The9

I have no idea what this is about.

There's a website, I'll track it down. Badda bing : http://www.sportmapworld.com/distance-between/soccer/england/championship/ No total mileages though, but that's out there too somewhere. ADDITIONAL EDIT : I just worked it out for Middlesbrough, Saints and Leicester to get mileage comparisons (could have done the lot but that table's formatting is an ar5e pain): Leicester fans in the middle of the country have just 1905 miles to travel to all 23 aways this season Saints fans 2853 Boro fans 3751.

I nearly went to Uni in Hull rather than Southampton, glad I didn't get the grades... weirdly though I've not made it to Hull's new ground and I've already been to Posh, so other way around for me.

In the immortal words of the Football Ramble... "well done, he's thirteen".

Or "a bit better than now-League One's Darren Potter" if you want to look at it a different way.

Cardiff and Reading after West Ham, plus Middlesbrough if they get their keeper back soon. If we're worried about Birmingham, we're worried about the entire top half. They shouldn't have a hope of catching us from 10 points back (albeit with a game in hand).

Well, he might help us get into the Prem, but if Spurs have just signed him we're not going to get to keep him, so a cautious "interesting" from me.

Of course. Thanks for your contribution, by the way.

PS : Paul Telfer ? Scott Macdonald ?

Scotland becoming a different state wouldn't stop it, they've had discussions about a Northern European league with some Scandinavian teams and I'm pretty sure Scotland's not in Scandanavia, plus there's a Monaguesque club in the French League, there is a Northern Irish club in the Irish Republic league, the entire complement of Sammarinese Cup teams play in the Italian regional divisions, and so on. Oh yeah, and Berwich Rangers (and Gretna for a while) have already played competitive matches on the wrong side of the border anyway - not to mention Queens Park were regular competitors in early FA Cups...

Article below with Prem teams record signings from when Hull were up there - notably the Skate Cheats' record signing was someone they'd already sold for far less once already. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1116342/RECORD-BREAKERS-Club-club-guide-Premier-Leagues-signings.html

Well, it's a nicer ground than they used to have, and I haven't been yet, plus they're in the top half, so it's getting there. Then again we've got Peterboro in a midweek game, so that's going to take some effort... though apparently I've got mates who've sorted corporate for that - if I can get there...

Wow, giving Carlisle an extra free ticket in an empty stadium for a midweek match, how very generous. They'd be lucky to fill half the away end for a midweek match even if they were giving out free money in the ground.

Worth noting that Saints have still got "attractive" away games at West Ham, Leeds, Birmingham, Boro, Palace and Hull to play, all teams in the top 12 on that list and therefore "big clubs" in this league. Those matches will raise our average significantly. We've already trekked to Barnsley and Burnley and Ipswich midweek, which are the kinds of matches where you lose fans... One other thing of course, we miss out on the opportunity to take 3000 to Southampton... so compared to (say) Doncaster, who have to play all bigger clubs, we don't get an away attendance boost from one extra big team. No different to West Ham, Leeds, but actually disadvantaged against the likes of Skate Cheats FC (and we're still miles above them).

I do hope Saints are at the cutting edge of player integration methods. This is the first player from a completely different culture we've had, and it's a long way from just integrating a few Italian- or Spanish-speaking blokes into English/British culture. I hope we get it right, and that Tadanari Oyama Lee Ri Yi Cheong-Chung-Seong-Sung's culture shock is less than mine has been trying to work out how and why he's got so many different versions of his name. At the very least let's sign another Japanese international to keep him company. Is there a Cha La in the Japanese squad ?

We have needed one person to challenge Lambert and one to challenge Connolly/Barnard/Guly since before the start of the season - my expectations for this window were Hooiveld, another CB (though Martin is stepping up there), another midfielder (pref right) and one striker. Then if we're in the Prem, a GK, another CB, a CM and another striker. Might be that we've decided the contract expiry options with our targets are good enough that we can add two strikers now instead of waiting until the summer. Forte is half way out the door, Barnard clearly hasn't shown anything to suggest he's got top-tier ability yet, Reeves and Doble haven't shown much yet, Connolly is slow-recovering and may be out of contract, whether anyone else leaves or not. It's been consensus for about 10 years that all Prem teams need 4 options up front, and we're probably looking at that for now. Lambert, Guly, Lee and one other. Or Connolly in there with Guly in midfield... or maybe that's our 4 and we're not making £5m bids...

Fair enough, and this is probably separate from the Lambert issue altogether, but I think you're missing the point that we haven't been shooting from range at all this season. It hasn't been due to teams closing us down any better, it's been because we've been trying to keep possession rather than shooting. We even had a discussion about it on here before Xmas. But after a certain time, like Arsenal wanting to walk it in, coaches notice teams who don't shoot, and their defences will ONLY be briefed to track their runners and stop passes, rather than rushing out to block shots. If they know you don't shoot, why risk breaking your defensive shape to stop it ? A lot of space is created from teams desperately defending with blocks, as players go to ground and sometimes leave opponents free when they make blocks. If we're playing a passing game and want to open sides up, we have to mix it occasionally, and that means shooting from distance instead of passing it in just like it means the odd long ball or low cross... or being able to play without your obvious target man.

Having been to Brighton and seen how dire we looked without a plan when he got sent off, it was nice to see that we were able to adapt. I think last season we played it wide and attacked down the flanks more than any kind of long ball game, though we did occasionally whack it out of frustration. Whilst this season we began with Lambert dropping off and linking play on the deck with Connolly being the in-box player, and we basically refused to knock anything in the air at all in the whole season until we were 2-0 down at Cardiff, when suddenly Frazer's cop-out ball from the season before became our main attacking tactic for 15 minutes (hence De Ridder's equaliser). The direct ball at the target man has a time and place, and mixing the two has to be the goal, but as the season has drawn on, we've gone more and more away from the passing possession game and back to "knocking it", especially away from home. That predictability meant when we weren't able to exploit the flanks we struggled to create any chances (Doncaster and Bristol City notably) against teams who can eat up long balls - especially when fouling the target man for 90 minutes like City at home, and in a way I'm glad we've been forced back into playing it on the deck to prove we can still do that - if we get up, it's the kind of game that's seen Swansea and Norwich looking pretty decent. Apart from anything, introducing some long range shooting means teams have to defend the shot AND the pass, so occasional pot-shots are also beneficial to helping us unlock defences.

If you couldn't get the tone of "I think it will be an interesting discussion" rather than "Lambert is crap" from the OP, you sir, are a mental.

My money's on something like this : The team/family was settled, so I decided to do it. I want to tell you all you will still be able to find out what I'm doing from new updates on Shimashi Video, as well as the blog. Thanks everyone.

As long as he sticks to his フットボール, that's the important thing. I think HCDAJFU in the リーグ・チャンピオンシップ.

Well yeah...

I may as well, someone will : So, we won 3-0 without Lambert, we seemed to be creating more, shooting more from distance, creating different kinds of chances to the ones we've become used to and generally playing a lot more effectively than we have done in the past month. Also worth noting that Richardson was missing, so the overlap down the right with crosses into the box wasn't an option. So, here are the questions : Do we look like a more difficult prospect without those two playing ? Had we become a little predictable and have those two injuries enabled us to provide a threat from unexpected areas ? The call to shoot more from distance was obviously being answered, but shouldn't we be doing that sometimes with Lambert in the team anyway ? Interested to see your thoughts...

Did you tell them not to change the subject ?

My wife's an ST holder who I regularly quiz about squad numbers to ensure she's up to speed, and she saw Poolis play for the reserves once when they thrashed Salisbury and nevertheless noted his crapness. Sorry I can't help out here.