank God. With luck, it won't be long before technology moves forward on those other contentious decisions.

So is the money still available for buying in new players or not? Sorry if I assumed that your statement that it was "spunked up the wall" inferred that it wasn't. Personally, I think that the sensible position is to wait and see and not make judgements on the matter when we don't know at this stage what Katharina's plans are.

So the fourth officials, who are professional referees and have to make snap judgements when they are on the pitch, would all of a sudden become ditherers faced with the technology that allows them an instant replay of the event to be analysed? Why would it lead to more debate and questioning of refereeing decisions? They would be interpreting the laws of the game, which they would be the best qualified persons to be able to do, so why wouldn't their decisions be accepted as final? The pundits don't have that degree of expertise and just because their opinions are exactly that, doesn't mean that the decisions of qualifed people would be questioned. The fourth officials would have the time available to make their judgments based on what unravels during play. When a goal is scored, plays stops. Like on Saturday in our match, there was plenty of time to have assessed that the Man City goal was offside, so would be disallowed. At the moment, when there is a foul and an advantage is played, there is the same amount of time available as there is given before the referee decides that there is no advantage and play is called back for a free kick. In the same way, play can be stopped to award handballs and penalties. I really don't see the problem if the will is there to introduce it. In the same way that we were cheated when the Gerrard? shot crossed the line and the goal wasn't given and the uproar led to goal line technology, there will come some more wrong decisions like that Silva offside goal in important matches and then the uproar that follows will lead to the introduction of video technology.

You infer that we therefore won't have money available for spending on new players in the Summer. The journos are right then in your opinion, that the finances are in a mess and that rather than being able to afford to spend on new players, we'll have to sell some first, eh? And of course the value of those two players is now zero.