The9

I do wonder about some of the knee-jerk cobblers on here, both positive and otherwise. We were poo for 70mins at Burnley, for long spells at Cardiff, and early on here. Our fitness, relentlessness and a bit of luck made the difference over the 90 in the end, but we've ridden our luck in the past few games and W1 D1 L1 is about right. What I did enjoy was Fox's improved defending, short passing and reluctance to force 50 yard passes all the time - he looked like a good addition today. We clearly have a lot going for us but let's not think we're the finished product by a long way.

Old news, spotted the improvement at the Liebherr Memorial Cup aeons ago.

Strange, because they could have been ahead before we got going, and some of our defending was comical early on. In fact we made them look competent for about 25 minutes, when all indications were that they are gash.

Are we really counting their 3rd?

Bloody hell, I score a 30 yard volley back past the keeper direct from his goal kick, and it's not even goal of the game? We were pretty decent, I have to say. Passed it nicely, Adam in particular was excellent at centre back and Kev in an unfamiliar midfield role set up one of my goals with an awesome diagonal pass. Couple of nice finishes from Smirking too.

Oh yes he does, it was pre-season from 35 yards against Burridge Village. All the better that I was playing for an abominable Sholing Vets Reserves team at the time as they were short and I'd been training with Burridge Village all summer. We lost 7-1, but it was the "1" that mattered Unfortunately I also faffed my ankle that day and have only played two 5-a-sides since.

To be honest since we beat them in the FA Cup semi we've been pretty terrible against them - one of the only matches I've ever left early was the 3-0 home defeat, not sure whether it was the one in Jan 2008 or Oct 2008 now though... they beat us by 3 goals on a regular basis.

So bad we were supporting Watford for a while. It was 5-2 btw. 4-0 down, we got one back in the last 10 minutes and they went and scored their 5th immediately. Saints actually won the last 16 minutes 2-1 whilst loads were cheering for Watford though. "Can we join you over there?" was a favourite. N/A (G) A Blayney N/A (D) A Jakobsson N/A (D) D Kenton (64) N/A (D) M Nilsson (45) N/A (D) P Telfer N/A (D) D Higginbotham N/A (D) C Lundekvam N/A (M) R Delap N/A (M) A Svensson N/A (F) K Phillips (64) N/A (F) B Ormerod Subs N/A (G) M Poke N/A (D) J van Damme (64) N/A (M) L Griffit (45) N/A (F) D Blackstock (64) N/A (F) P Crouch

I can see Lallana in the hole working - the reason we looked more dangerous when De Ridder came on was because at the same time we started hitting Lambert with cross-field passes from deep and playing off the knock-downs - De Ridder's goal could have been scored by Connolly too, as on that occasion it was about positioning not pace. Fair point about Fox maybe not being better at left mid than De Ridder - as ever it's STEVE~!!!'s defending that's the concern, and I think if we had Guly/De Ridder both wide we'd be susceptible to wing counter-attacks even more than we are already. We need at least one defensive-minded wide man (I'm including Lallana as defensive-minded relatively speaking, he does work back) or we'll just get caned on the break out wide a la Leyton Orient and Rochdale away last season.

Nice cross by Jermaine Wright there for the second - and terrible defending by the glacial Jaidi for our first followed by a towering header from a corner to get one back for them. Amazing how things change... Bendtner at his natural level as well...

Also, I think a couple of "whooshes" are needed for PhillippineSaint here. It's the muslamics dressed as Honey Monsters I'm worried about. Is a honey monster a bear ? Seriously though, you'd think even the mongs would have the sense to keep their racist opinions to themselves, but apparently if you're that thick, you're THAT thick.

We've had that argument before, Mido actually does look like the shoebomber bloke (Richard Reid, was it?) so it wasn't actually racist, it was in fact just a tongue in cheek comparison. Though admittedly it came from the back of the Northam, so I'm probably giving it more thought than they did.

Can't disagree with that though, and as I've said a few times, De Ridder loses out when he's in the middle getting battered compared to his successes out wide when he has control of the ball before the defenders get near him. Maybe we should be looking at coaching De Ridder to play centrally a little more like Connolly, who always seems to be facing the goal when he gets the ball (but no longer has the pace to get clear of defenders) or lays it off quickly to keep the move going.

From what I've seen if Lambert's heading was a bit more decent in the last few matches we'd have won the lot as well. De Ridder is a more than adequate replacement for Chamberlain, and he hasn't even started a league game yet.

