SAP returns

This Saturday sees SAP, once aka Super Alan Pardew, return in the guise of Southampton's manager. Following his departure the only SAPs left were us fans and the board who believed the man was going to be good for our club.

After Les Reed's brief tenure it's fair to say that Mr Pardew seemed the best man for the job given his previous allegiance to the club and having done an excellent job at Reading and a reasonable one at West Ham. I don't think too many could justifiably blame for relegation from the Premiership.

However, what followed what a catalogue of disasters. For me this culminated in the Blackpool away game. Words to the effect of " come and support the lads, have a great weekend away " etc. Well although the Pleasure Beach was closed, I still felt we'd been taken for a ride. Sadly not a rollercoaster one though as they go up too ! There was to be no upside with Mr Pardew.

His overuse of loan players was incredible. Having more than you could even get on the bench defies belief. Who sanctioned that I wonder ? ( spot the rhetorical question ! ). At least having got our fingers burned in that area and others, we seem to have learned some lessons.

He left with a fat payoff which for me was the most insulting part of his departure. He should have resigned and gone away with a lesser sum. He didn't despite, I assume, knowing full well the financial problems of our club.

Despite their lowly position and Mr Pardew's stewardship, this always promised to be a difficult game. Southampton have now been able to add Rhadi Jaidi and Papa Waigo N'Diaye, the latter rumoured to be quite useful. This makes our task a little harder.

I'm no Nostradamus but I'd venture to suggest that, barring injuries, we will field the same starting eleven as in the previous six league outings.

Hopefully we'll witness the same quality football of that from recent weeks. I believe we'll need a three goal cushion for most of the game to feel comfortable.

I'd be happy with at least four points from the next two games. If I could chose where three of them would come from then it's definitely this Saturday.

It's fair to say that Mr Pardew can expect a less than friendly welcome from the majority of the home fans this weekend. Hopefully it will be like old times for the fella come Saturday evening as he departs the Valley..........a loss and heading home worrying about whether he'll still be in a job come Monday morning !