The9

Fleet services on the way home was utterly superb. Just wall to wall Saints fans all grinning their faces off.

I thought the situation was that he wasn't in either of the last U21 or senior squads ? Why would we assume that if he isn't in one he'll be in the other this time ?

Congratulations to Portsmouth FC on their relegation to League 2. Or liquidation. Or getting kicked out of the Football League. Nice options.

True, but he has Saints sympathies since he lives in Bishop's Waltham. Crab Lungs also once spotted him watching some junior footy in the area and got a photo done for the lolz.

Erm, yeah, thanks. I must make the effort to post more. My 14,938 previous posts in 7 years is clearly not cutting it. Debit Card expired on Paypal so I had to manually renew.

To be fair, at least Whittingham seems to realise what they need to do : http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21954225 . This was posted a couple of days ago but I haven't seen any discussion about it here. It is of course massively ironic that they're now trumpeting the success of their "academy" when the team is in the bottom 4 of the third tier, and they did everything within their power for years on end to not field these kind of players, who with a bit more experience might have started to turn them around a long time ago. I think if they get through the summer they'll probably bottom out then and start to recover in Div 4 next season - let's face it, if Lee Molyneux is becoming some kind of goalscoring hero for Accrington then it doesn't take much, and they will, finally, actually be a relatively big club at that level even with all the FL restrictions. So let's enjoy this, because once they start getting into positive points figures next season they'll be trying to make their way back - and in 10 years' time they might even make it back to the Championship...

Well whatever the reason for the late start, the fookers are 1-0 up already.

He doesn't run the Wheatsheaf in Shedfield, a bloke called Paul owns it, with "Tim and Sally" running it, so says the mother-in-law who is a regular. FWIW this is my 4th post of the day, cost me £5 to post this.

Close, though the welsh "national" football team predated UEFA by about 60 years as well. One of the benefits of the home nations playing the game before anyone else.

It's a good idea - we could take the "S" and the "outh" from their name and the "ampton" from ours, the red from our shirts and the white from their shorts to make our shirts, plus the black from our (usual) shorts and the red from their socks. Obviously we'd play at the bigger ground...

Nickname: That's Mr The9 To You Position: Standing Still Up Front, Pointing. Does not like to admit also now equally likely to do this at the back. Preferred shirt number: Guess ! Playing Ability: Ask Turkish. Playing Style: Until 2000 Owen, since 2000 : Hartson Fitness Level: What Lung said, plus my Orthopaedic Consultant actually told me not to play football yesterday Likelihood of turning up: Most reliable person ever.

In the sense that he was only going to get in the team playing out of position in the first place, you mean ? Replace "Puncheon" with "Lambert" and I think that's nearer the truth - but you're right that the one time Mayuka did impress he was quickly forgotten about due to Puncheon's form at that time.

Interesting article about Mayuka's time at Saints from a Southern African perspective, loads of detailed appearance info in there, and an excellent reference to him maybe NOT being the new Godfrey “Ucar” Chitalu after all... http://www.southerntimesafrica.com/news_article.php?id=8153&title=What%20has%20happened%20to%20Emmanuel%20Mayuka?&type=68 We've only won one of the 7 matches he's appeared in, the demolition of Villa, not that he had much impact on the scoreline when he came on. He's got a 5 year contract but he's only 22 - do people think we'll be shipping him out or trying to slot him in ? Adkins' signing, but then most of the starting team are.

If you finish in the top 4 do you get to go National in something hosted by Ant and Dec ?

I am going on Tuesday. My 4th visit, after Aug 1994, Jan 2000, and Jan 2007. I love the place, this time I'm letting the missus (on her first trip there) set the agenda. With the exception of Wrestlemania 29 at Met Life Stadium and Reading v Saints at 7:45am.

