The9

I don't think he did "nearly get you relegated" though. I think he might have had a problem getting the same results in the latter stages of the season with the chairman selling his best players mid-season - but that's not something he'll have to worry about so much at Palace, yet. We'll see how McClaren does when whoever's doing well for you disappears in January. FWIW I think Stoke, Swansea, Saints and Palace will all finish above Newcastle this season, especially with that defence. You and Villa can fight it out for "big name team scuffling around not far above the relegation zone" rights again.

http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?54867-Sky-reporting-Fonte-in-talks-with-Villa

Caulker plays the same side as Fonte, but I still think it's pretty unlikely - he's not shown any of the usual signs of leaving, he's been at every training session and is playing matches for a start.

That is incredibly silly in the current situation. If he was to leave it would be for a far better side than them (or Palace for that matter). I will say I expect him to go in the summer though, he's had at least a year more than usual of being good for us without a top 6 side signing him. Ditto Mane and Wanyama, and maybe Rodriguez, Pelle and Cedric could leave too.

12:45 kick offs and live tv will do that to an away fan. Especially one that's seen them scoring goals against their own team for fun in the past two matches.

It's more to do with the politics of the Premier League being seen to be accommodating of the international regulations on banned substances, whether they happen to be performance-enhancing or not.

You're a mentalist, maybe "evened up" within the parameters of two Championship sides playing each other where the only decider is effort, not a top 7 Prem side who regularly shuts down other teams and a vaguely competent League 2 side which ships a goal at home against a Championship reserve side - we'd slaughter them. And THAT is why we want to play them. I'd be gutted if we didn't stick at least 5 on them with the first team playing. I also don't think you know what "fill their coffers" means.

I'm going to leave it until after I've established whether I've got one in the away end (tomorrow, unless it sells out first, I definitely can't get one today, just went back in and double-checked (25 min queue, the wife was in a 45 min one 5 mins later)) and offer them around my mates first, but after that if I've got any left I'll have a look on here.

Fair enough, he's probably getting used to a new defence. Stekelenburg is experienced enough to take that kind of thing in his stride.

No idea about home game, the queue was empty at 8:59:50, I got in, got the one ticket I knew I could get, now re-queueing just in case I can also get the other. Does mean I have at least one, probably two in the home end which won't be used and I can deliver to someone in Southampton any time.

Yeah, but unless you have no way of getting to a bank, that's moot anyway.

All of which can be done online! (Well, apart from paying cash into your account).

Yeah, you haven't seen much of him recently. He's streets better than he was two seasons ago at organising and claiming crosses. Unless Stekelenburg completely goes to pieces behind a poor defence, I've already seen enough to know he's comfortably better than Forster at the basics.

They were being overrun because we had no wide midfielders stopping the attacks - Targett and Cedric were forced into fouls in positions where normally they might not even be the Saints players making the challenge, and Yoshida was out wide trying to close down AND trying to get back into the box leaving gaps. I thought Cedric played pretty well considering the amount of stuff he was being asked to do, and he only came off due to the yellow card and us having another right back on the bench. Tactically we stopped most of the overlaps second half anyway, so Martina got an easier ride - the second goal was from Targett giving the ball away too easily with most of our team ahead of the ball, and even then it was an excellent cross and a poor attempt at challenging the striker by Martina (not Wanyama as claimed on some commentary).

Because I've already seen him in De Kuip getting the crap booed out of him for being a former Ajax player and catching whipped in crosses on the bounce without a moment's hesitation or any hint of a mistake. Forster is a good keeper, but his kicking is occasionally erratic (though mostly very long and safe) and he's been known to drop and fumble the odd ball and doesn't command his box the way Stekelenburg (or even Gazzaniga for that matter) does. Stekelenburg has been absolutely flawless so far, it's difficult to see a time when he's hesitant or error-prone (though playing behind the current defence for too long might do it).

Probably because most people have worked out that unless you're in the first 5 people it's probably quicker to buy online. Cheers for the heads up though.

Most of the empty seats were due to there being three rows' worth of people stood in the front row.

They were the second biggest sleeping giant on that pitch tonight, f'sure.

Except that the teams with the most goals scored very rarely win the title, and the teams with the fewest goals conceded do so much more often. So it's not a great strategy for actually winning enough matches in the first place. Defending to not concede works because you know that you will get enough opportunities to probably score anyway.

It's OK, I don't expect you to be enlightened. But basically every single thing in that analytics book is something Saints have been doing for a couple of seasons to relatively spectacular results. Every sceptic is another few hours of argument whilst we carry on achieving success.

I'm pretty sure Palace finishing above Newcastle again this season (as they will) will put that theory to bed.

Ah, maybe it was planted there in a drunken conversation in Salzburg and I'm meant to have forgotten it...

As for Cuco, he was absolute garbage at left back in his debut in Salzburg but since then looked competent at right back in Arnhem and solid enough against Newcastle in the half he got despite Cédric getting run ragged in the same position first half. He's no Clyne, he's probably not even a Cédric, but he's done alright so far.

Played 27 of 34 League games for Stuttgart last season, plays in a position where stopping anything interesting happening is basically your job, I'm fine with him "not impressing", Schneiderlin managed to go undetected for a year in Championship and 18 months in the Prem so it's not the easiest position to track.

How is this news when it was known months ago? Jermaine Jenas was even on MotD the day after basically being understanding and saying it wasn't as clear cut as it seemed and it went all over the place after that.