The9

Well yeah, both of them have been Prem players for the last 4 years. Jarvis is one of the more realistic rumours, I think.

You don't even know why I think Holt's better.

Last time I checked contracts were legally binding. we already have shirt manufacturers for another year, shirt sponsors for another 2 years, and no current stadium naming rights. I don't doubt that we'll get HUNDREDS of new sponsors next season, but they'll all be around the pitch, on the big screens, in the corporate boxes, etc.

Certainly more of a PR job than most of the stuff he puts on Twitter, and even that has often looked ghostwritten since the apology farce.

I think the most telling thing was the complete lack of effort he put into running for the ball immediately before the sliding tackle right at the end of the game. Yet somehow I still think he's going to be starting in August next season unless we sign someone obviously better, he's got more Prem experience than most of our squad and it'll be handy early on.

Even if we're utter gash (which I don't think we will be), we'll still be better than that Derby side from 2007. I don't think Lambert's better than Holt either, but he's definitely better than Morison.

Underachieving. That would annoy me almost as much as "We're Premier League" did yesterday. We're founder members, have spent more seasons in it than out of it, and it's where I expect us to be, singing about "being Premier League" is something for one off fluke teams like Derby, Barnsley, Hull and Blackpool to sing during their couple of seasons in the sun. Which is not to say it's not an achievement to get back there from the bottom of League One. It should just be "normal" not exceptional for us.

Swansea were away to Man City this season... lost 4-0. QPR home to Bolton, lost 4-0. Norwich away to Wigan, drew 1-1. Think I'd prefer us to get used to the level than get dropped into some games we're not ready for, no matter how good our preparations are.

Varsity London Rd, got absolutely shartfaced on champagne and joined in with quite a lot of Saints songs during the 3pm games, then um, hang on... vaguely recall watching some of Norwich v Liverpool. Bit vague by then, er, checking mates' Facebook tagging, around 7ish we wandered to Bedford Place, got a kebab from Zorbas at 7:20pm, walked to the Winston, I won £5 on Million Pound Drop on the trivia machine despite being completely bladdered and never having played it before, and back to our mates' to watch the match again and drink and drink and drink (and then watch Match of the Day which I have no recollection of, and the FL Show probably for the last time, which I similarly cannot remember anything about.

Seemed to work ok for Newcastle 2 years ago.

Just downloaded one of the two panoramic pics, unbelievably my wife is right on the edge of the picture, and I'm one seat to (camera) left, not in it.

Not me, that's for sure. I'm in favour of "took" rather than "Champions League" for the record.

Erm, we've got ownership worth £2.5bn and have a 5 year plan "with appropriate investment". I'd say we'll be fine until 2014 at the very least.

Leicester, Saints and Reading. Not much surprise there (other than Reading not actually having been taken over yet). Surprised that West Ham and Brum voted for, but then they've still got 3 years' worth of parachute payments to come and this would restrict the chances of anyone not falling out of the Prem, thus reducing the numbers they'd be competing with. It's taken me 12 months to realise that the reason neither of those sides is flapping about cost yet is because the parachutes are LOADS more than they were when we came down, and it probably allows two years of chasing the holy grail and maintaining Prem costs before financial collapse rather than the immediate U-turn we faced.

And always has been. The place to be is further forward in the Northam, all of the atmosphere, with all of the weirdos 15 rows behind you.

2011 called...

Obviously. It was funny for about 30 seconds too.

Plan B is to continue to pass the ball. Plan C is to wang it at Lambert (worked at Cardiff for 20 mins). Plan D was what we did at Brighton, which loosely resembled bringing on Forte and Ben Reeves and running around panicking.

We won 3-2 at Pride Park, how is it not lucky ?

I believe the standard response is "who gives a shyt?".

Not if we keep it on the deck and shift it about a bit.

My Brian Griffin socks will be the highlight for me. I am assuming that as about 50% of the crowd will be wearing Saints shirts they are "acceptable" match wear...

Bilbao for me too, I've seen more of their matches than Champions League games on the box this season. Can't beat a bit of Bielsa for mad tactics.

The problem with coming in the top 5 is that nowadays it qualifies you to play 10 matches all over Europe in amongst your important matches, so unless you sign another team's worth of players you're going to have some knackered players on your hands.

I kind of agree with you. I want us to win as much as possible but we've just exhausted places to do that and have it still be fun. Once we get to the Prem it's all plastics, stupid costs, bull and hype, and the same places I've been loads of times, and we'll start having games we KNOW we have no chance of winning, which I hate. I will like seeing us on the sports news much more often though. Maybe we should do what parks teams do and fold, move all the players to a new club (I know it's banned by Hants FA!) and start over in the bottom league. Is there a Sunday League for pro teams ?