The9

Three Fair Play places are available across UEFA, England has one of those. One place is available. West Ham are literally going through the motions and may well end up getting it by default... assuming Liverpool don't.

Or the influence of Paul Allen and Microsoft... still waiting to hear where that one came from and the validity of it.

Not sure why he wouldn't continue to get picked if he was still playing well for his club though.

John Barnes was superb at club level for around 5 years. The fact he was dismal (with one exception) for England was almost certainly not his fault.

It's been the problem since before the World Cup. Or since someone thought Gerrard could play there, anyway.

C***

Probably because we didn't have any matches.

Which is why not everyone will make a bid. If he's trying to say "everyone wants him" that's a completely different thing.

Um, with the exception of the 14 matches they've already lost this season?

It's green with a navy sash, in case anyone hadn't seen...

Funniest thing about the Standard comments are him thinking "everyone in the Premier League will make a bid for [sterling]". I think you'll find they won't.

I get what you're saying. The crux is that Carragher thinks Liverpool are on the same level as Man City, Man U, Arsenal, Chelsea so he regards Sterling as being at a "big club", and why would he want to leave? My argument was that it would take Saints being better than Liverpool to get us into the "big club" category so that logically there would be a difference in the likelihood of us keeping players compared to Liverpool... BUT... ...it doesn't even matter if Saints did outstrip Liverpool in the next season or two, Carragher doesn't even recognise that Chelsea are a level above, so he's not going to accept Saints are any time soon either.

It'll take us finishing above them this season (and doing better than them in the Europa League next season) for this criterion to have any weight. Otherwise the answer is "because Liverpool are a big club and Saints are not", and the facts support that. It's only by being Man City or Chelsea and leap-frogging them for a few years you get to question that logic.

He could play alongside Forster for them in L1.

Part of his problem is that he's nowhere near as good as Shaw and a lot of people got it into their heads that because he was a Saints left back he'd be on the Bridge/Shaw production line, rather than treating him on his own merits. I'm treating him on his own merits, and I just think he doesn't suit our style and isn't quick or accurate enough with his passing choices, or quick enough to play the overlapping role full stop. Solid enough defensively most of the time though (in the limited opportunities he's had to show it), so he might be good enough in a different system if he can step up his passing accuracy.

Not as funny as he used to be. I imagine it's the unfunniness of pap's page formatting offsetting or something.

I'm claiming an assist for Long's goal, I had exactly the amount of time it takes to quickly say "keeper's out hit it" after he won the ball on halfway before he did.

There's a bit of short-termism in effect here which, and when you consider the number of people who will have forgotten everything that happened before Sunday, plus those who've liked Pelle's goal for ages but are already used to it and over it, you have to think that Long only winning by under 2% actually means Pelle's goal IS the better, and over time will come to be regarded as such. Personally speaking I can (could? ) score 35-40 yard bending shots with the keeper on the edge of the box all day and with the space Long had there's really not much affecting his ability to execute that, not sure I could tee myself up for a scissors kick in a Premier League match surrounded by Prem defenders though, and that's what makes Pelle's goal better. I'd actually say both of them were equally as instinctive as calculated, Long had more time but he still only had enough time to check Given's position and decide "hit it" in order to do it quickly enough that Given didn't get back, Pelle's was a split-second reaction to where the ball was but he had to have known more or less where it would be after his control touch in order to be able to balance himself to launch into the air.

And will continue to be so, based on what I've seen.

I have, if he was good enough he'd be playing.

With you on this one.

Unless we win and both Liverpool or Spurs don't on the weekend, we'll be worried about Arsenal's Cup Final performance anyway - if we come 6th Arsenal winning the FA Cup would be the equivalent of Saints winning the 3rd Qualifying Round and the Play-Off Round.

It'll be worse on the smaller shirts, that red panel is going to chop the stripes right off on some of them. Not that I'm bothered. Have noticed that the stripes are a bit wider than this season though. and we also don't have the raglan sleeves of this year's.

Can't see us in a reverse Ajax with all those Feyenoord connections. Though a reverse Feyenoord (or indeed just a Feyenoord) wouldn't be unprecedented in the club's history either.

Pelle must be GUTTED.