How Suprised By Southampton

Will James Ward-Prowse play at Southampton for his entire career, becoming a one-club player?

I very much doubt it. James Ward-Prowse is an ambitious player and Southampton are a selling club.Le Tissier found a perfect home at Southampton where he could be a big fish in a small pond and others would do his running for him. Ward-Prowse is a more rounded player than Le Tissier, albeit a far lesser talent on the ball. And that will make him a very marketable asset for Saints.I am not a fan of Le Tissier. Great talent with the ball but offered nothing else. A big star in a small team that would do his bidding. No appreciation either of others’ contribution.His comments about Carlton Palmer are a real low. A stain on his character. But my sense is that they are indicative of his personality. Le Tissier and Palmer at war over England careersJohan Cruyff said that even the best players have possession less than two minutes per game. Therefore it is what you do out of possession that defines how good a teammate and a player you are.Le Tissier had to rely on his ability because he lacked the intelligence for simple, effective solutions. To my mind he lacked ambition and an ability to develop himself and his career.To illustrate the point there's a great Fergie story covering a similar scenario.On a USA preseason tour, United held an open training session for the press. Juan Sebastian Veron was struggling to make an impression at United. Despite that wonderful ability. The press boys watched on as Veron took on a keeper's kick out on the full volley smashing it 40 yards, back where it came and into the net.At this point an exasperated Fergie is said to have turned to a coach beside him and said: “And that's why he'll never make it at United.”The implication is clear. Ability is one thing but what really counts is the ability to reproduce your talent when it really counts in big games, on the big stage. Not in training and not at a lowly level.

Which university is the best to study computer science as an undergraduate? Warwick, Manchester or Southampton?

I studied Software Engineering at Manchester, graduating in 2006. I then worked near Southampton (and lived in the city) with several of their graduates for many years. I also visited Warwick when applying, not that it taught me a great deal.All are very well respected. Manchester has a great deal of prestige, and very good access to opportunities (e.g. careers fairs and company offices in the city). Meanwhile Southampton is said to be one of the best universities for computer science, and I know for a fact that it's turned out some excellent, well rounded graduates.Unless you want to remain at that university after graduation in academic research, it doesn't really matter - they're all good. What matters is the rest of the experience.Warwick is a campus, so that's a different kettle of fish for a start. Soton & Mcr are both big cities, Mcr the much bigger of the two. Me, I got a lot of personal development out of living in Manchester and engaging in the huge number of things it has to offer. Southampton is also a perfectly good place to live but I think it lacks some of the things that come with scale. It's hard to be objective here as the student experience is very different to a graduate working one.The best advice I can give is this. When I interview CS graduates for commercial roles, I'm not looking for the perfect academic record and reciting textbook smarts. If you have zero ability to write software, I won't be hiring you, but after three or four years of course, that should be unusual. I'm looking for people who can do, people who can pick up new languages based on the principles they learnt and not be confined to the specifics, people who can operate in a business - things like communication, flexibility, making compromises and being comfortable in front of customers. You learn that outside of lecture theatres through your real world experiences. You would be surprised how many CS graduates are totally unemployable on this basis. It's easy to find CS graduates but hard to find good people.So pick any good university. But make your decisions around not just what your degree course will be like, but how you can develop as a person. Ideally do a course with industrial experience, and choose somewhere that enables that. I got an internship in Paris through UoM - it was great! This is the stuff that will define whether you can breeze into a job when you graduate.Good luck!

What are your thoughts about Southampton virtually dragging themselves out of relegation with their narrow win over Swansea in the 2017/18 Premier League season?

