Sergei Gotsmanov

I was always brought up that you could change your wife but not your football team. My children will be taught the same. Big club supporter's cannot reach the levels of euphoria that we experience when we win. They expect it.

I was hoping that might make up for you exposing that I wasn't going to Arsenal.

I have been spoilt in my travels which stretch from Austria to Zambia but the place I reminisce about most is the Dell on a cold dark evening when we were playing in a cup game.

He is a class act who handled the interest him in the summer with respect to the club in contrast to Van Dyke.

Your optimism has lifted my mood this morning!

Why is that relevant? You can still be irked at the way the FA make decisions without considering supporters.

It does irritate me how the bread and butter of football, the supporters are treated.

The good news is that if Hughes does prove a success then he will stay with us and not get poached. Silva would have been linked with every job going if he had any success at all. I am a little anxious that Hughes might not be a good fit with the Southampton culture. Maybe that stems from when he played for us and it always felt like he was still an outsider. I think most Saints fans need to reassess their expectations. My definition of a good season is a to finish mid table, a good cup run and several youth team players come through the ranks.

Do you know how many teams have achieved back to back promotions from Division 1 and the Championship? It was quite an achievement.

Both Crooks and Lawro set the bar pretty low for punditry. Amateur experts on bankers wages. Garth Crooks who backed James Morrison, a player with 20 something Scottish caps, to play for England and Lawro who announces that Southampton will not go down - clearly Lawro has not even bothered to check the fixture list. What sort of research does that demonstrate.

Thanks

Ii should know but what is his goal rate for the under 18's?

His voice used to take me straight back to car journeys to the Dell or beyond. A great man. Very sad.

Fantastic appraisal.

Don't forget the Physios. They are apparently useless as well.

My suspicion is that after 76 games Fraser Forster was just being given a break. Whatever people say he is a good keeper, maybe not outstanding but enough to get in the England set up. As much as I buy into the romance of Alex McCarthy finally getting a game he has had a whole career to demonstrate he is a premiership keeper and hasn't.

Sturridge is a definite no for me. If he cannot get motivated at Liverpool then he will hardly bust a gut for us. Klopp criticised him when he first arrived.

I agree. Lets have some stalwarts running our club, people who genuinely care.

Well when asked to contribute for help towards some fundraising my wife was doing he could not have been more helpful. He was prepared to give his time. That is how I would judge him.

Sturgeon is Scottish, Heseltine is British. Verbal is as far as I know not Scottish and based on the assumption that he is British it is quite a strange position to take given the harm that would have been done to the UK if a yes vote had carried. You can read into why he takes such an Anti British position how you like but I would bet he is not flying the Catalonia flag.

Verbal during the Scottish referendum debate you stated that you wanted the Scots to vote leave yet argue so vociferously and sometimes eloquently that the UK were so wrong to vote leave? How can you square your two positions?

You have cited two players over a fifteen year period. Currently there are threads open where many posters are bashing four players, the manager, the assistant manager and the Director of football. Does that highlight my point for you? I did chuckle though at your last line and maybe the past does look a little rosier than it was at the time.

Still winning hearts and minds I see Shurlock. I think you make some legitimate points especially about social media amplifying the perception of fan opinions. It is of course easy to see past Christmas's as always white and supporters have always given players stick particularly poor Iain Dowie but there has been a shift in a direction that is more fickle. It is difficult to measure but I would suggest the Poll on our manager captures it. 84% of respondents want the manager to be sacked after 4 1/2 months and the team 11th in the league. Allan Ball got the freedom of the city when he got us to 10th.

Sad to say but you are right. Fans that demand loyalty from players yet give absolutely none of it. I remember the days when we would be proud to have a goalkeeper that played for England and if he had a bad run it would be us the supporters that lifted him and got his confidence back because he was one of our own. Nowadays our fans just kick him down further until he will be a nervous wreck. We used to take great delight in our own home grown players coming through. Players like local lad JWP, still barely out of school and recognised as an outstanding prospect by everyone in football apart from the hysterical lynch mob on here. God knows what they would have said about Benali but he became a cult hero to the old fanbase. I supported Northern Ireland in the Euros like it was my own team, why? because of Steven Davis. He was pivotal in their extraordinary run and has been a fantastic and under rated servant for our club. I remember MOPO when asked about him just said "what a player". Not according to the armchair experts on here, tired legs, past it. Nothing demonstrates the fickleness of some of our supporters than the Austin thread. ‘Get rid’ they demanded he is just ‘a championship striker’. Finally he gets some game time and he is van Nistelrooy. When the clouds of relegation gather who do our new age fans believe will be the ones in the dressing room revving the players up to put in a performance; VVD? Tadic? Boufal? No it will be the Forsters, the Steven Davis's, the Warde Prowses and the Austins.

Leicester's squad is better than ours; their past problems were a hangover from winning the title two seasons ago. They also have owners with very different financial aspirations for their club. Massive TV revenues and transfer profits mean nothing if other clubs have bigger budgets to play with. I cannot think of one of the players that have left in recent times who would have been persuaded to stay. I thought it was bold to fight to keep Van Dyke when it would have been easier to pocket £60m - if you agree then should Les not get the credit. (As it happens I think it has turned out to be a mistake because VVD would appear to have lowered the overall morale of the dressing room). If we lost good players to teams of similar or slightly higher stature than ourselves then I would be put out. I appreciate that Les has a formula that has allowed us to punch above our weight in recent seasons. That formula at least provides a system to follow and gives some form of stability. Stability is preferable to instability in the middle of a season when we might well end up with a relegation scrap. Unless our budget changes I would stick with what we have got because it is stable and proven. You need to judge Les on his long term tenure not on a few months. What will be more influential is the approach of our new owners. I am prepared to give them a chance but there are definitely some anxieties.