Wes Tender

I wouldn't believe Dorkish or indeed Misguided Missile if I were you Barry. Look, I've already explained it you twice Barry. If you don't believe me, the owner of the ST, and prefer to believe one of your WUM compatriots instead, then go ahead. Carry on living in your own little fantasy world, the one that tells you that I'm a fat kid, living at home with my mother, owns an X-Box, etc. You're the one that had to leave your last forum because you were bullied, Barry. There, there Diddums. Hope the experience didn't scar you too much.

What time span is on this? The end of the season? Another nine matches, so I think that's good for at least another 3 from each of them per match, so 81 total is my vote.

I've got some ideas for further threads that you can post after this one:- Do you wear items to matches that you consider to be lucky? How often do they work? OK, it's only been a handful of matches, but rate Pochettino against all of the other Saints managers since 1960. Who would you prefer to be our current manager? Harry Redknapp, Adkins or Pochettino? Had we kept Nigel Pearson as our manager, where would we be now? Let me know if you start to run out of ideas for pointless threads. I'm sure that I could think of some more for you. The offer applies to Barry too, as between the two of you who surfaced on here at around about the same time, we have been spammed with more threads like this one than I can ever remember before.

I don't know and neither do you. Of course Cortese gave the go-ahead. Do you think for one second that the chief executive should not sanction the expenditure of several millions of £s?

You're priceless! Cortese isn't the manager, but you infer that as most of the important decisions have been his, so he ought to act like a manager, even though he is the proxy Chief Executive on behalf of the owners. Genius. Any sign of a response from you to my request for a the names of some other chief executives who stood down following their club's relegation? Or do you excuse yourself from answering that with the caveat that they would have had to have taken decisions that caused the relegation? I'm sure that if the Liebherrs come to consider whether they should give Cortese the bullet, they'll find your advice to them invaluable. Do you have any other advice as to how they could increase their already considerable wealth?

Why should he step down? Seriously, answer that. Do you require him to do that as some ridiculous code of honour of yours. You've taken us down, Cortese, so you must do the honourable thing and fall on your sword? Name me some other chief executives/owners that have stepped down because their clubs were relegated. He will remain as long as he has the confidence of the Liebherrs or as long as he maintains his interest in the job. As the future under any other owners is uncertain, I'd happily continue to have him in charge, regardless of whether we were relegated or not.

Exactly the same points that you consider to be valid on the other thread. Do you just cut and paste your comments onto several threads, hoping vainly that if you repeat them often enough people will notice you? Well, they certainly do and think that you're a boring tw*t as a result. How's your little "winky" by the way? Regarding the ST protest, quoting it just reiterates what most suspect of you, that even if something goes into one of your ears, it quickly makes its way out through the other one having jumbled itself up on the way through. I'll explain again for your benefit and hope that the facts penetrate your cranium at last. When Lowe came back into control of the club allied to Wilde, I did not renew my season ticket for the following season. I didn't tear it up mid-season. In the event, I still attended all matches that following season bar about 4 of them, paradoxically ones that we actually won under Wotte. Got it? And why would I not renew my ST if we went down? I had it each year that we were in the lower divisions after Lowe had gone, even in the third division. That hardly makes me a fair weather fan, does it?

Barry, you cover the same points in another perfectly adequate thread covering all this; the one on who will be candidates for relegation. So why exactly do you feel the need to start yet another thread repeating the same old arguments? Is it attention seeking; a desire to be noticed?

Do I detect a hint of negativity there? And shouldn't it be included amongst the negatives too, the fact that we are not taking our chances ? Surely if you too criticise the manager's selection or substitutions, you're also a bedwetter, even if it's a little drip leak rather than a fully-fledged sheet-drenching. Arguable really whether those who are critical of any aspect of the manager or the team are any less supporting of them than those who criticise nothing, when things do not go entirely as they would wish. Those who have criticisms are surely hopeful if they are constructive and valid, that they will result in improvements.