I'm kind of surprised, Southampton have been probably the single most disappointing team in the whole league this year, if you'd have told me a few weeks ago that they'd stay up, I wouldn't have believed you, let alone that they'd basically stay up with a game to spare. They have been much better under Mark Hughes, which really goes to show just how bad a job Mauricio Pellegrino was doing. He's no Alan Pardew, but it was hardly the most inspiring appointment ever, if I were a Saints fan, I'd be cautious about having him at the helm in August. It will be interesting to see how they go about next season, do they just want to survive, or do they have a bit of ambition and look to finish up the table? On paper, their team perhaps shouldn't be in such a serious relegation scrap, but the league is so compact now from 7th downwards, the top 6 are head and shoulders above the rest.As for Swansea, the honeymoon period is well and truly over for Carlos Carvalhal. When he first started, he appeared to be a very positive character, a breath of fresh air, but now, the new manager bounce seems to have worn off and they just can't seem to buy a goal. It's win or bust for them now against Stoke, and even that game could be immaterial if Huddersfield manage to pick up a point. These games can go either way, Stoke could collapse, or they could play with freedom now that they have nothing to play for. In any case, it's certainly not a game you'd rely on Swansea to win, I'd rather be in Huddersfield's position with points on the board, and a squad with bags of spirit than a team in disarray.

Which is the better university: Edinburgh, Manchester, Southampton, or King's?

You can refer to this which is an attempt to distil the essence of teaching and research for UK Universities (There will be an equivalent one for each department, too but I’ll let you look into that).Top UK University League Tables and Rankings 2018NOTE: Tables of Rank are not the best way to select a university course.Needless to say, this isn’t the whole story. One deprtment in a university may excel while another lags behind. If you are trying to determine which university you should apply to you need to consider your own interests, costs of living in the town where the university is located, transport around town, transport to and from home, social activities that you like which may be covered at one university better than another… etc.The best thing you can do isDecide what you want to study.Decide what you want to do with your degree.Contact the departments you are interested in and arrange to visit as soon as possible. I would be surprised if they don’t have an Open Day for you to visit. Open Days give you an ideal opportunity to see the department you will join, chat to lecturers, chat to current students who will give you honest accounts from their point of view, learn something of the research they do. You will get the “feel” of a department which will help you decide if it is where you want to be for the next 3 or 4 years or longer.Do some homework on the department. Different departments have different strengths…What is the structure of their degree course? Unlike schools there is no Natonal Curriculum for University Courses, though they will all be ratified by the appropriate professional organisation. Check that the course covers your interests. Does the course have an entrepreneurship / Business element (a lot do these days - both useful and interesting). What is the split between exam / coursework / project(s) like?Select a department that carries out research that interests you - chances are you will carry out a small research task as part of your degree in one of those fields.There are many things to consider and the course that is “best” for you may not be at a university at the top of the table.

How would one go about traveling from the U.S. to Europe without flying?

You can take a freighter.Some freight liners allow passengers for as low as $160 a day — if you book 13 nights with them.That’s about $2,000, so a lot more than the average plane ticket, and you still have to get back to the U.S. So… not cheap. But if you’ve got the money and a month to kill on the Atlantic, go for it.Transatlantic voyages offered by the CMA CGM French Line FreightersThese ships go into the seedy industrial harbors of towns like New York, Norfolk, Bremerhaven, Rotterdam and Southampton. They don’t dock in style. But it would be cool to see the New York skyline come up out of the horizon, or disappear over it.Last time I was in San Francisco, I saw a freighter come in from Asia right under the Golden Gate Bridge. But a couple weeks on the Pacific just to see that? Not sure it’s worth the effort.If an industrial freighter hauling cell phones and Ramen noodles isn’t your thing, there’s still several transatlantic cruise liners that make the passage. They just tend to leave from Miami and Fort Lauderdale instead of New York, Philly and Baltimore like ships used to. Probably because they cater to retirees in Florida now — the only people who actually have the time to spend a week or two crossing the Atlantic.Celebrity Cruises goes from Fort Lauderdale to Southampton, Barcelona and Rome.Norwegian has ships that sail out of New York and head over to the Azores, then up to Southampton and Le Havre. Others leave Port Canaveral and Miami for Spain.Again, Southampton and Le Havre are not attractive tourist hot spots. But they’ll get you into Europe.At some point, petroleum for jet fuel will get so expensive, only the super rich will be able to fly — it’ll be interesting to see if actual transatlantic sailing ships ever come back in the 22nd or 23rd centuries. Sailing ships worked fine for a few thousand years. It’d be cool to cross from the U.S. to England, but honestly, I’d settle for a sailing voyage down the Atlantic Coast from New York to Cuba — something our ancestors had common access to, but we don’t.