The9

Go on then... who was that ?

The fact that Raheem Sterling has got a call up based on 2 half competent performances in a mostly dire Liverpool team says much about Hodgson's desire to include anyone who might vaguely be an exciting young prospect - which is not an altogether bad thing given the turgid dirge that watching England usually is. Can't rationalise Jake Livermore getting called up purely for existing at Spurs though. Congratulations due to Lallana nevertheless - they can even claim the usual "Prem-blindness" isn't applicable because he's now proven himself against Man U and Man City which is a whole different level to the Championship, even though he hasn't improved noticeably any more than Oxlade-Chamberlain did in the month or two before his call up after replicating his League One performances in the Champions League group stage. As with Walcott, you do wonder just how much attention the England staff are paying to non-Prem players who are perfectly competent.

They should also try and change the default settings so that the front rows sell before the back ones, I'm already fed up of the debate about our "half empty" ground (actually all of 3000 unsold tickets, mostly due to Wigan's low away following) which was caused by 4 rows of empty seats along Blocks 1-5 and the whole of Block 44 being empty against Wigan, slap bang behind the bits the tv cameras are usually pointing at. Typically there was only one patch of unsold tickets in the camera-side Kingsland, two rows of one block right in the bottom corner near the Northam. Interesting also to see that despite all the criticism of us not selling out at the Etihad, QPR's lower tier fans were allowed the luxury of being held on an island surrounded by at least 10 rows of empty seats on 4 sides, rather than just the seats next to the away fans being empty - and their match was no more affected by tv scheduling than ours.

Well, at least this is starting to address the "what actually constitutes the thing we support ?" question I raised earlier.

As I've already said, it's no more "red and white" stripes than it is "red and grey".

Lest anyone think I'm letting it slide, they should also learn to spell "receive", seeing as 95% of their complaints will probably be about things not being received. I'm anticipating 5% will be about their spelling.

Either that's an excellent spoof or our Ticket Office needs to employ people who are able to use the English language. "They are all check by Royal Mail" ?!?!?!!? At least be consistent : Dear Mr.... When send post, they are all check by Royal Mail. If any them open, we be contact. However, we no recieve report of broken mail from Royal Mail. In past, we have recieve query from fan bout re-seal mail. Apologise this happen. Simples. Kind Regard ComparetheTicketOffice.com

I guess the question is, "Were the number of duplicate sold tickets equal to the number of empty seats elsewhere in the ground ?" which at least implies some consistency.

It has been done to death, and the counter argument of course is that only in 2 of those seasons did we not play in something containing stripes of some sort. And the counter argument to THAT is that this season's kit is therefore stripes as well, to which the counters are that Liverpool didn't play in stripes in the 80s when they had a very similar kit (same for Forest in 1992), and the other argument is that if you count the white (pin)stripes you have to count the grey ones as well. As we said, done to death. I'm just trying to identify how wearing the shirt relates to "pride" from someone who has said that's what they get when they do that, which thankfully is a different discussion.

What is it you have pride in though ? "The club" - but what is that exactly ? Is it the players on the pitch - most of whom leave within a few years ? The stadium is fixed (for the moment) - but we've only been there for 10 years and The Dell was also a "symbol of Saints". How about the chairman or owner - but they've only been here 3 years so far and surely can't embody the club, they didn't before they were involved, and other chairmen were never help us as the source of pride ? What about the badge - it's just an icon and also changes at the whim of a marketeer. How about the fans - though they are changing every season, both in number and composition. What about "the Southampton Way" - I'd love to see that defined in a way that doesn't also relate to a pile of other clubs you have no affinity with. If it is the shirt itself you're having pride in, based on the symbolism of that representing Saints - I'd ask how can it, when a lot of people won't even recognise it as representing Saints ? For some reason it has only been traditional stripes in 1 of the past 3 seasons. I love a good bit of design, but (unlike the sash) that isn't it - and where's the "pride" in mindlessly wearing whatever marketing crap they churn out to make themselves more money ?

Me too. And yes, semantics, but the semantic argument is that you don't have to be crap to look crap, just like you don't have to be good to look good. Overall, as you say, the judgement should be made over a longer period and it's nonsense to judge him on that 15 minutes alone.

I wonder what he'd think of a bespectacled Frenchman doing something similar ? IIRC he didn't get the chance to find out because Wenger got rid of him after a season, presumably due to his drinking at the time.

I'm more concerned about the blocks of seats around the ground that the ticketing system is clearly not set up to sell - Man U was a "sell out" but even assuming that the front of Block 3 are complimentaries (in which case we have too many of them because they can't even give them away for Man U), there are still blocks of seats and whole rows (notably the front of Block 1) which remain empty even for a "sell out". "40 minutes hassle" suggests our customer service was to the usual useless standard.

You come to some strange conclusions from the statements you make. 1) We cover more distance - therefore we need to be fitter to begin with in order not to get more tired than the opposition in the same time frame. We clearly weren't up to that task on Sunday judging by the number of errors and poor decision making late on. I'd prefer us to run less and maintain our shape and composure for longer instead. 2) Lallana's shots to goal ratio might have nothing to do with luck, he might just be less accurate than other players.

I'm more freaked out by the Big Bang Theory reference than the jewish one. I know what a jewish is.

???

I was hoping we'd break out the Colombia colours with the red home socks with the yellow away shirt and blue shorts, but we brought out alternate blue socks instead. The home socks even had yellow Umbro logos on and would have matched just fine. The white socks looked fine with the home kit too (though it was a bit too much white, the red were better). I won't get started that we began the season in white socks with blue logos and finished the season with white socks with black logos...

I have no idea what that is.

Yes, he is on the bench. Teams here : http://uk.soccerway.com/matches/2012/09/07/south-america/wc-qualifying-south-america/colombia/uruguay/1172913/

He's definitely not on the pitch, so I have assumed so.

Not to mention he was pretty good at Man City even considering that, and the only player on the pitch who was able to make anything constructive out of our rubbish hoofing in the last 15 minutes on Sunday.

I felt great after both the Stevenage match and the Man City game. 2/4 isn't bad considering...

Or could have not "needlessly" cleared the ball from the through ball he intercepted, and they'd have scored 30 seconds earlier... The reason they haven't had more of a mention is because we didn't lose and we were the better side, what's there to be bothered about ?

Colombia 1 up, fwiw.