Wes Tender

Forte is a really useful signing. If we lose Fonte, it will be a really simple matter for anybody with a Fonte shirt to alter the name.

Puncheon is still our player; he is only on loan to Blackpool until the end of the season. Will be interesting to see whether he plays well enough for them so that they want to buy him at the end of the season. Either way, it was good business by Cortese, as if they want to keep him, so will Millwall want to sign him, so we have competition to push up his price.

The longer term strategy I'm sure, is to develop our youth so that they naturally gravitate up to the first team, so that we have a conveyor belt of home grown talent available, instead of having to buy in expensive players from elsewhere. These developments since the arrival of Liebherr and Cortese are a reassuring step in that direction. By proving that we don't have to sell the players we want to keep and furthermore having players who wish to stay here regardless of these head-turning offers until later down the line, we are sending out a signal to all the talented youngsters that this is the best place to develop your talents as a good career move. Because we were not in this comfortable position financially before, we had to let go the talents of such as Bridge, Surman, Best, Walcott, McGoldrick, Kenwyn-Jones, etc. Some of these players have found that instead of illuminating the Premiership with their skills, they are instead just reserve players or bench-warmers. So talented youngsters like AOC and Lallana, freed from pressure on the club to sell them, are reasoning that a couple of extra years playing first team football even at this level is the better option, as their value would probably be higher afterwards rather than as a little fish in a big pond. It all bodes very well for the future too, that if we gain promotion this year, there will be additional incentives for players to either stay or join us, on the basis that we could be in the Premiership the following year.

And conversely some of the best United players have looked poor against us, as recently as Saturday.

Mange tout, mon ami, mange tout.

But he didn't just say that he couldn't say anything because of a legal case, did he? Listen again. He told anybody who listened that he had had to send in contract cleaners after Cortese's tenancy and that rent had been unpaid. But still, that didn't register with you, so probably most others either didn't get it or couldn't care less.

Pardon my cynicism. I expect that this forum would explode with indignation were Cortese to break his dignified silence over most of this mud-slinging, especially if he were to go on national television to respond to a landlord/tenant dispute which was a private matter between him and Benali. Benali might be a media whore, but I'm thankful that Cortese has a bit more class and professionalism.

Well, you must be really happy about it all, as you have already indicated that you prefer this stuff out in the open.

Right. I believe you.

So you see no difference at all between Cortese's comments relating to those who he sees as destabilising the club, or setting out a policy regarding club ticketing policy and a private dispute between a landlord and tenant? OK. So we've established your level of objectivity. Apologies if I don't put much store by it.

Shame. We could do with some rapid players.

I can easily describe it as petty vindictiveness, because Benali aired his dirty washing in public. It is a private matter between him and Cortese. I have had some inkling of what Benali's grouse is about, as have the rest of the footballing public who viewed the programme. Fortunately, we have a Chairman who acts in a more professional manner, so the more reasonable people will hold judgement on the matter as they only have one side of the story. When a court judgement or out of court settlement is arrived at, then we will be in a better position to know the rights or wrongs of it. But as it stands, the wrongs of it are Benali inadvisedly mouthing off about something that would better be left out of the public domain and which besmirches the club indirectly, as it concerns our Chairman.

Saw the programme and revisited it to check my initial reactions. I would say that it was pretty obvious that the interviewer had been primed to dig a little into the matter based on some snippet that their researchers had come across, hoping to uncover some dirt. Benali duly obliged, when he should have kept his big mouth shut. All he had to do if pressed, is say that it was something that he did not want to discuss. And they are not Saints fans like the rest of us. They hold privileged positions as ex-players where the media give a damned sight more credence to their utterances. With that goes a responsibility to be more careful in what they say. We can say what we like and nobody will take too much notice of it. They might have served the club magnificently in their time, but their time is past and they might undo that good work by ill-judged remarks and actions now. So who is the holier than thou arsehole? Those who rail against this sort of destabilising and petty vindictiveness, or those who think that ex-players have carte blanche to say and do what they like just because they used to play for us?

Spot on Frank. The difference between the way that Cortese conducts himself and the behaviour of these ex-footballers' behaviour is in sharp contrast. Cortese as a successful businessman conducts himself with a quiet dignity, which must rile the media who would prefer the gobbier type of Chairman like Barry Fry or that tool at Bournemouth, always ready to shoot from the lip. By contrast, regardless of how good they were at playing football, (or as that doesn't apply to Benali, how loyal and committed they were on the pitch wearing the Saint's stripes), the footballer who has the intelligence and the nous to act with dignity in business or private affairs is a much rarer breed. As others have commented, I have fond memories of what MLT and Benali did for the club, but that doesn't mean that they are somehow fireproof against criticism when they act in such a childish way, throwing their toys out of the pram because the club doesn't massage their fragile little egos. The time is fast approaching when the fanbase tell them, thanks for your efforts as a player, but if you wish to be remembered fondly by us, then you'll stop tarnishing your reputations and our memories by keeping your mouths shut about matters that are better kept behind closed doors.