Usual crap from a red top journo. Apart from Fox not playing, three defenders of our back line made team of the week on MOTD. So much for the journo's scoring of our players. And as already rightly commented, will this journo be pressing for Man Utd players to be punished by the FA too? A stupid question. Of course not. Prat.

But there couold have been any number of reasons why he took off those players. For example, some of them could have been carrying knocks, been exhausted, had cramp. The changes might have been tactical, to tighten up the defence, to counter substitutions by the other team, or to introduce fresh pairs of legs. Do you know why the substitutions were made and can you categorically rule out any of the above? But then equally Pochettino left off Puncheon in our last match, arguably our most threateningly creative player recently and he played others out of position. Shall we call him tactically naive, or assume that there was some reason for what seemed to be strange decisions? And why wouldn't Adkins team have beaten Man City? We were 2-1 up on them in the away fixture in our first match back in the top flight and the players are much more used to the Premiership and other factors would have made the difference, like the availablity of Cork and the partnership that he has forged with Schneiderlin and the home advantage. As you say, the whole situation is hypothetical, but you seem to be in a minority thinking that Adkins wouldn't have us in a higher position. In fact, we are so far a place lower than he had us as it stands now.

I believe that we would have been a couple of places higher now had Adkins stayed as manager. Apart from anything else, the two of them play a different style of football and there has to be some uncertainty caused by trying to get the players to understand what is required, then to implement it, nervous of what to do if things didn't work out how they expected. Pochettino's strategy of playing a high line, denying the opposition space and time on the ball isn't anything new and has been employed by certain teams to nullify the most expensive and able players in the top teams. But to use that tactic in every match regardless of who the opposition is seems naive to me and some managers have already worked out the best way to counter it even before a ball is kicked in a match. In short, Pochettino appears to be a one trick pony. Unless a team has players which suit a particular strategy, then it won't work effectively. Teams with fast strikers can play the ball out long for them to run on to. Teams with tall players like Stoke will benefit from set pieces against teams with shorter defenders. We were a team under Adkins adapted to play a passing game with width, patiently probing for an opening and then striking, often tiring the opposition because we denied them the ball. Results in matches before Adkins was sacked were suggestive that after a difficult run of fixtures, Adkins had kept the players positive and we had turned a corner. Sometimes his substitutions raised an eyebrow, or he was criticised for not starting Lambert. Yet does Pochettino's style suit Lambert? Is he up to the double training sessions? I agree with some other posters that if the long term strategy was to replace Adkins in order to press on to the next level, the time to have done it was either before the season started, or when this season ended. What will the position be if we are relegated under Pochettino? Do we stick with him, or get rid of him and replace him with somebody eminently capable of achieving the task because they have a track record of gaining a side promotion from a lower division? And who would that be? Apart from any other considerations, of the two of them, I suspect that Adkins was the better communicator (not just linguistically), more capable of getting the best out of his players and more tactically aware.

Thanks for that opinion Nicola.

My position was clear much earlier on, Barry. At the start if the season when for a bit of fun we were asked for our prediction for where we would finish, I had predicted tenth. After a poor start which could be excused because of the difficulty of the early run of fixtures, we had turned a corner and looked as if we were still capable of an outside chance of reaching 10th place, some cause for optimism being provided when we came back from two down against Chelsea away to get a point, the draw against Arsenal and scoring three against Stoke away. When Pochettino was appointed and it became clear that his command of the language was poor, my knee-jerk reaction was that we would now be relegated. Having read various articles about how some of the game's top luminaries on the Continent lauded his prowess as a manager and having been excited at witnessing the fast attacking high line play he brought to us, I faltered in my opinion that we would be relegated and once more it seemed that we could climb the table. I agreed at least with the opinion expressed by many that there were three teams worse than us. That position appears to be shifting, as QPR and Wigan were two of those teams. OK, there is still time for us to put in a run of wins or draws to put things in our own hands, but equally those other teams around us can do the same and some other teams might yet be dragged down into the mire. But I increasingly feel that Adkins had more about him strategically and also in terms of ability to motivate the players and give them self-belief after they had suffered a reversal.

