The9

No weak links? Apart from having to pick Oscar Gobern and get Dale Stephens in on loan in the last month because we didn't have a midfield? Dan Seaborne, Joseph Mills, Lee Holmes... a squad that was "SO GOOD" for League One that 6 of the starters who played on the first day against Plymouth didn't start on the first day of the next season in the Championship?

"The best squad the third division has ever seen", who nevertheless were in the relegation zone when he took over and therefore clearly not the best squad the third division has ever seen at that point. In fact they weren't in the top 20 squads the third division was currently seeing, at the time.

Well, it's above the Pompey Chimes (how that makes the top 15 God knows, and what's that Sunderland song that I've literally never heard them sing or anyone mention that they sing doing in there?), but what a load of cobblers about OWTSGMI - Spurs have never sung it "slow and to a clappy climax", they've only ever sung it "slow, remaining slow" - which also happens to be the best way to sing it - but still isn't as good as when we actually keep it slow.

Well if he doesn't it might be a bit of a problem (Cascarino aside). PS people in Wales get very narky about calling it a principality since they got some Assembly powers (which is one of the reasons the renaming of the Millennium Stadium after the biggest welsh building society is funny).

It was indeed average crowds based on the end of season figures. http://www.european-football-statistics.co.uk/attnclub/soto.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%9309_Southampton_F.C._season for the lowest attendances of 2008/9.

We'd be neither, assuming we didn't end up top as a result of all the 3-0 walkovers.

Butland injury tonight could be key to staying ahead of Stoke...

Notts County are absolutely terrible at the moment, and of course having scored an early goal for once, the Skates were able to pick them off with their "hope plan A works" counterattacking game. Looking comfortable for the playoffs now, hopefully to lose to Accrington over two legs.

I'd add Zidane, Platini, Messi and Ronaldo now, but at the time they were the ones people talked about - I was too late for Cruyff really, but he was still recent, whereas no-one was talking about Di Stefano, Eusebio etc in the 80s.

I was keen on us signing Bas Dost until I saw how awful he looked with the Netherlands playing long balls up to him, he looked terrible and utterly lost - but no different to the rest of the side at that point. His style is vaguely similar to Pelle, so makes sense.

He was decent-looking when he first appeared as a teenager for Fulham when they were in the Prem about 2-3 years ago but seems to have gone sideways since his cruciate injury last season. Depends how much that affects him really.

He was in the U21s, yeah. I'm still waiting for someone to clarify how he qualifies online, the FAW are usually pretty quick on that sort of thing in their match programme so it might get onto their website in the next few months....

Strangely I just watched the entire thing and didn't even notice he'd come on. He's barely in the top 30. Must have been weird for Davis and Joe Allen to play against each other again so soon.

Even so, we wouldn't get relegated, because if the competition was suspended there would be more than 3 teams below us and if we had to forfeit every game we'd still have enough points to stay up barring a nearly-as-unlikely-as-a-plague set of results.

He's going through a very weird phase of denial at the moment, I think he may have discovered girls or something.

Equally I could have just had Norwich/Newcastle and Sunderland win a load of games by 5, but I was trying to keep it as realistic as it could be. Palace could have been in the mix too. You're right though, once I'd had a good mess around it was fairly obvious I could have worked around it... I managed to get half the division to finish on 47 points after all.

He was always named third best behind Pele and Maradona when I was a kid.

I've never before seen a player with an open goal for a simple stooping header from 5 yards out stand rooted to the spot, thigh the ball up in the air and then shoot straight at a defender who was 10 yards away when he received the ball, that's for sure. He's really one footed, reminds me of Miles Storey, who is now on his 5th loan from Swindon at Inverness.

All non-transfer window loans are called "emergency" loans, it was how the FL got around UEFA and FIFA's desire to get rid of loans outside transfer windows altogether. The loan window closes this week. That might also be it for loans as well, they've already had one extension to the loan system and it might be transfer windows only for the FL from next season, which is really going to change things in the lower leagues. They can still sign players from non-league, but the days of picking up a player for a month and seeing if he's worth keeping for the season are gone, as are the days of juggling loans to make a poor team good enough to stay in the league.

I think there are probably 10 new Sloop John B songs alone...