One of our players might have learned rule one, that you don't pass across your own goalmouth when there are rival players lurking in the vicinity. Perhaps he had forgotten this from his early days in the Tyro leagues, but had he remembered, the winner of the replay would have been out of the hat to play Crawley. Mind you, if we managed to overcome ManUre in the replay, we would undoubtedly lose against Crawley, because that is the nature of things when you support Saints. Just have to hope that Crawley do a York on them.

Probably quite a few were at the match yesterday supporting ManUre.

That was the impression that you gained based on where you sit. The ManUre fans were much closer to you than the Northam/Kingsland fans and the Itchen fans in the corner next to them were adjacent to you, so they were faced side on to you. The best position to judge the contest between us and them would be the Chapel centre. But I agree with you and others that it was ludicrous to allow an away team like the glory hunters to have two thirds of the stand behind a goal. As the Police erected barriers to separate both sets of fans after the match, there ought to have been no problem with putting them into a corner somewhere.

Yes, of course we've got fans whose locations aren't shown as Southampton. But most of them originated here or hereabouts. That is the difference. But of course, I agree with you that those who don't even bother to go to matches are the problem, as nevertheless they're the ones who pay for the merchandise, subscribe to ManUre telly on Sky and otherwise put money into their coffers to enable them to buy players worth more than our entire squad.

The booing was because the cheating bastard gained them a free kick or two from his attempts at amateur dramatics, feigning mortal injury at the merest contact from our players. But what took the biscuit, was his dive in the box, which thankfully even their referee didn't fall for, although neither did he card him for it. That was the reason for the booing. In fact we handled him quite well mostly.

Yes, it does matter where their fans come from. It is the reason that they have that strike power up front, paid for by plastic glory hunters from all around the country and the World. When I arrived at the stadium, there was a group of about 20 Chinese/Koreans/Thais, wherever they came from, all posing for photographs in front of St Mary's with their ManUre merchandise. Now, it might not matter to you that clubs like ManUre, Chelski, Liverpool and Arsenal attract these plastics who help to perpetuate their dominance of English Football, but personally I'm always far more happy when we or anybody else beats them. I also deeply resent the extra money that they generate from being favoured with televised matches that then also perpetuates and increases their following of the plastics. Nothing would please me more than Leyton Orient or even better Crawley doing a York City against them in the next round.

Just got home. I must say that I was proud of the lads today. Any neutral observer who didn't know which division we were in would have said that we were the better team for about 75% of the match. The glory-hunting plastics would have said that they didn't play their biggest stars, but I would counter by saying that had Lallana played, we would have beaten that team that they played today. The usual indications of the sort of fans that they attract were there for all to see, walking to the match along Britannia Road to see that one coach came from Milton Keynes, another from Redditch, both well known suburbs of Manchester. Undoubtedly several others had made their journeys from those other Northern Cotton towns of Margate, Taunton and Yeovil. Also as usual, the referee was a closet United fan, as our players only had to touch their players for him to award them a free kick. And of course they had their usual dago cheating bar -steward, Nani having taken over the role from Ronaldo. But of course, the referee wouldn't have dared to have given him a card for his blatant dive in our box, lest he angered Ferguson. Our man of the match was Chaplow by some distance, although most of our players put in a very good shift. Chaplow, Barnard and Do Prado had all been influential in our dominance in the first hour and when they were all substituted, it was clear that it was over as a competition and that we had decided that the match against Exeter was more important than the remaining time in the Cup. We had done ourselves proud, proved that we are capable of competing even at the top level and now we must concentrate on getting back up to the Premiership. On the form we showed today, we would have given most teams up there a run for their money. The support from the fans was also magnificent today. I'm sure that most of their plastics must have been nervous about getting the victory, as they were quiet for large spells of the match. The time will come again that will beat them, I'm sure of that. In the meantime, I truly hope that somebody knocks them out of the Cup like West Ham did in the Carling.

I'm not going to denigrate the contribution that he made towards us surviving in the Premiership for so long and punching above our weight, but this takes it a little too far. For a start, you'll upset all those who believe that we wouldn't have been in St Mary's stadium if it hadn't been for Rupert Lowe. We might well not exist as a club at this level had not Markus Liebherr bought us out of administration and made us one of only a handful of clubs in English football with no financial worries. In the scheme of things, the history of the club owes much more to actions of the chairman and the board, good or bad, than it ever does to the actions of one player. The single biggest and most important change in the club's fortunes during its 125 year history was arguably the arrival of ML as owner. Let's have a bit of perspective over this matter of a former player allegedly being snubbed over a ticket allocation for him and his mates. Much as I laud MLT's contribution as a player, I can divorce any feelings about that when considering some of his actions and comments since he hung up his boots, some of which haven't covered him in glory.

Are you Wayne's agent? Would City let him come here from West Ham?

Well, it's all about opinions, but I doon't have much respect for yours, as Harding has been a good and reliable servant of this club since he arrived. Harding seldom makes mistakes, but even the most accomplished defenders make the occasional mistake, even at the highest International level. But Dickson is good cover for Harding and nice that we have this option.

Naturally it takes a little time for a team to change their style, especially if certain players were brought in by the former manager for playing a style that he found attractive. But apart from the hiccup of the Brentford game, I much prefer Adkin's team's style of play, which is much more open and with more width than Pardew's.