The9

I have mostly saved hugging strangers for moments like the 3rd at the JPT Final, or the 2nd against MK Dons, or opener at Plymouth. I like them to be a little more spontaneous. Though I did bundle the bloke in the row in front a bit when the second went in on Saturday because I tripped over the back of his seat when jumping up and down with the wife*. *don't bother.

It's always a bit of a psyche-out if you leave a few players upfield, depends entirely on the match situation and score whether it's a good idea or not though. I've noticed whenever De Ridder plays, as the short fast bloke he gets left on half way on his own much of the time, he was up on his own on Saturday after coming on.

Typo, we wish !

Doesn't really work if we get drawn away (though that is a remarkably remote possibility based on our last 14 cup draws).

Yes, I heard there was no tax yesterday as well. I'm shocked, does this signal a u-turn from Cortese ? No, of course it doesn't. They just knew £14 was putting people off already. I didn't go, first Saints home game I've been able to attend that I haven't bothered with since about 2004. I should point out that I've already seen our reserves play a couple of times in pre-season and Torquay at St Mary's in a poxy cup in the last 2 years. The extreme unlikelihood of any rioting from some bellends had absolutely no bearing on my decision whatsoever. Plus I had a match of my own to play in. Scored a screamer too.

Of course, the ultimate comeback is "we're a privately-owned club, it's no-one else's business".

Yeah, really. It's not like the club has been reluctant to fail to disclose otherwise widely known information previously either. But you're right about silly practice.

Has it occurred to you that it might be to prevent people with tickets who are too stupid to find their own seats from sitting there ?

I laughed at this bit : Brown 4 Neutralised himself with silly needless fouls and dissent early on. Southampton's falling over tactics and a ref who could only see backing in at one end of the pitch didn't help but Brown played right into their hands I should think Southampton's falling over tactics might possibly have been aided by the Leeds players hanging off them and kicking them every chance they got. Brown was lucky to be still on the pitch after 10 minutes, never mind "played right into their hands"...

But the club trumpeting "Saints' previous transfer records blown out of the water" somewhat undermines that position if anyone happens to know our previous club record...

I think we'll have to go some to beat Nolan and Parker if he stays at West Ham.

Funnily enough if you believe the Guardian's reporting the Chamberlain deal is worth £5m plus £5m, the Walcott deal (originally) was worth up to £12m - though we settled for about £9m pre-admin. So the Walcott deal would have been worth more - though as the club's reported a "club record" we can only assume that at least one of those figures is wrong.

Why don't you pitch up during the day tomorrow, park in the car park and find out ?

I thought we were decent and finished better, they only went crap after our 3rd, but other than that there wasn't really much in it. We'll play worse and win, they'll play worse and win, we'll both play better and lose, that's the Championship.

There was one weird match report this weekend which claimed the Leeds fans were ironically singing "we all hate Leeds". What a load of balls, and completely illogical with it. They were singing "we all love Leeds", we were singing "we all hate Leeds" with the optional "scum" for those utterly lacking in self-awareness.

I fail to see any difference in the good deal we've got selling this player who we didn't want to sell as opposed to all of the others. Some of the revisionism amongst some of our fans is just staggering.

I played a match in the US once when there was a constanly running clock at pitchside, so I can guarantee the full 45 minutes thing won't work WITHOUT a 4th official, we went 3-1 up and timewasted by wellying the ball miles, knowing that the clock just kept running... ...personally I think if we do independent timekeeping they'll have to shorter match durations to 30 mins each way to reflect that the ball's usually only in play for about an hour of the 90 as it is. A 90 min clock stop game would take hours on end and completely change the nature of football.

Pretty sure one of Lowe's strong points was the ridiculous amounts he was able to get for players on their exit.

It means everyone will read the thread before asking questions in future, I hope.

I can't disagree that both Bale and Theo's careers took steps backwards for 18 months or so when they joined their new clubs before they got used to doing things the new way, and I'm not convinced Walcott is anywhere near the level he was expected to be, whether that was due to his early move or not. I think AOC is about the level of a Routledge or Dyer rather than a Pennant, so it will be interesting to see what happens to him IF he is sold.

It was certainly a contributing factor to me joining in the muppetry of "Wash Your Mouth Out Son...", it's not as if none of them would be keeping an eye on us. I know I watched bits of a few of their early Championship games after relegation on the box because I wanted to see how cack they were.

Yeah, but they'd use a different ball in the meantime... the football didn't just stop !

I think that's pretty accurate actually, though SWP has a few more tricks. As for the rest of this thread, I haven't seen such childish petulance since... actually Friday on here with the endless use of "bed-wetter", but anyway. Seriously, we're selling a player, big deal. Unlike the various other times this has happened in the past 15 years, it's going to make barely any negative difference to our on-field performances. This is not losing our game-changing marauding left-back (Bale and Bridge), or our only hope (Theo), it's not even shedding the likes of Beattie. Oxlade-Chamberlain is a talent, and he's an explosive and good young player - but he's barely played for 6 months, during which we've been promoted, beaten a couple of sides from the leagues above us and won our opening game without him against a play-off candidate from last season. I don't see the need to slate the player OR his agent, or Arsenal, or whoever else. The only problem I'd have with this is if we didn't sign 2 or 3 players with the proceeds.

Agreed. I was in the Northam and I could actually hear the opposing fans for once, though they did mostly sing "Marching On Together" endlessly.

I watched that match and IMHO they delivered the ball equally quickly for each side. The difference was that Reading had been drilled to keep the tempo high and returned the ball to play immediately, whilst the Saints players, already with the ball, took as long as they normally did. Dunno about the throw-ins, but you can do that with one ball anyway.