The9

People think he's good on the ball ? I'll give him "better than Martin".

I had somehow worked that out, though neither of them come out of it covering themselves in glory. It's the online equivalent of posting a word in 6 different forums and expecting people to know a) that you said something and b) what it was, then assuming I care enough to bother to respond. And you know what, even IN CONTEXT with the explanation, I still couldn't give a shiny shi111te what they're saying and STILL have no idea who the hell they're talking about or what the frame of reference is. Even if someone had said "look at this comment from KUMB about us, they're saying we're nouveau riche" I still wouldn't give a crap. And who the hell is Mikey Carroll ? Hang on, is he the bloke from Snatch? Anyway, wasted far too much time on this.

None of tonight's games made a shaky shi11111ite of difference to us. Except maybe Man City v Chelsea.

Yes, the club should definitely change their policy on away matches because you haven't been paid yet.

Yeah, but QPR were already at or near capacity for a smaller ground even in the Championship and are in an area where the number of people prepared to fork out at those prices is higher. Don't forget that we'd already be getting 4 fewer matches than in the Championship. £500 for 23 matches or £600 for 19 Prem ones ?

Honestly, do you really think that ? I don't understand some people's sense of entitlement. Why would you expect that ? You already got what you paid for.

Does anyone know what this is about ? Preferably in English.

How's that working out for Birmingham anyway ? http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/jan/25/uefa-sanction-financial-fair-play?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487 "Uefa set out the range of sanctions which will be available to a semi-independent panel depending on how seriously a club is in breach: they range from a reprimand, to a fine, withholding by Uefa of money, deducting points, preventing clubs fielding certain players in European competitions and ultimately to a ban."

Saints stuff was originally on their website about a month ago (last season's away shorts and socks and training tops - been out of stock online for a couple of weeks already), though rummaging around in the West Quay branch last weekend I did find one pair of 125 Anniversary away black shorts and there were a couple of tracksuits in there too. Clearance stock, but there nonetheless. No reason to think they didn't send some stock to other stores, they're not particularly discriminatory about that kind of thing, shedloads of Lens goalkeeper shorts for instance... First time since before the "Saints Apparel" years I can remember seeing any Saints kit in a non-Saints shop (there was the one on the IoW but that was kind of "official"). I think the last one I saw on general sale was the Pony tick kit in Toomers (?) in London Road circa 1994, though I wasn't around much during the mid-late 90s to check.

Given the new financial regulations, I suspect we'll be exploiting every revenue stream to the max. Much as I'd like a free ST.

Seeing as I know for damn sure that includes my 2 year old niece as a recipient of a free U-8 ST the season before last I wouldn't be too impressed with that figure without a bit more analysis ! I'd also be surprised if Saints didn't take the opportunity of (maybe) getting into the Prem and getting a new ticket booking system installed to do a bit of data cleansing of all the information they already have. Especially as there seems to be a move away from just keeping sales "in-house" judging by the use of SportsDirect.com to flog some of the 2010/11 kit stock.

FWIW Wikipedia claims FC United started using Sloop John B at football in 2007, and links to a David Conn article from May 2007. http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2007/may/09/fcunitedriseandshineona Seems a remarkably recent phenomenon if that's the case... as it feels like its been around forever. Also, "We've got Sterny John" ? REALLY ? Can't say I ever heard that. The "shathole" version is pretty tedious too - if you don't want to be there, just go somewhere else.

I don't know why someone would go on a thread filled with numerical facts and post something that is, at best, a dubiously-formed opinion. 88 won't be enough if we lose to Reading, they beat West Ham and West Ham win all their other matches. 12 or 13 will NOT "do it no question", there are a variety of outcomes where 12 or 13 won't be enough. "No question" means a 100% probability. That's not the case.

Yup, that's right.

More amusing when you think that the defender mostly falling over was former Skate loanee (and current Brighton loanee) Joe Mattock. If someone could ask De Ridder to stop trying to chase down and nick the ball off opponents from behind, thereby getting himself booked within 5 minutes of getting on the pitch that would probably help him too. He's done it basically every other game for us this season.

Doesn't make a lot of sense when you consider he was dropped for Lee and then not brought back in when Lee was unavailable, which has necessitated shifting Guly back up top. Results do speak for themselves, but he played away against West Ham and that result was pretty good. I would note that in the Championship Tadanari Lee's closing down and ability to press defenders into giving away possession high up the pitch is probably more beneficial to the overall team than Sharp's excellent movement and awareness when we already have the ball, but that could change in the Prem (if...). Then again, Lee's approach didn't harm Brett Ormerod in the Prem much. My take is that we're getting him "Saints fit" by giving him extra training (I have no proof of this) and that's making him less than peak for match days, which we're aware of due to the amount of monitoring we do of player fitness, so he's only being used sparingly. That has the added effect of making him eager to play when he does. If he's ready to go for the last few games AND he's far fitter than before, excellent. If not, he's still going to be a useful addition next season, as he's probably one of the few we don't already have operating near optimum performance. Thinking about it, we might be doing something similar with Puncheon.

Mathematically at this moment we need 95 points (assuming a better GD) to win the title. West Ham can get 95, Reading can get 94. We need 92 points (w/ superior GD) to guarantee promotion - because Reading play West Ham and they can't both win (leaving WH max 92 and Reading's 91 depending on who loses, or 93 and 92 max if they draw). As it stands the best result for our promotion chances is for West Ham to beat Reading because then we'd only need to get 91 points, we'd need 92 if they drew (which we could still get even by losing to Reading). Best bit ? This is based on them winning every other match, so every single point Reading or West Ham drop will bring that total down. But as it stands, 6 wins 2 draws or better for the title, and 5 wins 2 draws for promotion.

It's a maximum of 16 points required (with a better GD) if Reading beat West Ham. And lower still if we beat Reading.

We've basically only started keeping clean sheets in the last month or so, don't know what's changed (suspect it's reeling in Richardson from overlapping so much from right back and keeping him back until late in matches, at least in the home games I've seen) but I like it.

Amusing that our left back and two centre backs were the only players directly involved in the goal or assists.

Much as I'm over "typical Saints" being crap, I'm not YET so over-confident that we're going up. Give it a few weeks and a few more wins, then maybe. But as we've seen tonight, one set of results can make things look very different. I will happily accept that my "drop to 5th prior to playing the Skates" and "Birmingham to win 12 of 13" entries in the BBC Predictor a few weeks back look off the mark now. Tonight's performance and result were excellent, we have the bottom 3 to play at home, along with our nearest challengers. 12 points there and we're in touching distance... but let's just get there first. Then we can see what "typical Saints" in the Prem looks like, and hope that's not "typical" too.

Stick to Ranger, Mellis is covered here : http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?36602-Jacob-Mellis

Shortly I shall be going into space, visiting numerous countries to have wacky adventures, and noticing Tadanari Lee uses washing powder with my face mixed with a lightbulb on the box. I'm not as funny as I used to be though.

Incorrect. That is all.

Steve Grant posted something a few days ago to the effect of Saints being on tv 11 times this season compared to 9 for Wigan.