Wes Tender

So he hears some tittle tattle on his grapevine and some happens and some doesn't. When it happens, he's the messiah, when it doesn't, nobody assesses the percentages against. There really is no conclusive evidence that he has insider information from the club, just probably a good network of contacts.

Naturally we won't ever forget. I meant these football pundits and journos. The so-called experts on all matters football.

What does Alan Nixon have to say on the subject? If anybody knows, it will be him.

According to the other thread on Nixon, Saint Charlie says he didn't get it right with Yashida and Ramirez, which is suggestive that he is good with contacts in the UK, but not so hot with players abroad. Even with Rodrigues, apparently according to Saint Charlie, Nixon got it wrong when he said that Villa were after him. So it seems that Nixon isn't infallible. And it seems that he was wrong about Chaplow going as a makeweight too. Another article from him suggested we were going for the double swoop of Ramirez and Matt Philips http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/southampton-transfer-news-gaston-ramirez-1271082 So just a few little snippets of info that didn't come to fruition. Seems to me a bit like he makes several predictions and if a few of them are right, his credibility rockets, whilst his incorrect forecasts get overlooked. Similar to Harry Redknapp's record in football management when everybody forgets that he got us relegated.

Of course, they are not the only parties privy to this infomation. As I said, it could also be the agents, or otherwise the players, the player's current team mates, or others known to them, the taxi drivers who take them to medicals, or nearby hotels, any number of possibilites. And to what end would Cortese/Adkins deliberately leak info about target signings? Those we wish to sell, maybe, but to alert others as to our targets?

Dorkish: As somebody quoted you I'll respond. Don't include me. My position has always been to wait and see what transpires with these targets, rather than accept any half-baked rumours. Hypocondriac: Actually, any sane person would take the position that unless anything is proven conclusively by actual concrete evidence, then there is room for some reasonable doubt. All you can put up is circumstances which are "suggestive" of a position. I would hate for you to be on a jury determining whether somebody was guilty just because of circumstantial evidence.

As I said, if anybody knows for a fact that there is somebody internally at the club who is giving out this info to journos, let them divulge that information now. Or otherwise it will be a reasonable position to adopt, given Cortese's reticence to tell everybody what we are planning, that the information is being obtained from other external sources. Mind you, it could be that Cortese/Adkins phones are tapped, or that the boardroom is bugged. I wouldn't put that past some of the newspapers. It isn't as if there are no precedents for them behaving that way. Or maybe Nixon is distantly related to the tea lady at St. Mary's. What is doubtful in my opinion, is that he is getting this direct from Cortese/Adkins. As I say, let's have some concrete evidence to prove that Nixon hasn't just been lucky, or that he doesn't only have good contacts in football outside of the club

Are you suffering a sense of humour bypass? You might believe that he has an inside source, but it is far more likely that the leak of information comes from the players' agents than from a source close to Adkins or Cortese. It is well enough documented that Cortese doesn't operate in that manner, prefering to keep his cards close to his chest (and good for him). On that basis, anybody at the club that would be likely to have that information would know full well that Cortese would take an extremely dim view of somebody leaking sensitive information. The opinion was expressed that Cortese/Adkins couldn't make up their minds about which players to go for. Again, how would anybody know that? It is far more likely that we were pursuing several players and that there were complications with the signings. If as a result, somebody concluded that there was confusion as to which purchases to make, they might well be wide of the mark and got the wrong end of the stick. If any credence is to be placed on what Nixon says, let somebody come out with evidence that his contact is indeed within the club. Unless that is substantiated, any opinions on the matter ought to be taken with a large pinch of salt.

Of course I was being sarcastic. The point being, because you missed the insinuation, that some journo from a red top rag is highly unlikely to have inside information as to firstly, all of the players we were after and secondly, whether we couldn't make up our minds or not about them. Unless you have proof that this journo has inside information from either Cortese or Adkins, then it is futile placing any credence on what he says, isn't it? Paul the Octopus was very accurate at predicting the results of World Cup matches. Perhaps we ought to ask the Octopus if we're that bothered about knowing who our targets were.

