stpedro

Good manors normally cost a hell of a lot. Good manners however do indeed cost nothing

why would you need 3 defensive-minded midfielders? I thought we were trying to score goals? Don't think Reed gets in the team ahead of either Morgan or Vic. Not sure why you haven't got Mané in team, for me he is one of our brighter players

Reed and Tadic are completely different players, Reed has been shunted aside for Wanyama and Schneiderlin. Tadic was in today for the ineffectual Ward-Prowse, Davis, Elia and Djuricic, none of whom have done enough recently. If you would be playing Reed we'd be even more defensive, which is the bit we can do. Do you not know what type of player Reed is?

Everyone has been talking about how Pelle should have been dropped ages ago... who for? which striker would you have been playing 3/4 weeks ago when none were fit? Seager?? Don't say Elia, he's a winger, not a striker. So many people here have a memory that lasts about as long as a goldfish. There have been no options unfortunately to give Pelle a break, maybe now Long is back he will start for a couple, but a bigger problem for me is the attacking midfielders, none creating anything dangerous.

He's a good enough premiership player; poor quality final balls into the box and lack of support are not helping, nor is our style of play currently. Doing good stuff to win headers and hold ball up, but all this happening too far away from goal. he is lacking confidence, but you can't just blame a striker when no-one is creating a chance for him. Usual kneejerk reactions seeking to blame players for being rubbish when they aren't.

Think we have been worked out strategically. Liverpool playing in exactly the same way Swansea, West Ham etc played against us, playing deep and hitting us on the counterattack. We are really struggling to break teams down, neither midfield nor wide men are creating any chances unfortunately. It's not like we're playing badly, since in 2/3rds of the pitch we are controlling things well, but somehow we have got to get more out of Elia, Mané, Djuricic, Pelle, Tadic, Ward-Prowse et al. It's the lack of a killer final ball, a well measured cross or (most frustratingly) a decent long range shot that is holding us back. Liverpool have done exactly the same job as our last 4/5 opponents and taken the chances, one with a great goal, one with our one defensive slip in the game

now is as good a time as any to push the global brand. Makes business sense

I love this quote, taken from 'Passion of the People' by Tony Mason after the Saints tour to Argentina in 1904: 'Southampton were still talked about 20 years later, especially their magnificent work with head and feet, their skilful blending of brains and boots' They aroused he 'admiration of local followers of the great winter game as no other team has succeeded in doing' Seems like nothing has changed then...!

thanks very much for this Trevor, I'll start looking up the details. This is likely to be a side project as I reckon I will end up studying links between organised crime and football as I used to live in Colombia (!) and this topic tallies with other modules I've done and am doing. Luckily I speak Spanish as a consequence so it will make researching this things rather easier! I'll see if I can find the 'God is Brazilian' book as well, got 4 others at the moment to start with, but always great to have recommended books to progress things. I've got the Alex Bellos book as well which might be useful. Cheers for your suggestions mate

I'm doing an MA module on Political and Social issues around football in South America and found a reference to a Southampton match in 1904 in Buenos Aires (apparently the Argentine president and Minister of War(!) were watching the game). I know there are some books on the club's history and was wondering if in these books there was much on these tours? Anyone happen to know and could recommend a book? Or alternatively, are their club archives or something that might have records of any South American tours that we did? As a port city and Argentina being one of Britain's main trading partners, I imagine we went out there more than once? Sorry for this being a rather unusual post, breaking away from slagging off players / transfer rumours /tactical discussions etc

He reminds me of David Batty, sits deep, does the unspectacular stuff, breaks up play, works hard, plays the ball simply. I look forward to seeing his range of passing developing, and becoming a real fulcrum of the play. The next stage of his development will be to become a playmaker from deep as well as just a destroyer of attacks. Shooting needs work too, but hopefully that will come on. Certainly not the next Paul Scholes, very lazy hair based comparison.

no Isgrove either, not just the likes of McCarthy and Hesketh missing on the bench who have been before

why only 6 subs?

Disappointing he couldn't make an impact. Despite Rangers, Hibs and Hearts being in that division, it is a low quality league. Hope to see him rebound from this

as is the guitarist from Reef

ex England and Surrey cricketer Ian Salisbury is a Saints fan

No-one has mentioned Beautiful South which did a few issues. I wrote the odd article and enjoyed it. Would love a copy of the new fanzine as well but live in Norfolk!

Any word on any arrests?

any action at all? Anyone like to give any info??

Anything happened in match yet? quite for first 10 minutes

This is pathetic. How desperately sad that this is your set of priorities. If all fans thought this way the club would cease to exist and it would be the fans' fault. How petty that the whole club should suffer just because you despise the chairman when finally there are players on the pitch that deserve a full stadium of fans cheering them on. if we were filling the stadium each week maybe sooner or later we wouldn't have to flog off a player when an offer came in and could judge the sale on the benefit of the club rather than the benefit of not going into administration as is currently the case. Someone spending money on beer rather than your own club is a desperately sad state of affairs. You might as well support someone else if you let one person keep you away from the club you 'support'.

no chance of us getting Djourou, this is ridiculous. However, we should be looking to loan the type of youngster that appears in their Carling cup squad. Several have already gone out on loan, those 18 year olds can always play

Agree totally with this. It is hugely frustrating for the fans of course, but we don't exactly have many options. I would imagine that any player with ambition would have a look at the club in the state that it is in financially, reason whether it would be beneficial for his future to stay here, and then take the obvious option that is earning more money at a different club, in a higher league. How many of us wouldn't do that? The other problem we have is that other clubs know that we have to sell and will therefore not bump the price up. Those thinking he would go for 4M are in cloud cuckoo land, he's not that good, 2M would have probably been as much as any club would offer and then only just before the transfer deadline. And judging by the fact they got stuffed by Bolton who didn't know what the net was last season, we'll see Davies back in this division this time next year. And yes, we will be in it too.

bravo Minty. Long live reason and down with hyperbole and the judgements of those who haven't seen anything.

There is no need to panic at all. Birmingham have by a distance the best squad in the division, they have the financial clout still with parachute payments etc and have a team used to competing against the best of the Premiership (though not very well!). I think they will win this league with something to spare this season, there are goals throughout the side and on the bench -McSheffrey, McFadden, Jerome, Phillips, Bent etc etc. I fully expected us to lose this one, to be honest, just because player for player they have a better side than us. It is important not to get hyperbolic (everything in the press, Sky, radio is either black or white, rarely grey), and be realistic. We are not going to be challengers this season, this season is about getting ourselves sorted out financially and having a season of 'midtable mediocrity'. The thing that would worry me is if the trend of cocneding 2 goals a game continues, I'll accept the first two game, but will be worried if it continues. We have to get a lot meaner at the back, I want to hear more 'nils' when our scores are read out (and not for us). The other thing that disappoints me is the crowd. If our numbers are continually below 20,000, the fans will have to realise that we are not doing our bit to help our club get back on its feet. Obviosuly there are people who can't go every week, I can almost never go due to where I live and the fact I work on Saturdays, but if we can't get 25,000 for the first game of the season at home you have to worry. Liking or disliking Rupert Lowe has nothing (in my view) to do with going to a match or not.