Fox is an excellent crosser and delivers some good set pieces, he definitely adds something. Harding has been competent and solid defensively and overlaps with Lallana in a way Fox doesn't yet (probably by design as Lallana goes inside instead to create space for Fox of outside to receive a pass like he did with Harding). Horses for courses IMHO, I would like to see if we could double up with them down the left in some places like we did with Dickson towards the end of last season, but that would mean switching Lallana elsewhere.

Could do, that still leaves Lallana left, 2 centre mids. I think Watford is a chance to give De Ridder a run - still have reservations about him defensively though, who have Watford got on the left - I only know that Sordell is about their only notable player at the moment and I haven't got a clue where he plays. Re: Fox - he's an excellent crosser, but a short passing game never seems to occur to him and he is a little suspect going backwards. He is ideally suited to a left midfield role where his defensive knowledge will be a strength and is acceptable for a midfielder (as opposed to a winger-type like De Ridder), but we've got someone playing there already ! Re: Goal kicks - I have changed my location.

Steve, I have a full set of plain red Umbro socks with white feet (about 20 pairs) if you'd like to "refresh" the kit a little - I'm not giving them away, but they're an extremely reasonable price if you want them, considering they're England socks and were £10 a pair when launched.

You also missed Saints Forever v Pompey Online at Moneyfields, when he had a squad number allocated and shirt printed with his name on it and still didn't turn up. Wasn't he living in Spain for WN09, and claiming to be coming until the day before ?

I have to say I've been quite impressed by the use of "common sense" by officials so far this season. Though |I'm sure that's because Saints have benefitted on each occasion I can think of. 1) Adkins not being sent off for encroaching onto the playing surface and touching the ball in play (though I suspect it may have been different had he tackled a Cardiff player!) 2) Fonte not being asked to leave the pitch for wearing white undershorts beneath his voluminous blue shorts which reached his knees specifically to disguise his undershorts being the wrong colour on Saturday - though as the OS pics showed, they were sometimes visible. 3) Saints not being prevented from making a sub at Barnsley when Connolly (#22) had Dickson's shorts on with #23 on them and the board held up also had #23 on them, which was not the number on Connolly's back. I've also not heard of Saints being fined for this, though the actual punishment would involve Connolly being yellow carded, and possibly even leaving the field to replace his shorts with the substitution being prevented until he was correctly attired - though that would be a hell of a Jobsworth enforcing that one... Wasn't best impressed with the ref telling a Cardiff player with a blood injury to leave the field only for him to fall to the floor and then have to get treated on the pitch - but at least the ref added the time on - which he also did for their injury-time substitution and our goal celebration.

It did look like Mackay was telling the ref to be sensible.

Cheers for clearing up the first one. I just can't remember the handball - was it in the box just before their first goal ? I recall Cork going to the ref, and he got booked after the goal too. So I'm just trying to piece together if that was what he was appealing against.

...can anyone shed any light on them ? Firstly, what happened with Adkins and the dropped ball ? Did he come onto the pitch and return the ball to play before the ball had actually gone out ? The ref went to talk to him and then play restarted with a contested drop ball, that's all I can work out that it could have been for. Secondly - the penalty claim - I can't remember anything about it - was it a handball shout, and was it immediately before their goal ? Is it the incident where Fonte (and Cork) can be seen arguing with the ref in the pics in the OS Gallery ? I know we had one daft handball shout when the ball hit their player who was sitting down in the box on his back late on, but it wasn't for that, was it ?

I assumed you didn't mean that the 2011/12 start isn't hugely dissimilar to the two seasons in which we were highest up the Championship for the longest, so I decided to have a look at the actual figures. http://www.european-football-statistics.co.uk/attnclub/soto.htm Average attendance for 2005/6 : 23,614 for a season when we'd dropped from the Prem 2006/7 : 23,556 when we made the Playoffs Current average home league attendance : 25860 + 23333 + 24784 + 22155/4 = 24,033. So fair point, our current average is currently a fair bit higher than it was in those two seasons - have to say I'm surprised to see that, but we have played four well supported sides in Leeds, Forest, Brum and Millwall, and none of them are exactly "ratings death"... but the only fair comparison will be over 19 home matches, when we've played the non "box office" sides like Doncaster, Barnsley and Coventry (as well as the likes of West Ham). I does illustrate that we got 3,700 fewer for Birmingham than Leeds though, which I guess is why this discussion started.

To be fair, I doubt the bloke in the Chapel invented it, I heard someone say it in the early 90s about a teammate of mine, and have been using it fairly regularly since. I wouldn't really say it was a fair criticism of Beattie either.

His name is Ben.