Nordic Saint

Once he's built a title-winning team at Liverpool, he'll probably want a fresh challenge and do the same for Spurs.

Do you? Oh well. Constant change is the last thing most of us want. Most fans just want the club to stop selling its best players every summer.

Can we dare to dream that Hampshire might even win the Championship? The bookies currentky have us priced as 4th favourites at 13/2. Win this one and we'll be in pole position and those odds will shorten.

We usually sell early and buy late in the transfer window. Whether this is because we don't have replacements lined up or it's an attempt to save a bit on wages, it costs us millions because, as you've noted, transfer fees rise quite rapidly during the summer. It also means that the new players rarely have much pre-season preparation so they start the season unfit and are often not even ready to play until weeks or even months into the season.

Alan Shearer said on MOTD after the highlights of our final match of the season, "8th is about where they should be." We only have the 11th biggest average home gate in the Premier League but that is partly because of our limited capacity. With a capacity of around 38,000, we'd probably get the 8th biggest gates. Historically, we are a massively underachieving club though. We have had many long spells below 8th place but very few above it. And, of course, just 1 trophy is scant reward for 40 seasons in the top flight, 14 major semi-finals and 6 finals. We have probably been held back by the modest ambitions of both our fans and our owners. We are an 'ever so umble' lot. We think we know our place but in reality we don't. It's higher than most of our fans think. Alan Shearer has got it about right.

As I'm a season ticket holder and also a PhD holder, I doubt that I'd struggle to understand our tactics any more than you appear to. There is a reason why we put in more crosses than any other team in the league and that's because that is just about our only tactic. There may have been a little variety earlier in the season (not much) but in the last few games that's all we tried to do. By the way, I'm not calling for Puel to go. He seems a nice enough bloke and I really hope he learns to try something different. With Les Reed making the decisions, it could very well be a case of our of the frying pan into the fire if Puel were replaced.

I'm surprised it's not been discussed before but we've only got one attacking tactic: get the ball out to the wings and lob in high crosses to the opposition's central defenders and goalkeeper. Then try to get the ball back and repeat ad infinitum. Managers of other teams know that now so it makes us incredibly predictable and easy to defend against. If we had a Peter Crouch or Pelle it might make some sense but with our height-challenged team it makes no sense whatsoever.

Based on the last year, it's highly unlikely that we'll have an outstanding summer in the transfer market but highly likely the squad will be weakened yet further by Les. Since Paul Black Box Mitchell left for Spurs, we have been fairly clueless in the transfer market. Les tends to favour players who show occasional flashes of brilliance but haven't played 90 minutes regularly in the last year or two, if at all, often because of poor injury records. Boufal is a fairly typical Les signing so we can expect more of the same.

The stats support the anecdotal evidence. Shane Long runs fast, doesn't score and passes the ball to the opposition. At his age, is there much chance of him improving next season? He really should be sold in the summer and replaced by a better striker if we want to score more goals next season. I'm a bit surprised that Fraser Foster is statistically the worst goalkeeeper in the league because he seems to keep a hell of a lot more clean sheets than any other goalkeeper we've had in recent years.

He won't work for Les Reed so you can forget him. It will have to be someone who will do what Reed tells him so that's going to exclude most managers who have other options.

No.

Attendance today: 31,286. That means we finish the season with the 2nd highest average home gate in the Club's history. Our 4th consecutive and 13th top 8 finish is another cause for celebration. We just need to send Les Reed away on a well-deserved holiday for the entire summer, so he doesn't have to bother himself with any involvement in choosing the next manager or selling and buying players, and we can look forward to next season.

It seems fairly obvious Les Reed has already decided to get rid of Puel as the stream of negative 'leaks' to the press about him being disliked by the players have already started. We got the same thing when he fell out with Koeman, Fonte and various others.

Looking at the availability on the official site's seating plan, it seems at least 25% of season ticket holders haven't renewed. This comes at the end of a season when we have had the 2nd biggest average home gate in our entire history, largely as a result of the feelgood factor a year ago. A big win today would make a difference.

