Wes Tender

I suppose on the plus side, it doesn't make reference to where he comes from, what his dietary habits are, it's ambivalent on his position regarding the Skates and it's short enough that those who attempt to beat out a rhythm on the backboards can't mess it up too much. On the minus side, it contains no profanities, which I thought was de rigeur for the Northam. So bearing that in mind, somebody ought to be thinking along the lines of adapting the Cortese song. Osvaldo, whoa, whoa, Osvaldo whoa, whoa, He plays for Italy He f*cking hates Pompey Eats corned beef with his spaghetti, etc.

Insiders here, or at United? If at United, then there is absolutely no point if there isn't any reciprocal intention from us to look at selling him. As for the figure suggested by the Express of £10 million, where does that come from? A journo who has the ear of Moyse on what he would be prepared to pay, or one just taking a stab at a valuation based on his own uninformed guesswork? What is always amusing though, is the readiness for every other media outlet to pick up the original story and run with it almost verbatim, so that the perception gains momentum and currency that £10 million is what Shaw is worth and that Man United must be the favourites to sign him. I don't see much in the way of objectivity from journos expressing the opinion that we have already had all this speculation just a month ago featuring every single other top Premiership club and that all came to nought when he signed a long term contract with us. I see little in the way of cogent argument from any media outlets arguing sensibly (as many have on here), that we don't need to sell him and that the level of interest in him would make the price of £10 million likely to be nowhere near enough to make us sit up and take any notice. It seems that journos don't even have the intelligence to consider the basic laws of supply and demand, let alone to have the temerity to express their own opinions rather than bleat together like sheep.

Yes. All money covered paradoxically by the sale of just one player, who happened to rise to prominence as a product of our academy, as did two other notable players who also play for one of the top four.

We won't ever be top four. That is the exclusive preserve of Man Utd, Chelski, City and the Arse apparently. At least, that is what we are told by the forum experts. If we ever wished to get up to those dizzy heights, we would need to spend hundreds of millions, regardless of how much we might save by using those players from our academy who prove to be good enough, or the odd player unearthed at low price who turns out to be a diamond. Other than that, I agree broadly with SNSUN's list of players who wouldn't look out of place in any of the top 4 teams.

Precisely. Completely appropriate for those with the attention span of a gnat. It might be the best suggestion based on that criteria, but the other one is vastly superior, cleverer, more imaginative, also completely original, more recognisable, connected to the City, would be appreciated by the player, but just not simple enough for the simpler fans.

To you the plaudits for the original idea. But unfortunately I have my doubts as to whether the Northam will cotton on to it, as their preference is for one liners that can be repeated until everybody has learned the 6/7 words.

Ironic really that Lard thought to post this thread about how everybody had forgotten about Adkins. Everybody except him, apparently.

The biggest supported club in British football have not done very much in the transfer window, which isn't that far away from closure and the United fans and their supporters in the media are getting a bit worried. In an effort to try and convince the plastics that they are not inactive, they rehash a story from earlier on. But that they are interested in Shaw is no surprise to anybody, as City, Chelsea, Liverpool, pretty well any other top club, would also love to have him play for them. It hasn't yet penetrated the skulls of the less intelligent journos that Southampton are no longer forced to sell their best players to keep their head above water financially and Shaw's signing of a new long contract and the interest in him from all the most wealthy sucessful clubs ought to have had them concluding that a paltry £10 million would only be enough to buy them just one leg.

The Ballad of John and Yoko is perfect for many reasons. Apart from the actual mention of Southampton in the opening line, Osvaldo must have some affinity with the song too. As far as I know, nobody else in British football uses the song and it's a well enough known tune and about the right length and not too many words have to be changed from the original, so it's instantly recognisable. It's pretty well there in the past two or three efforts. This is my version:- Playing up front for Southampton Scoring for fun for the Saints The man in the goal said I didn't see that You know he didn't give me a chance Christ he makes it look easy You know how good he can be The way things are going Osvaldo's gonna score three.

Fine except that he prefers to be called Dani, rather than Pablo

Again, one of the few occasions when I find myself in complete agreement with you Barry. It seems obvious to me that the more expensive and quality foreigners there are imported into the Premiership teams, the less opportunity there will be for English players to play at that level. As you say, there should be some sort of limitation placed on the number of foreign players in a squad. Whether that would contravene legislation on job opportunities, I don't know. But I don't see why it should be that we would be unable to set a reasonable cap on the number of foreign players on the basis of nationality, any more so than the governing body of football are allowed to stipulate that teams should be comprised of men, without being charged with discrimination against women.

Yes, for some time now we have had the numbers on our books in order to field a non-English team. But thankfully there have been enough English players available who get into the team on merit. We should also be thankful that we have a policy of blooding players via our academy, where the majority will be English.

When it's no longer very hard, it is difficult to achieve anyway (I would imagine).

Southampton also features in a great little item of pub quiz trivia, as the venue for the first Premiership match where there was not a single British player in a team. That was Chelsea at the Dell on Boxing Day 1999, although Morris got 3 minutes as a substitute from the 87th minute. Dennis Rofe had a good bit of sport at half-time welcoming them all in the three or four languages of their nationalities. A very young Terry was on their bench but didn't play.

The next time that Arsenal shake hands with Cortese over a deal, I advise them to count their fingers afterwards.

I just love the only comment exhorting Factless to use paragraphs. The trouble is, I don't think that his journalistic prowess extends that far. If it did, he would probably be writing for a better publication with a more literate target audience.

No. Facetious perhaps.

I've just come across this old article in the Independent about the Skates during their usual protracted comedy gold ownership saga:- http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/football-league/time-running-out-for-portsmouth-to-find-the-right-owner-6290136.html#comment-412688086 In it, Andronikou makes a rather startling claim that he played a part in getting us linked to Markus Liebherr/Cortese. Whereas the article provides a great nostalgic belly-laugh at the expense of the Skates at that time, I cannot help but think that Androikou's allegation just has to be pure fantasy on his part. One has to have the thought cross one's mind that had he had contacts like Cortese/Liebherr, that he would naturally have attempted to interest them in the Skates first, as they were his clients. The conclusion must then logically follow that they had the good sense to proceed with us instead.

Jeff, I have read the entire thread. I was responding in the vein of your comments that your thread had pushed Cortese into action and thought that therefore there was mileage in keeping the pressure on in order to facilitate the signing of a winger.

Is it going to be another striker, Tim Matavz?

I thought that you would be saying that the job is only half done, as we still have not signed the new winger. Furthermore there are still no credible rumours at the moment about a winger. Mind you, in the light of the rumours about Osvaldo being dismissed as a fantasy signing, how ordinary would a winger have to be to be accepted as only credible?

Pope: Can I be frank with you, Pablo? Osvaldo: Yes, if I can be Dan with you, Frank.

The Pope is telling him how much he enjoyed his performance as Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean. Could we have a caption competition? There must be some good mileage on this one.

Osvaldo is a thoroughbred stallion.

And they even now believe that they'll finish above us too, with that pony-tailed donkey leading the line.