The9

I rest my case. Steve Grant was probably 4th. Actually that's a bit harsh on Steve, I'm pretty sure the kind of neanderthal that listens to their brand of made-up argument would regard him as a little too cerebral.

It was below freezing on a midweek night in February, no-one had tickets beforehand and they cost £18, there's a recession on, the game was at only 10 days' notice, the manager announced before kick off he was fielding a few reserves, we've been pretty average recently, and no-one cares about the first 5 rounds of the FA Cup any more. It's hardly an indictment of our support, we got 24,000 more fans for a more attractive midweek match 3 months ago when it wasn't bloody freezing, peoples' season tickets were valid and we were winning games in a competition most Saints fans care about, and it didn't matter then that the tickets were £10 more for the walk up.

Only in your head.

I wouldn't be surprised if he's only coming back to go out somewhere for the rest of the season. Then again maybe Harding or Fox has picked up a knock in training or (for Harding) last night and we need the cover. Only way to find out is wait a few days.

West Ham do also have Peterboro, Watford and Doncaster in that time period, but their results recently aren't that impressive when you look at who they beat : 22 17.12.2011 Barnsley home W1-0 23 26.12.2011 Birmingham City away D1-1 24 31.12.2011 Derby County away L1-2 25 02.01.2012 Coventry City home W1-0 26 14.01.2012 Portsmouth away W1-0 27 21.01.2012 Nottingham Forest home W2-1 28 31.01.2012 Ipswich Town away L1-5 29 04.02.2012 Millwall home W2-1 Four single goal home wins against teams in 15th,21st ,23rd and 24th are not to be feared, and the other one goal win was at Fratton (17th).

We're not "in relegation form". Since Dec 3 we have Won 2 D3 L4 for 9 points in 9 matches, and including the previous 2 matches we have W3 D3 L5 for 12 points in 11. More recently we have 2 draws against top 4 teams as part of W0 D2 L1 (2 pts in 3 matches) which is hardly enough matches to be considered "form" and not representative of our season-long schedule. None of last season's Championship relegated sides managed to average 1 point per match. In addition we've had a load of starters out for most of January. Our fixtures are about to get a little bit easier (in a week, anyway) and West Ham's are about to get harder. If we can't get a result against Burnley with a fully-fit squad on Saturday THEN I'll start worrying about it, but not until we balls it up without injuries or suspensions. As it happens we weren't all that great at Burnley earlier in the season either, and Charlie Austin always scores against us, so I think it'll be a decent indicator.

There's a "Sack A*kins" movement ? I haven't seen it...

Are you saying the Skate isn't an idiot ?

You mean exactly like the bubble buses did on their way back from Fratton ? Based on that, down Princes Street (assuming that's the road next to the Prince of Wales pub) through the industrial estate - and the coaches to queue from the closed off northern end of Britannia Road into the industrial estate for their holding area.

Realistically I'm expecting us to challenge for promotion.

Strangely enough I wasn't remotely bothered by last night's result, it's hardly like we had our strongest team out and you can't just change half a team and expect the fluidity to be there. Better off out of it, frankly.

That's because he's an idiot - legally you're not even allowed alcohol on private coaches / minibuses going to football, never mind ones with police escorts... I'm not quite sure why they're complaining about it NOW, they announced they'd be using it for BOTH matches when they announced it for the Fratton game, which was about 4 months ago.

I'm not surprised people are worried, 3 wins in 13 (albeit with an injury crisis for a bit of it) and we all know how tough this league can be, so there's no guarantee we'll be in as strong a position in any other season. It's a golden opportunity and we need to cash in on this position.

Meanwhile for comparison, in the same timeframe Saints face : Burnley West Ham Derby Watford Leeds Ipswich Barnsley Millwall and then Hull on 20th March. That's a much easier run of fixtures. Then again we've only beaten Forest, Palace and Coventry in the 13 matches since Nov 29th...

I thing I've noticed about this season's Championship fixtures is that most teams have the same run of top opponents grouped together. We're just coming out of a run of difficult fixtures since the start of December including Blackpool, Crystal Palace, Cardiff, Birmingham and West Ham, and West Ham are just about to embark on a run of fixtures including : Saints Blackpool Palace Cardiff Leeds and Middlesbrough, all before March 20th.

Dickson was doing ok at Yeovil, I believe - he scored a couple of weeks ago and set another up. Not bad going...

There has been a change in the loan rules concerning EMERGENCY loans, but it doesn't take effect until 2014/15 as far as I can see... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/news/8969167/Football-League-clubs-dealt-huge-blow-after-Fifa-decides-emergency-loans-contravene-its-rules.html Loan rules in full here, if anyone can be bothered to read them - I can't find the bit about how many clubs you can be registered for but hadn't heard it was more than 2 - and loans aren't usually changes in registration anyway. : http://www.football-league.co.uk/regulations/20110629/section-6-players_2293633_2125731#50

True, looks a lot like Liverpool "Hitachi" era.

Added Atletico Paranaense to the OP.

Um, your memory is a little hazy on the Aldershot and Newport things. They weren't "relegated out of the league" as an act of the Football League - Newport finished bottom in a relegation position, fully completing the Division 4 season 1987/8 (albeit with basically a youth team) before going into liquidation midway through their first Conference season, and Aldershot resigned from the league in late March 1992 having been liquidated as a business and weren't relegated. Their record was expunged and all the other other Div 4 teams played a 44 game season. Pretty sure that even ignoring Bournemouth that Reading's still more of a rivalry than Crawley ever will be, too.

Has everyone forgotten that we used a sub goalkeeper IN THE FA CUP FINAL ??? Imagine playing 2003 Arsenal with Chris Baird in sticks for half an hour...

I don't think the concept of using a third substitute when chasing a game in the last 20 minutes is at all comparable to not having a goalkeeper on the bench for an entire match on the off-chance that a situation arises where you could really do with a specific outfield player who wasn't deemed vital enough to be named in the first 4 subs. Always name a keeper if you can, 4 subs is enough to cover for outfield injuries and with a flexible squad should be able to cover all positions. You'll note that most of the time earlier in the season Adkins didn't name Harding as a sub for Fox or vice versa, because they're pretty much specialist left backs - though as we've been forced into picking Harding at right back and occasionally left midfield the "only a left back" has become regarded as a little more flexible and now worth a spot on the bench. Basically with a bench of GK, CB, midfielder, striker, utility player you're covered for all eventualities. If you have utility players on the pitch already then you are even more flexible (eg Cork is alleged to also be a right back, though I remain unconvinced, but having him in the 16 means Butterfield isn't needed on the bench). Also, we played with 4 CBs at Bournemouth (or was it Orient?) for the last 15 minutes in one match last season. The argument that Adkins was complaining that we needed 7 meant that "5 wasn't enough" isn't necessarily the case either, a side with a big squad will benefit from having the options available, but that doesn't mean they're going to be used - and having got used to 7 subs, it's always going to be more awkward to slim back down to 5. Not a problem tonight though, you can still have 7 subs in the FA Cup, presumably thanks to the Prem teams being involved.

Hi Jordan, afraid I can't help, as Rabbit isn't coming I'm now meeting up with my Watford-supporting relatives after the match so will be up there for hours afterwards.

You could get a lift with us, will have to discuss tonight?

To answer the question (?) I think was being asked, the referee can abandon the match at any point. Can't remember whether there's still a rule about completing 75 minutes for the result to stand or anything like that, but some competitions have that. Not half time though, that would be a rearrangement of all 90 minutes.