Considering the weakened squad Puel was left with after Reed sold our 2 top goal scorers, Mane and Pelle as well as our enforcer, one of the best defensive midfielders in football, Wanyama, he has done very well to get us to 8th place. Les Reed is the one who should retire. The ideal replacement would be Paul Black Box Mitchell, the real man behind our success in the transfer market, as we've seen since he went to Spurs, although Man United are rumoured to be interested in him. I'd expect Puel to get even better results next season with Mitchell's help and without Reed's interference.

In fact, you can see loads of people on the steps walking back to their seats. PS That's the sort of photo that usually does the rounds on the Pompey messageboards.

From my postion in the Kingsland the stadium looked full. I certainy didn't see all those empty seats in the Itchen so I guess that picture was taken just after half-time, when people hadn't returned to their seats. The attendance was 31,425 and the Club will certainly be happy with that many tickets sold. Our average home gate this season will be around 31,000, our highest for many years.In fact, one of the highest in our entire history.

Booing when a favourite player is subbed is a bit of a trend at matches this season, not just ours. The only booing I heard last night was from Ward-Prowse fans when he was subbed. I didn't hear any at the end. In fact, for the first time this season, the home crowd at St Mary's won our team an iffy penalty so credit to them for that. Usually, it's only the away fans who mange to do that. There are people who will criticize anything. There's even some idiot on another messageboard criticising the size of the crowd, which at 31,425 must be one of the top ten home crowds we've ever had v Man United. I reiterate, it was a good performance from our team and only some outstanding saves from Romero, including one from a penalty which would have beaten most goalies, stopped us winning. Looking froward to us beating Stoke and securing our 4th consecutive top 8 finish.

I enjoyed the game. It was much better than our 0-0 draw with Hull and a draw against Man United is always a good result. Our younger players, especially Stephens and Targett did well, and only a brilliant goalkeeping performance from Romero stopped us winning. It would have been good to see Austin playing today but maybe he's being saved for the Stoke game. Draws with Liverpool and Man United show we're no longer the pushovers for the top 6 teams that we were earlier in the season. I'm looking forward to the Stoke game. A win would clinch 8th place and we should all be satisfied with a 4th consecutive top 8 finish.

We just need Man City to beat West Brom by 2 goals tonight to take 8th place. Then 3 points from our last 2 games could be enough to stay there. 4 points would just about make sure if Leicester don't beat Spurs. It would be our 13th top 8 finish, and 4 consecutive top 8 finishes would be a new club record although we finished in the top 8 in 5 seasons out of 6 in the 80s.

How on earth does he keep his job as a TV pundit? He is scruffy, unpleasant and his biased predictions are totally ridiculous. Based on his predictions for all Saints games this season, we'd have finished below Sunderland on 28 points, while Liverpool, of course, would have won the league easily. http://www.givemesport.com/1054136-the-table-based-on-mark-lawrensons-predictions-is-actually-ridiculous?autoplay=on&amp%3Butm_source=Facebook&amp%3Butm_medium=Paid-Social&amp%3Butm_campaign=1054136

I really haven't noticed Long winning anything in the air this season and there have been loads of high crosses raining in to the opposition box. Austin and Pelle would have got on the end of some of them. What I have noticed from Long is the awful end product, fluffing chances and often setting up opposition attacks, including the one that led to an Arsenal goal in our last home game.

An away win is always a good result. It's been a very inconsistent season, in which we've found it hard to string 2 or 3 good performances together. But let's hope we can now, as 4 points from our final 2 home games should see us finish 8th and we'll all be happy with that.

Long. Our tactics, which are basically every attack try to lob high crosses in, don't suit him. The tall central defenders and goalkeepers deal with them easily. All the high crosses should suit Austin better. Also, I think we've seen the best of him. His finishing nowadays is terrible. I'm looking forward to seeing Austin next season. He's a goal scorer. It would also be great to see Rodriguez back to his best.

There are none so blind as those who will not see. Koeman, Lee, Fonte, Dodd, Williams, Rogers etc etc.