Ah! So right out of the horse's mouth stuff then, a real insider's perspective from somebody who is undoubtedly a confidante of Cortese or Adkins. Or was it that we knew who we wanted, but the players could not make up their minds whether they wanted to come here? Or did we identify several targets hoping that if one didn't work out, then others might? It must have been something along those lines.

This is a bit vague, isn't it? what sort of strange things? And stranger than the training methods employed by all the other managers? Otherwise, there is bound to be some disgruntled players when there is a squad of 25 players and only 11 can play at any one time.

Spot on???? Lordswoodsaints admits that the entire post was based purely on his speculation and you dress it up as fact, presumably on the grounds that your thoughts echo his? So pray tell us the background reasons why the pre-transfer window signings didn't materialise? We know that there were widely reported reasons for failing to sign Buttner, but it isn't even clear to anybody posting on here exactly what the fly in the ointment was, just speculation again. So what was the situation regarding the others? Chapter and verse please regarding who we were after and the reasons why they didn't sign. And you'd bet the shirt off your back that the signings we did make weren't the ones that Adkins wanted too? Based on what, exactly? Others on here have posted their opinion as fact that Cortese is ruthless, that opinion being based on the sacking of Pardew for reasons that have never been made clear in the public domain. He might well be single-minded, focussed, ambitious, quite possibly he is ruthless, but I am yet to see anything that he has done which endorses that epithet being attached to him. If he were to sack Adkins at this early stage, then he could be deemed to be ruthless. But there is no evidence that that is his intention, so unless somebody can come up with a reasonable explanation for why they consider him ruthless, can we please stop making things up?

I dispute the premise that he is technically the best player EVER. I even dispute whether he is better than Messi, that is a matter of opinion and Messi's figures stack up well in comparison, because he has played more matches. There are several factors to consider when one makes the statement that Ronaldo is the best technically gifted player ever. That opinion is likely to change depending on how old the person making it is. Those who have been privileged to have seen other past masters like Eusebio, Pele, Charlton, Puskas, Cruyff, Best, Platini, several Brazilians, etc., might well consider several of them to have been better players. Also it must be acknowledged that the footballs have changed from the heavy leather ones of past eras, the quality of the pitches has generally improved, the strength of tackling allowed has been diminished greatly and it must also be said that players like Ronaldo and Messi shine because of the service they receive from top quality team mates.

Absolutely. It is naive to think that the type of players available to Arsenal would not put away a free kick more often than not and a player of Davis' experience really ought to have known better. So that is certainly one goal that probably wouldn't have happened. Add in the two own goals and that is three of their six that may not have been scored on another day. But the defending was really poor for their other goals. Had Cork been available, we might have made it a bit harder for them

Yes, had Austin played for Swindon last night, he definitely would have been one two watch, playing neat little one twos around the Skate's defence.

Swindon were always a bit of a jinx team to us in the lower divisions. But you have two oneder how many Charlie Austin would have scored against them if he was still there.

Fair enough. It's a very reasonable position to hold, as it is difficult to make any realistic predictions under these circumstances. If we had been in the division last year and improved the squad, it would be reasonable to predict an improved league position. As it is, the only guideline we have is that Swansea and Norwich both managed to do OK last season, but where they have both lost their managers who achieved that feat and also some key players, even that is debateable as to whether they can do as well. On the plus side, we have Cork and Lee yet to make an impression in this division, hopefully a good one. Of the new signings, I am pretty confident that Ramirez will be a revelation, but it remains to be seen how Yoshida and Mayuka will fare, also Jay Rod. But I think that we have goals throughout the team and that will hold us in good stead.