Current 1 Southampton Til I Die 2 If You Really F'cking Hate Them Clap Your Hands 4 When I Was Just A Little Boy, I asked my mother... (Wash Your Mouth) 6 By Far The Greatest Team 7 (Clapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclap) The Saints 8 Coooooome Onnnnnnn Youuuuuuuu Reds 9 Jose Fonte Baby 12 We Love Southampton We Do 15 Oh When The Saints (slow version into fast) 16 Oh When The Saints (fast version) 17 Oh When The Saints(clappy version) 18 Red and White Barmy Army 19 Sit Down Shut Up 20 Southampton Boys Are In Town... we all follow Southampton 21 Who Are Ya ? 22 Who The F'cking Hell Are You ? 23 Your Support Is F_n Sh_t 24 What the Fcking Hell Was That? 25 We're The Northam 26 Wash Your Mouth Out (we hate Pompey) 27 Stand Up If You Love The Saints 28 Southerners 29 Sh_t On 30 Red Army 34 Nah-Nah-nah-nah... Fck Off (Vindaloo) 35 Red-and-White_Army 39 Le_Tiss_Le_Tiss 42 Fratton_Park_is_Falling_D.mp3 44 DISCO 45 COYR_COYR COYR Come_On 46 Aaah_You_Fat_B_stard 47 If You all hate Pompey clap your hands" Not being sung 14 Pompeys Going Down with no money in the bank 31 Pompey Family 41 Going_Down_They_re_Going Down 48 Pompey Fan Upon A String" 50 Super Kelvin Davis 51 Woolston Ferry Person specific outdated 3 Rickie Lambert Southampton's Goal Machine 5 Nigel Adkins' Red and White_Army 10 Adam Lallana (Clapclapclapclapclap) 11 Adam Lallana Makes_Messi look sh*te 32 Ole_Ole_Guly 33 Nigel Give_Us_A_Wave 36 Lee_Lee_Lee_Barnard 37 Lee Barnard - he'll_See_You_Outside 38 Lee_Barnard_Barnard_Wanted by Scotland Yard 40 Guly_Guly_Guly 43 Doodoodoodoo_Jason_Puncheon 49 Deano Deano"

Ahem: http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/archive/index.php/t-24213.html Not 80 because of the duplicate files I'd recorded. So, in 2010 we were singing the following 51 songs (including the fast, slow then fast, and maniacal seal clapping board banging versions of OWTSGMI which afaic are 3 different songs). 1 Southampton Til I Die 2 If You Really F'cking Hate Them Clap Your Hands 3 Rickie Lambert Southampton's Goal Machine 4 When I Was Just A Little Boy, I asked my mother... (Wash Your Mouth) 5 Nigel Adkins' Red and White_Army 6 By Far The Greatest Team 7 (Clapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclap) The Saints 8 Coooooome Onnnnnnn Youuuuuuuu Reds 9 Jose Fonte Baby 10 Adam Lallana (Clapclapclapclapclap) 11 Adam Lallana Makes_Messi look sh*te 12 We Love Southampton We Do 13 Nah-nah-nah-nah F*ck Off 14 Pompeys Going Down with no money in the bank 15 Oh When The Saints (slow version into fast) 16 Oh When The Saints (fast version) 17 Oh When The Saints(clappy version) 18 Red and White Barmy Army 19 Sit Down Shut Up 20 Southampton Boys Are In Town... we all follow Southampton 21 Who Are Ya ? 22 Who The F'cking Hell Are You ? 23 Your Support Is F_n Sh_t 24 What the Fcking Hell Was That? 25 We're The Northam 26 Wash Your Mouth Out (we hate Pompey) 27 Stand Up If You Love The Saints 28 Southerners 29 Sh_t On 30 Red Army 31 Pompey Family 32 Ole_Ole_Guly 33 Nigel Give_Us_A_Wave 34 Nah-Nah-nah-nah... Fck Off (Vindaloo) 35 Red-and-White_Army 36 Lee_Lee_Lee_Barnard 37 Lee Barnard - he'll_See_You_Outside 38 Lee_Barnard_Barnard_Wanted by Scotland Yard 39 Le_Tiss_Le_Tiss 40 Guly_Guly_Guly 41 Going_Down_They_re_Going Down 42 Fratton_Park_is_Falling_D.mp3 43 Doodoodoodoo_Jason_Puncheon 44 DISCO 45 COYR_COYR COYR Come_On 46 Aaah_You_Fat_B_stard 47 If You all hate Pompey clap your hands" 48 Pompey Fan Upon A String" 49 Deano Deano" 50 Super Kelvin Davis 51 Woolston Ferry They need splitting into "still current", "person specific" and "not sung any more", as well as adding all the new stuff based on current players and with the obvious addition of WTFILN? which was still verboten in 2010. You could add Lee Barnard "Better Than Frank Lampard to it" too, though it had been replaced by the Scotland Yard version by then. Just noticed a duplicate of the vindaloo song too.

Why don't you just go and support Stoke?

As if I wasn't going to do that. We were 5th at the start of the last day! # Team M. W. D. L. Goals Dif. Pt. 1 Saints 38 20 8 10 53:32 21 68 2 Arsenal 38 19 11 8 55:35 20 68 3 Manchester C 38 20 7 11 60:37 23 67 4 Manchester U 38 19 10 9 47:30 17 67 5 Tottenham 38 18 12 8 58:30 28 66 6 West Ham 38 18 12 8 55:40 15 66 7 Leicester C 38 19 9 10 54:39 15 66 8 Chelsea 38 17 12 9 60:44 16 63 Arsenal 1-0 Villa Chelsea 2-0 Leicester Man Utd 2-0 AFC Bournemouth Newcastle 1-1 Spurs Saints 2-0 Palace Stoke 2-1 West Ham Swansea 0-1 Man City Realistically, even if it only came down to us having to beat Palace by more than Arsenal beat Villa I'm not sure I'd expect us to do that.

I've also done one where we win the league. 68 points. Arsenal 2nd on goal difference by one goal, Saints having won by one goal more than them on the last day. Man City and Man United on 67 (also both won on the last day), Spurs 5th (drew at Newcastle), West Ham (lost at Stoke) 6th, Leicester came 7th, having lost 2-0 at Chelsea and having been top at the start of the day on goal difference from West Ham...