The9

Oh and as it's a tradition, shotgun bagsie number 9.

Only the very stupid ones, the ones who haven't managed to work out that they won't be earning that kind of money forever and need to save some at some point. Either way, I don't regard it as any football club's responsibility to do players favours just because they have wasted their money.

A question requires a question mark. So what you're saying is that we've given Lambert two more years on his contract because we plan on playing him just as much and will be expecting him to get around 15 goals for each of the next 3 seasons into his mid-30s, even 2016 when his deal will be expiring and we'll definitely need to be replacing him, and despite the fact that our stated goal is to be in Europe by then ? You know, rather than it being a short term financial incentive of benefit to the player and the club (who would also subsequently get more for any transfer) - which also coincidentally happens to tie into our need to ramp up the wage bill in order to be able to increase it further under the new Prem financial rules. Or are you saying that the club hasn't, on a number of occasions, offered extended contracts to people they had no intention of picking (Butterfield, Barnard, Dickson and Richardson immediately spring to mind) ? And you think I'm the deluded one ?

I think "All Southampton" is probably the best, though "All Saints" is probably the best of those listed.

Wolves and Bristol City in the late 70s/early 80s as well. Funnily enough IIRC, Bristol City requested that a load of their players walked away from their contracts to save the club - the difference being back when wages were reasonable and barely on a par with middle incomes, the players did it with the good of the club at heart and are now feted as saviours some 30 years on. Compare this to the Skate bullying and dismissal of the players who had the nerve to hold them to huge contracts they couldn't afford to pay in the first place.

Can't really see that Pochettino has made all that much difference in terms of results, and we've traded caginess and selective forays into attack for a pressing tactic we seem incapable of implementing more than half the time. I don't see us in danger of relegation but I'm not really sure how Pochettino is a step up without being supported by significant investment in "better players", which seems against Cortese's vision for the academy and in practical terms from the ongoing contract extension/loyalty policy. Which is not to say he might not start chucking £15m a time at players in the summer, rather than "merely" twice breaking the club record fee.

I'm not really sure that's particularly beneficial and you could certainly make the same case for Le Tissier, so I think that's pretty much irrelevant.

I was just about to say that... he was correct. On the bright side, even I'm ready to admit it's basically irrelevant to the argument about someone saying something at our Polish keeper which he took to be racist, whether it was or not. Leaving aside the bleeding heart "everyone's a victim" language that gets used for maximum impact and minimal credibility for a moment...

Correct, well done. Or more to the point, it's a complex issue not likely to be captured in one sentence.

That's as maybe, but as I'm the only person even remotely close to being in agreement with you on this, you might want to pick your arguments a little more carefully.

I used to think that.

The free dictionary is talking a load of arse. I've written degree essays on this stuff. Polish is a nationality based on the artificial boundaries of a state. His "race" is white caucasian.

Polish isn't a race though ? Was he being called a cracker by a black guy or something ? It might have been a xenophobic or anti-Polish attack, but it certainly wasn't racism if it came from (as it was likely to have), a fellow white caucasian.

Yeah, I noticed on MotD they didn't list Le Tiss... The Sun's probably just nicked that information.

How much did Luke Shaw cost ?

Sit on his arse and count the interest. Even £40k a week for a year is about £2m. You don't need to play at the top level for long to live off it if you're even remotely sensible with it. FWIW I was hoping we'd be signing a top 10-standard striker in the summer and this makes that slightly less likely. Ramirez needs to have someone to pass to -though Rodriguez is starting to step up as hoped. Though it's not unprecedented for Cortese to sign people to new deals and never use them, it often seems to have been his way of softening the blow of "you're dropped". Could also be a contractual performance-related incentive based on an appearance or scoring clause, as we're big on those with numerous promotion clauses having kicked in over the last couple of seasons for others. It could also just be a way of keeping other clubs away from him in the short term, or even just leveraging a larger transfer fee if the plan is to sell. He was already under contract until aged 32(and a half) and mid-2014, so to me it seems to be a short-term incentive to get Lambert to stay for the next year, as his effectiveness and fitness is likely to wane in the next couple of seasons and certainly will in the period the contract extension is for.

I may attempt to ignore my various ongoing complaints and pitch up. I would also like to add that "fat bulb up front" is already taken.

I can't beleive there are people who think Adkins has been "maybe found a bit wanting at this level", he was perfectly up to the job, just as Pochettino has been. I'd have gone nuts if we'd appointed McDermott though, anyone thinking Alex Pearce had a chance of playing in the Prem wants sectioning, and he doesn't strike me as the greatest motivator. Obviously they went on a run last season, but then Roy Keane's Sunderland did similar and it wasn't his managerial ability that did it.

Think you've underrated Steven Davis and Puncheon, as well as Shaw's value if we were to actually sell him, and overrated Mayuka's value (and maybe Lambert to the right team) but mostly you're about right. The value of £60m doesn't mean anything though, they're worth 0 at the end of a contract.

To be fair most of the "obsession" with West Ham is mainly based on one bonkers comment about how safe or likely to win the title they were compared to Man U, which came out them being used as an early benchmark for success of a fellow promoted side due to their half decent start at a time when we were playing top teams every match (plus Wigan).

2 places from relegation is 100% safe. However, statistics which only extrapolate what's gone before and apply it in a blanket manner to the future are not as accurate as those which consider the detail of the future as well. i.e. after 8 matches against mostly top teams we'd have been screwed, and it was never going to be representative of the whole season.

Why does that digital clock near the start of the video show it's 12 noon on Friday (albeit on 16th) if it's supposed to be matchday ?

It was also clever of him to aim it outside the near post, thus lulling the keeper into a false sense of security.

Obviously. They have more fans than us and loads of them will be downvoting Saints players left, right and centre.

Well you've either completely contradicted yourself there or you have a very different perception of the "English style" to everyone else. I don't think hoofing the ball at the big lump would work even against San Marino.