The9

I may find some photos of my day - won't upload the pics of the three of us posing with our Saints STs though. Did find this piece of nonsense though, from the end of September. Simon Ferry wasn't even in the best 4 midfielders on the pitch today, never mind the best in L2: http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/pompey/pompey-star-hailed-as-best-midfielder-in-league-two-1-5527446?WT.mc_id=Outbrain_text&obref=obinsite now County's Adam Chapman, there's a player. Always pivotal.

And I've just seen the daft Skate sods have an extended bit with Clem on FL Show - nice school they appear to be training at. Must be the Portsmouth University grounds, think I've scored on that pitch for Southampton University too. Richie Barker looks like he talks sense, difficult to dislike, give it time though. Nice slow-mo of Sodje getting a handshake from Ertl in the changing rooms last season too. Honestly I don't have much to add about the match, Newport were on top for most of the game no matter what the FL Show highlights implied to suit their narrative, and County's second came after a throw-in which bounced just outside their 6 yard box.

I went today. Blue santa suits were sh01te, and few and far between, though bloody loads of them went as Empty Seat Transformers - about 5000 of those turned up at the start, and I reckon there were around 10000 of them by the final whistle. I had a bloody fabulous time, bonus to County fans for singing "Oh when the Saints", "What's that coming over the hill, is it the taxman" and "say hello to Wrexham". Oh, and Conference standard football is being VERY generous, their attack is L2 standard and their defence would get taken to bits by a top half Conference attack. Sonny Bradley is literally their only vaguely decent defender, Devera headed the ball straight up in the air in the penalty area at least twice when unchallenged and sliced everything else off the pitch. The U18's captain who shipped 7 is basically next in line, their future is bright - in a heading to the centre of the sun kind of way.

Generally it's a sound source when not obvious cobblers, but unless they've been listed in the programme, on the Saints website, or on an actual first team team sheet, it's pure speculation. Not even the post-transfer window Premier League 25-man squad lists show the squad numbers. Wikipedia did have a lot of the youth players listed pre-season when they hadn't been given numbers though...

A quote lifted straight from the 8 ft tall spray painting of him on the railway bridge approaching the ground from the City! Unfortunately, it never quite looked like it was finished, and five-ish years on has accumulated a fair bit of graffiti, including in the past few weeks some PFC 657 crap in felt pen over the spray-painted Saints badge (who knew they could write?) and some weird triangular mystic-looking symbol which I can't quite place over the eye of said Charlie Miller. FWIW I don't really care who is up top, but they could be two-tiered, and if more room is needed, they could overlap the logo with the Saints badge too. Or use some of the space to the right in some of the bigger screen resolutions. I reckon you could easily get 12 on my laptop screen, though obviously the last 4 or so would be "premium content" for some.

You should stop coming on here in the immediate aftermath of any activity then, works for me. Leave it 2-3 days, everyone has moved on and the topics are all back to the usual endless agenda-driven point-scoring nonsense independent of the games. Oh.

By playing twice as many home games?

They're in London, they'll have no problem shifting tickets if they're in the Premier League.

I'd happily give up my ST if I could guarantee seeing every match in the pub with a pile of like-minded Saints fans, the two matches I've watched in the pub this year on Al-Jazeera were excellent atmospheres, and we got to do the matchday experience without the hassle of paying through the nose to get there. Transport costs, ease of streaming and the cost of match tickets have all increased recently and it's impacting on crowds. The money is all in tv so I don't doubt they'll find a way to get their money's worth, but I'm also certain that the number of people prepared to go to games is a lot lower than it was the last time we were in the Prem (and not just amongst my peer group, who've all got married, had kids, found other things to do etc.) since 2005.

Well, that would lose. Also, how quickly do you think we're going to be selling Ramirez!?

Yeah, a massive bloaty thing not restricted by 25 man squad limits and suchlike.

Threadjack, just been rummaging to see if I can find the cost of the Bury tickets, and found the "Class of 2005" article from October 2007. Contains pen pictures of Gareth Bale and Theo Walcott. http://web.archive.org/web/20071027100816/http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/news/?page_id=5248 Oh, and remember that Dundee United player who got sent off for grabbing the linesman by the throat? Skate who scored in their Youth team's 2008 3-1 win against our U18s... how times change: http://web.archive.org/web/20081212001256/http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/news/?page_id=11050

Ah, but they're in the Championship so they have loads more midweek matches and are more used to the rapid recovery process needed. I'm only half joking.

2007/8 to be exact - but that was in the 4th Round and given that we only got about 18,000 in the two league games either side I'd be inclined to think the prices were a LOT lower than £20. We also didn't win in the next 10 matches, including losing to Bristol Rovers in the 5th Round.

Not that they're playing on Dec 22, 26, 29, Jan 1 and this game on Jan 4 then?

Yup, I watched it in a pub in South Wales with a Spurs fan. The BBC even ran an article on how Strachan was pleased the country could see how good Saints were... http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/fa_cup/2628293.stm

It's rubbish, and there are probably only about 10 blue and white santa suits in existence. I do look forward to seeing this on Saturday.

There wasn't an away end in the Northam because the away fans were in Block 31 (still don't understand that) so the bit the Saints "fans" were in was part of the Saints section. The only person who crossed a boundary between the groups of fans was the Skate.

It was indeed £65 on SNES PAL - my US Import was only £70 months before that though. I won't pay more than £39 for a game nowadays, probably sensible when you consider I've got 2 Bioshocks and a Crackdown 2 untouched in the shrinkwrap on 360, and haven't played either of the last two Arkham Games (or GTAV) on PS3 yet.

Sort of makes sense, but in that situation we don't have the players far enough up the pitch to press the second ball from the kick to begin with, and the second ball could go in any direction. Making the passing options for the opponents predictable is a key part of our pressing, and we can't control that with a long ball.

The bloke who did the spitting was still in his seat when the Skate was already across the segregation, he had plenty of time to think about it.

No Saints fan "jumped the segregation", as can clearly be seen in the couple of videos doing the rounds. There was one Skate clambering across the partition and one who went on the pitch a few minutes after the match.

I noticed this from the U18s keeper too, first options are the centre backs in the full back positions, with options to go direct to the defensive midfielder if they're all marked. The next choice then seems to be to chip one onto the head of the left back on the touchline, with them nodding it infield to the CM position. This seems rather a high risk given the lack of defenders in front of our own goal at this point if the ball is intercepted by an opposition player. The theory overall, as discussed before on here, is that you'll score more goals from having possession despite the higher risk of conceding possession nearer your goal, than you will from hoofing it up the pitch and only having about a 50% chance of retaining the ball from an initial aerial challenge. Not sure if I agree with it, but at least the overall theory is in line with our possession ethic.

There were no police anywhere near where the bloke bolted from, it was all stewards on the periphery with the police at the exits. To be fair to them, who in their right mind thinks running through 12 empty blocks of seats and clambering over a segregation partition is a good idea? There was literally nothing for them to "prevent", stopping them going on the pitch at 7 (SEVEN) - 0 down was a much higher risk (and one of them did that a few minutes after the final whistle too).

Which one, the first one who got there or the bald bloke who gobbed at him?