We're going to finish 10th this season and then press on towards the top five the following season. Although it was a disappointment to lose against Wigan at home, the players that we have signed since would have made a difference had they been available. We gave both City and United a nasty fright and played Arsenal too early on in the season. Sometimes every chance falls into the laps of a team and Arsenal had two own goals and a good free-kick to include three goals into their total. It was actually far more difficult for Lambert to have missed his chance than to score it, so although Arsenal did dominate for much of the match, the scoreline did not need to have been that emphatic. If we strengthen the defence with loans or out of contract replacements, I could actually contemplate us beating one of those top three teams in the return fixture. Towards the end of last season, Wigan beat Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal and Newcastle. None of them are invincible if the football Gods are not smiling down on them. I recall there being occasions at the start of the past two seasons when there had been a reverse at some stage and some posters voiced their opinions that we had blown our chances of promotion, or reaching the play-offs, or that we would end up mid-table, etc. Many of the same posters have already decided that we will be amongst the relegation candidates this season. It will be fun digging up some of these threads at the end of the season if we have established a decent position.

I would love Spurs fans to sing OWTS at St Mary's. Because if they do, our players will think that it is us singing it. When there is only one word separating the song between ours and theirs, nobody is going to notice whether it's Spurs or Saints when we sing it simultaneously. Their players all know that it is our song, so won't be under any illusions that it is only their fans singing it. It is just the same when we played the Skates and sang their Pompey chimes, but substituted the word "pay" for "play". It was a bad mistake, as their players would have thought that it was their fans singing the Pompey chimes.

Your comment is based totally on speculation anyway, but because you don't understand our transfers, it must be the chairman that is involved in them, have I understood that correctly? Mind you, it could be that they don't make sense to you because it isn't your club and you aren't aware of what our requirements are, or indeed what our future strategy is. But speculating that we haven't brought in all the players that we needed because our strategy is to replace the manager and allow the new manager to make the signings in January is about as bizarre as it could be. We made several signings, but for one reason or another were unable to sign a couple of defensive players like Buttner. That situation will be resolved by either making do with what we have, which is a gamble, or by signing somebody on loan or out of contract. When you say that many on here thought that we would have a relegation struggle and needed to spend more to strengthen in more important areas, neither they nor you know that that wasn't attempted. The situation will be addressed fairly soon, I'm sure. It ought to be pointed out that there are always doom merchants on any forum and they tend to shout loudest. You only have to look at all the threads that shoot up when we have failed to beat the divisions top teams and who as a result have already made up their minds after just four matches that we are going to go down.

I have to agree with most of what Crazy Diamond and Alpine have said on this topic.

So why can't this question be asked on one of the other couple of threads about Adkins? How many more threads do we need?

There appears to be a lack of comprehension here. Did I not say that it was debateable whether all of that list of players would have gone into our first team line-up? And then you pick the best team in your opinion comprising 4 of our players. Personally I'd also prefer Schneiderlin and Cork to feature too. So is Flyer right that all of their players would constitute our starting 11, or not? Whereas it's a shame that people have to quote Dorkish so I have to see his inane drivel, he also shows a complete lack of comprehension too. Which bit from my quote did you not understand, Dorkish? I pointed out quite clearly that it was too early not only for their foreign players to be assessed, but also ours. The point being really, so you understand it, is that Flyer cannot justifiably state that their foreign imports are better than ours necessarily. Therefore, if you can make the leap of imagination required, it is not a given that all of their players would make it into our first 11 until they have proved that they can play well in the Premier League. By the way, Dorkish, I am not a self-titled intelligent poster. I might have often said in debates that the more intelligent / reasonable / posters would take a certain position on things, see how things developed before making knee-jerk reactions, etc. I let others assess whether my posts fall into that category and only pay heed to the opinions of those that I respect. It is no surprise that because you are on ignore, that doesn't include you. Sorry.

I can't say that I'm that impressed with your rag bag collection of mercenaries, most of whom I'd not heard of until you signed them. It's also debateable whether all of that list of players would have gone straight into our first team lie-up. Some of them, maybe. It remains to be seen whether all of these foreign players manage to adapt to English top flight football. Time will tell, but it is far too early to make a sensible judgment on your players, as it is for you to make the same judgment about ours.