Saints fans have seen this dramatic improvement coming for a long time, and have heard the positive messages from the Don since his arrival. We hoped it would happen and now see the evidence to make us believe. It has taken the cynical press rather longer to get the message but now the football world is sitting up and taking notice. The opinions of Sky pundits such as Gary Neville and, this weekend, Jamie Redknapp are helping hugely to push Saints profile higher.
It's the link about the chairman having a pop at MP that I found more interesting . Talk about a non story , MP is a department head .
I think Neville's ...these are the best defensively coached players by a mile statement, and other comments he and Carragher uttered, made the pundits and sports writers sit up and start re-appraising. It was like flicking the switch on a light. To give Alan Shearer a bit of credit for once, he has been signalling this, with any sign of condescension, since Pochettino took over.
I agree with you that Alan Shearer has praised Saints improvement, but his has been a lone voice on BBC. I noticed that even Lawro muttered something positive about us on one of the MOTD programs this weekend!
Yes, Lawro spoke of Cortese's plan of 6 months, 12 months, 18 months, etc... into the future., on MOTD2 Extra. Cortese's been saying this sort of thing since July 2009, and it's the first time that any pundit has voiced it in such a way. I remember when Ramirez was signed that Adkins said that we're not only looking at players in the immediate transfer window, but those that become available in the next, the one after that, and so on, so Adkins was stating similar things. The vision is the same. Nothing has changed at Saints, except the personnel occasionally.
This is the first time that someone outside Saints has mentioned us in the same sentence as Champions League.
Getting a strange interest in the doings of Roma...they won 1.0 yesterday...so we are still second best in Europe!
The good news is that Roma are playing again on Thursday. The bad news is that they are playing Chievo. Another clean sheet in the bag for them.
An understandable digression, and thanks for the update Fran. This was the first match I've missed this season (yes, I do have a note from my mum) and have to admit some concern when I heard that Osvaldo was out. Why did I worry? Talk of striker pairings seem to miss the two English strikers that we put out on Saturday, and I'm delighted that Jay was given m.o.t.m. by the Guardian. In all the talk of youngsters coming through, he is often overlooked. I still hold to the view that this lad is going to be immense for us.