I'm much worse off than in 2003 : mortgage on my (sole) 2 bed flat was £125, I could work overtime at my discretion and got paid £200 a week for carrying a phone in my pocket. Lived 2 miles from work so barely any fuel costs, petrol was about 80p a litre, spent less than £40 on petrol a month, and I went out most nights in new clothes. I was earning about £10k less than I am now basic, but due to the add-ons I was getting loads more than my basic, almost on a par with my current wages, and back then 50% of my wages were disposable income. 2008, just bought a new house with the now-ex, then lost half the £60k that I'd just made selling my flat, by selling at a huge loss. Moved out, and from 2009 for a year I was paying a mortgage and rent - and then the year after, a wedding and honeymoon with the wife. But we lived 4 miles from work, petrol was not much over £1 and I spent under £50 a month on petrol, and we could just about manage it. Was getting about £5k less than I am now, got a loan to pay off the £4k overdraft accrued in this time. Still managed to find a few quid to spend on t-shirts though. Now... got a bit more disposable income, but the cost of petrol and fuel generally offsets that immediately as I have to drive 30 miles round trip most days and petrol is around £130 a month. Can't justify buying new clothes though, I'm still wearing the ones from a couple of years back... haven't had a pay rise other than a pay increment for 5 years, and guaranteed not to get one at all for 3 years from next month !

To be fair, you have just chosen to completely ignore all of the logical reasons that "no punishment for Portsmouth" can't happen in order to pursue some totally imaginary agenda, but if that's what you want to believe...

You do realise that Swansea and Cardiff joined the Football League at the same time as Saints, right ? And that the League of Wales didn't exist until over 70 years afterwards ? Strange. I think everyone's agreed on MK though... and presumably Arsenal for the same reasons...

This thread amuses me. As for "shots on goal" as an indicator of success, as opposed to, I dunno, "goals" or "wins" or "points"... there's no better indicator of the effectiveness of these shots other than the "goals" column, nor any indication of how the turning over of possession as a result of weak long range shots contributes to our downfall compared to keeping possession of the ball to build to a better chance, or how likely the opposition is to score against us when we're off attacking all the time. And comparing our last 6 matches to the first 10 of the season with the level of opposition we were facing is just ridiculous full stop, it's a totally unfair comparison.

It will be doom and gloom if we lose to Reading, but odds are still that we'll still stay up and Reading won't. Even if what you say happens we'll still be 5 points ahead of Reading - unless they also beat Arsenal away, which I wouldn't say was one of Adkins' strengths.

So anyway 2012 Chelsea 6th 2011 Man City 3rd 2010 Chelsea 1st 2009 Chelsea 3rd 2008 Not awarded (8th) 2007 Chelsea 2nd 2006 Liverpool 3rd 2005 Arsenal 2nd 2004 Man U 3rd 2003 Arsenal 2nd 2002 Arsenal 1st 2001 Liverpool 3rd 2000 Chelsea 5th 1999 Man U 1st 1998 Arsenal 1st 1997 Chelsea 6th 1996 Man U 1st 1995 Everton 15th 1994 Man U 1st 1993 Arsenal 10th Now if I'm not mistaken, the definition of a "lottery" is a random drawing, so, ignoring that the Prem had more than 20 teams for a little while, let's assume that in 20 years you'd expect each position to appear once (though that would only become obvious over a much, much, bigger sample). However, 20 years, 20 teams, random choice, each position once. So... in practice instead of an even spread across every position we get... 1st - 6 2nd - 3 3rd - 5 4th - 0 5th - 1 6th - 2 plus 8th - 1 10th - 1 15th - 1 14 of the 20 winners are from the top 3, only one came from the bottom half, and no-one from outside the top 8 has won the FA Cup in the past 17 seasons. This is not "luck", it's not a lottery, and there is a clear correlation with the better sides. Now if you want to look at finalists it opens up a bit... but I don't.

Was just going to pull out the finishing league positions of the last 20 FA Cup Winners, and... bloody hell, Chelsea have won 4 of the last 6 FA Cups ?!!?!?? How did I not notice this ?

There's a 50% chance he'll use the phrase "I don't know why..." in his prediction for our match. He uses the phrase approximately 5 times every weekend in that column. You'd think by now he'd realise that the reason he doesn't know is because he's completely ill-informed and in no position to make judgements about anything that's happened in football since he stopped playing, but apparently this hasn't hit home yet. Lawrenson will go with 3-0 to Chelsea. I'll go for 2-1 to Chelsea (reserves).

Let's face it, they could rest their league side for the next 3 matches and it wouldn't make much difference to their league position.

It's what clubs do when they want to get a better price for players... sometimes...