An article by the aptlt named “The Eternal Optimist” who gives his take on the events of the past weeks.

Just back from Hospital and the wrists are healing nicely; neck’s still a bit sore from the rope marks. OMG! What’s the date? It’s the 19th!

We played Liverhampton 2 days ago. I’d better phone my mate.

Hi, mate, so hit me with it, 6, 7, 8, how many”

Hello, you ok? Well actually we just lost 2-1 and nearly had a draw.

Come on, I know I was depressed, but you don’t need to “buffalo-poo” me. I can take it.

It’s true, we played some good football, there were some pairs gelling really well and we actually stopped them playing. We had two defensive errors that gave them their goals. Our goal was a really good, inspirational one and our new CB wasn’t even playing. We had less than 40% possession; I think and nearly drew, finally putting to bed that Argie manager’s trouser pressing, possession hype.

So, you’re telling me, that I needn’t have kept wetting the bed, I needn’t have tried to slit my wrists, or tried to hang myself and I could have avoided jumping out of the window onto the greenhouse. All I had to do was just keep the faith.

Yes, but I think it would have helped if we had bought the players more quickly. We do have history on that subject. If Les Reed is still here after the window shuts, I would like a certain person to have a private meeting with him holding his favourite old Hockey stick.

I would like him to say something along the lines of, Les, do you want me to hit you with this? Les would say no. That certain person would then say if you don’t start buying players more quickly, I will!

Just joking, but you get the sentiment.

I feel much better now, after what you said, what about our next game, are we going to be ok?

To be honest, I didn’t enjoy lots of games last season with all that substance and no end product. I enjoyed last Sunday’s game, even though we lost. You might want check on how many possible new faces are in the starting 11 at the end of the window, could be up to 8.

This unique situation that has happened to Saints has coincidently given Ronnie K something towards his own team, which now seems to be better than that Argie’s very thin squad last year.

We are moving towards a situation where we will have much better depth and finally, cover (still one CB short) and for the first time for years, we could think about rotation! Well! Well! Well!

It pays to be an optimist.

Photo: Action Images

landsdownsaint added 21:02 - Aug 19 A bit early for this! ...some of us loved the Argie possession football btw .
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1970 added 22:12 - Aug 19 I think the funny thing is most of us although disappointed at losing all our players and manager were very pleased with Ronko's appointment so much so we sat back and watched that t**t with the beard and his mates all spouting off about ambition we saw right through them even RL has stated his surprise with no back lash towards the board, why should there be, because we can all see what a load of money grabbing ba****ds you all are with exception to super RL, and now hopefully we win games differently i mean with an end product of long range shooting,precise through balls the works.COYR.

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mayfairsaint1 added 23:28 - Aug 19 Agree totally. Pocthetinos pressing game was hyped to the eyeballs and for those of us who watched just about every game it became frustrating. Possession without looking dangerous. It didn't work against the top teams who picked us off and it didn't work against the bottom teams who parked the bus. Think Villa and Cardiff at home and West Ham wherever we played them. Ronko will be more tactically astute I'm sure. Should never have sold Chambers though. Could have covered RB, CB and even sat behind Clyne as RB allowing Nathan to bomb on. Even if Gardos is the real deal who will cover him and Jose in the event of injury or suspension. Who will cover Clyne and Bertrand?

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winchesterbob added 23:55 - Aug 19 The melt down hasn't started yet...... No sign of the club going under the hammer...... and you are spot on about the frustration of possession football with no end product. As for Chambers, he was part of the England set up.... like most of the rest that have left us this summer.... Not that I want to cast aspersions you understand.... but you can't have 30% of your England team coming from little old Southampton...... they haven't got enough fans to buy all the newspapers, probably not even able to read em even if they had money to buy em!!!! Not only that it's down south and no where near London.. Good luck to all that have left us for fatter pay packets, I for one enjoyed the match at Liverhampton, and to be honest I don't think we missed them that much. Shame about the result, but i'm not about to start supporting a different team any time soon. Southampton till I die

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truthfulsaint added 01:13 - Aug 20 Celebrating a loss to a liverpoo team that played rubbish. Pochettino's possession game was the best football we've ever seen at St. mary's those of you insulting previous managers and chairmen for doing fantastic jobs should be ashamed of your shallow selves it's like reading children's opinions. I for one hope we don't see the hoof ball that was present in the first half and funny enough we still struggled with ed product with Long and Davis missing sitters. I do thin overall we will be stronger but I'm still angry at the bloody GAMBLE the board made with a decent team we had.

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bstokesaint added 12:19 - Aug 20 Truthful it wasn't a gamble, "to risk losing (something valuable or important) in order to do or achieve something". We'd already lost the players. Their minds were made up to leave a long time ago after rubbing shoulders with their England training camp buddies on bigger pay cheques. What the board did was to try and recover from a disasterous situation; to maximise returns on the outgoing players so that they could be adequately replaced by the incoming manager, whilst remaining compliant with the FFP rules and providing long-term stability for the club. Which they have just about done. They always promised to do that and so far have stuck with that. I'm not sure what they envisage the long-term goal to be, but we have snuck up to the next level in my opinion. We compare ourselves with the likes of Spurs and aim to be where Everton are. We are no longer hoping to just survive, like the team of yesteryear.

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bstokesaint added 13:25 - Aug 20 In fact, arguably the bigger gamble would be to have spent a further £100m (based on Liverpool's expectation of what is required after finishing 2nd) on a few world class players in an attempt to bring Champions League football to St. Mary's. I'd love to see it, but the flipside of the gamble could be a painful trip back into administration. To do it right we need to first increase revenue streams and fill our ground regaularly so that an extension would at least pay for itself. I'm still hopeful we'll get there one day, but it was never going to go 2nd, 2nd, 8th, 4th!!

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winchesterbob added 16:20 - Aug 20 I don't think anybody is celebrating a loss at Liverhampton Truthful. But we did show signs of a different approach and a plan B which I think bodes well for the future. I enjoyed possession football as well when it worked, the problem is that the Argie didn't seem to learn when it didn't and had no plan to recover the situation. Rogers up at Liverhampton learnt from our win at Anfield and adopted the same strategy. The difference was that when it didn't work for them, they changed the system. They finished 6 places above us!! The point is that was last season, its gone. Let it go. The king is dead, long live the King. It was good when it worked. Now we need to move on and set about the business of supporting the Saints instead of dwelling on what might have been.

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Jesus_02 added 19:14 - Aug 20 truthfulsaint: Shame on you for speaking the obvious! It has been a massive gamble that will not progress the club any further. Its so much easier to blame the very people that we have been supporting over the last 5 years rather than those that have just come in! Where is the loyalty? Ricky Lambert is niether stupid or greedy and im damn sure that he knows more about whats been going on at saints than Nick does! I will always support saints, go to the matches, encourage my childeren to do so, but to be honest the last 5 years have been great. Up The Saints (Les Read is a tit)

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SeenitallB4 added 08:01 - Aug 21 The hardest thing to do in football is to bring in quality players to a club like Southampton. You either have to buy in unproven players and hope they do the business (Lovren). And if they do excel then they are likely to be bought by a bigger club. Or you have to offer stupid money and big wages. (QPR). I think the Southampton board have done very well so far and the wheeling and dealing does take time. It would be nice to be more positive about a board who have averted a crisis and through hard work and diligence have put together a decent team. The time for judgement will be next year. Looking forward to a great season and some fantastic results.

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Jesus_02 added 23:59 - Aug 21 In 10m keeper with no premeirship experience. Out best keeper we have had since Naimi (who we got on a free).. Great "wheeling and dealing"
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