As the dismal run under Pochettino continues, there will be a growing clamour for the justification for Adkins' sacking. There were games this season where Adkins' abilities to manage in the Premiership were questioned, based on what some considered to be odd substitutions. You should always play your strongest players we were told by the forum's experts and unless there were good reasons like injuries or suspensions, the wisdom was that it is foolish to select players to play out of their positions. And yet that is exactly what has been happening under Pochettino, both things notably in this match. And a team that was scoring freely under Adkins seems to have stopped banging them in, regardless of the number of chances created that remains high. Why is that? Could it be that the high pressing line favoured by Pochettino denies our strikers the space, as the defence is packed? I continue to believe that we have no plan B. Every manager knows before the referee blows the whistle to start the match what he can expect from us and plans his strategy accordingly. A team like Man City underrated us and paid the price, but others have either negated our strategy, or even benefited from it and won against us. For all that it is exciting to watch and that it might have been effective in Spain, I'm not convinced that it will work here, where play is much quicker. Norwich and QPR are two matches where we would have hoped to gain 6 points, ahead of the matches against Liverpool and Chelsea. With QPR closing the gap with their 6 points in the last two matches and Wigan proving by their comprehensive vistory against Everton that they have the quality to get themselves out of danger yet again, we really do have to start getting some points on the board. Whereas I still believe we can stay up, I'm more convinced each week that Adkins would have got better results in these matches than Pochettino.

These are the sort of stats that add weight to the opinion that he could play for any team in the land and probably most teams in Europe too. He is just getting better and better and will probably be a star for France in the next World Cup at this rate. What's he worth with this potential at this age?

It was a reasonable enough point of view, expressed well. In particular Steve is spot on regarding the way that Redcrapp's failure to ensure the continuance of our proud 27 years in the Premiership had been airbrushed from history. Perhaps if/when QPR are relegated under him, the press will realise that labelling him as Harry Houdini makes them look stupid. Also, they have found it easy to credit him with the success he achieved with the Skates whilst ignoring the resulting fallout from his open chequebook over-spending which took them right to the very precipice of their continued existence once he had left. It's a shame that we were unable to beat the team that is his latest opportunity to overspend somebody else's money and to enrich himself further by way of creative accounting, but we will have to settle instead for their relegation if other teams are less charitable to them than we were. As for that comment from a supposed Saints fan, believing conservatively that there are perhaps 40,000 Saints fans around the World, he's probably out by a factor of at least 5, if not 10. We had more than that at the Paint Pot trophy.

Doesn't Match of the Day give a stilted view of the general play? It looked as if we should have won by a shedful, whereas even our goal owed a lot to luck, Cesar not being able to hold the ball or at least parry it out of harms way. In reality we huffed and puffed in the second half and looked totally ineffectual. And we also lacked the width to stretch QPR and gain ourselves space in the middle. But watching MOTD reminded me in sharp detail how horrendous that first goal was, when both Fox and Yoshida decided to move away from Remy, allowing him plenty of time to line up his shot. Surely it was Fox's duty to close him down and Yashida's to defend the space behind. If both had to act in unison because they weren't aware of their duties, then surely it would have been better for both of them to close down Remy instead of retreating. A ball over the top and our whole midfield taken out of the game and despite Pochettino knowing that the ball over the top is the perfect counter to the high pressing game, he hasn't sorted out the defence to anticipate that. Next match, can we drop Fox and shuffle the defence and spend some of those double training sesssions working on reaction to the ball over the top or diagonally out wide?

A very poor performance today. We pressed hard right up until their goal and then ceased that tactic for the rest of the game. As it seems to be Pochettino's only strategy and it was countered very effectively by Redcrapp's simple expedient of the ball over the top, it seemed that we were then too scared to continue the high line in case they punished us again and again. One might have hoped that after we equalised, we would have been encouraged to go on and hit them hard, but it was QPR who then won the 50/50 balls for most of the remainder of the match, with only Cork standing out as the player going in hard and determined to regain possession. Had we wished to have somebody else on the pitch to assist him, Davis might have obliged, but he was out of favour for some reason. My initial thought when the team was announced was that Lallana ahead of Fox made that our weaker flank to attack, as Lallana doesn't track back enough to hold Fox's hand when he is always out of position and that having Ramirez and Lallana on together was one too many flair players and one too few players who would be effective with the pressing in their face tactic. But ultimately I am just left with the feeling that for all that Adkins occasionally got flak on here when his team selections, substitutions and tactics didn't get results, it is becoming apparent that Pochettino hasn't produced any performances from us that in my opinion Adkins couldn't have. Adkins managed to convincingly beat QPR away after all. I continue to take the view that Adkins left us one place higher than we are currently and that if Pochettino can't improve on that, then what precisely was the point of sacking Adkins?

They're both blokes and both with a background in finance. That's about as far as it goes. They really couldn't be more different individuals otherwise.

I read it as posturing to try and generate a bit more activity. After all, Markus Liebherr and others had expressed interest, but valuable time was wasted with the interference into the process of the Le Tiss tyre-kickers. It really is incredible that we were deemed to be on the verge of liquidation with the relatively low level of debt and the value of our infrastructure and latent support, whilst the Skates have probably been trading insolvently for the past year or more with no really serious buyers apart from Chinny and the Trust.

Mirror reporter: They didn't have free reign. They might have had free rein though. Typical ignorance from a Mirror top journalist.

Good news. Credit to him for getting his head down and gaining some maturity and stability into his life. I have a suspicion that initially Adkins might have had some influence over where his previous demeanour needed to be sorted.

S-Clarke's opinions seem to be perfectly valid to me and I fail to see how you can interpret them as being snarling, irrational hatred. I don't think that Redcrapp improved us one jot and I certainly don't believe that his heart was in it. What has Wigley to do with anything in a discussion about Redcrapp? Harry has been lauded as "Harry Houdini" at other clubs, just the right manager to take over a club near the foot of the table and turn them around. Well, when he took us over, we weren't a lost cause and there was plenty of time for him to have affected some positive improvement in our fortunes. He claims that we had some really bad luck during his stay here; yes, really bad luck that we had him to end our 27 year stay in the top flight. I also enjoyed our climb back from the third division, and the fact that we managed to get rid of all of the dross that was associated with the club once we went into administration, made it all the sweeter and more honest somehow. But that doesn't mean that I will give Redcrapp a muted reception when he comes to St Mary's tomorrow. He not only deserves the bird for his part in getting us relegated, but also for his connection to the Skates and his crooked Del Boy chirpy Cockney geezer personality. He's expecting a rough reception, so why disappoint him? Regarding Harry's memory of events 8 years ago, that isn't because his memory is poor, it's because it's selective. He has this inate ability to only remember the good things about past glories and to airbrush the bad things, the same as when he is quizzed about how much money found its way into his Monaco Bank account and what those payments were for. "It wasn't my acccount, Gov, it belonged to Rosie."

Pat Nevin itemised three or four ways for how the high pressing game could be countered effectively, the long ball over the top and the diagonal ball out wide being two that I can recall. I too am worried that Pochettino might be a one-trick pony and that we will already have been sussed out by the more intelligent managers tactically. But having said that, the rival managers still have to have the players capable of following those counter tactics, either pacy front men, or midfielders capable of the passes through our midfield. It would be nice to think that we had a manager capable of assessing the rival team's strengths and weaknesses and exploiting them by changes to our tactics, but we seem to have played the same way the past few matches, with mixed results.