The9

But that has nothing to do with "making the step up", which is based on on-pitch performance. In the Football League you don't get relegated due to having small crowds, you get relegated due to not having many points.

I'm working on the principle that MOST of the ones from that age group who'll be playing on Sunday will have been responsible for our successes in the seasons immediately before that, or they wouldn't bother turning up. If Olivier Bernard, Mikael Nilsson, Calum Davenport, and maybe Jelle Van Damme, Jamie Redknapp or Nigel Quashie turn up I'd be a little less impressed. For some reason I continue to give Andreas Jakobsson, plus Graeme Le Saux and Henri Camara a free pass for that season. Not sure why with Jakobsson, probably because he was a half decent defensive midfielder, and it wasn't his fault he wasn't as good as Killer.

Personally I can't tell our slim, tall, long-haired, white Portuguese defender from our stocky, average height, short-haired black Barbadian winger either. In fact their very similarity makes me want to create names combining the two.

It's already not early enough, a load of clubs have had 2011/12 ST deals out there for ages. Stoke had been selling theirs for months already when we went there to see them beat Brighton in the FA Cup and they're having a banner season, Brighton themselves as we know have got their new ground and a huge chunk of their total STs already confirmed. Arsenal and Man U have done theirs - not sure why we're so "special". Even Aston Villa, who haven't launched their ST prices yet, said in April "we'll tell you in May".

The roads ?

You could have easily dropped in "ridiculous injury crisis experienced from February onwards the likes of which was seen by no other team in the division", but fortunately our depth of squad was sufficient that we were still able to switch 5 or 6 players in and out for the Sat/Mon games in the run-in. Any other team in this division would have lost more than they won in those circumstances, but we had the foresight to cover ourselves against it. Good job we didn't waste a load of money signing backups when we had enough players to cope (once we got Dale Stephens in...)

All 22 home league games (plus one to come) Both of the 2 League Cup matches the JPT game (ugh) All 4 FA Cup matches Plus a piddly 6 aways at Peterborough, AFC Bournemouth, Leyton Orient, Brighton, Brentford and Plymouth, cos I'm a massive end of season away glory hunter (and Rochdale got called off while I was on my way there). It's been pretty easy supporting Saints this season, we never get drawn away in the cups for a start. Last away draw in a Cup was Northampton away in FAC R2 in Nov 2009, we've played 13 Cup games since then (inc MK in a two-legger* and a neutral cup final, pedants) and not one away draw. Actually with the 3 home JPT draws and Man U 2009 coming before Northampton (and only one FAC away at Bristol Rovers), we've only had 2 away cup draws in the last 17. Anyway... I've done 29/52 in total, including 22/22 home, 6/23 away League and 7/7 (all home) Cups.

I love their new Coventry kit though.

He should be glad that we usually had games in hand, as it made their capitulation when they had to play their difficult fixtures at the end just look like they were taking it easy. He hasn't got a leg to stand on - and the only reason he's complaining is because IIRC the only other free date we had was 4 days before we played them.

We shall discuss this on text, I don't want to have to start issuing tickets.

Nah, I wasn't expecting to be alone !

qft.

Yais, noted, and already edited. I suppose if I've recovered from the BBQ...

Bizarrely it seems that the big news of the All-Star match actually beat me seeing your response in the F5 race.

Didn't they learn anything from the ticket sales for the all-star match mooted around the time of Saints Aid ? EDIT : Apparently yes, because it's free. Even so, not sure I can be bothered. Are they charging Cortese Tax on them ?

Yes, but that could have been solved by launching prices in Feb/March so people had paid up pre-season as well.

Oi ! The answer btw is that he falls our with the manager when dropped and then gets sent out on loan, where he's really good for about 6 weeks.

I like this bit from their Forum : http://downatthemac.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=56527#ixzz1LIoNoxBR "Can't believe that after we lost 4-1 to Saints we were 3rd, 24 games and no defeats later and we're still bloody 3rd" Just goes to prove that 3 draws are really no better than one win and 2 defeats.

Yeah but what ELSE do you think about this, Minty ? I'm going to hit F5 until you reply. ... REPLY DAMMIT !!!?!?!!?

"You're our second favourite club !!!"

He did an interview last week in which he said he'd used the CCC spell last season to work out how to improve his game to become a proper Championship or Prem player, and Ferguson, since he's been back at Posh has also commented on how massively improved he is since the last time he was manager, so having him as a low-level Prem striker to complement Holt and Jackson - you'd imagine alongside a more Prem-experienced striker - isn't all that unlikely. But I can see your point, they've already got two up front with no Prem experience, why sign another ? In which case, I think he'd do well for us, but I'd rather we were getting someone of a Yakubu or Bellamy standard, seeing as they're nearer Prem than nPC standard but have both spent months slumming it.

I'd like another 6 points from Bournemouth next season please - they and the Franchise, who I never want to see succeed in anything, also have the fewest players we might potentially steal, so if they went up it might leave Huddersfield and Peterborough's better players ripe for the pickings - though I suspect Mackail-Smith is going to Norwich now they're Prem-bound. And I honestly don't care about them going up, it'll be quite amusing and they could also set a new Championship record for low points next season. I'd rather we were nicking competent Prem players of course, but we don't really know how the money situation is, do we ?

League One no longer concerns me.

This is true, but it would have been nice to have known that in advance. Especially given that the club had always recently provided such a plan. Even this year there's been nothing either way to address last year's concerns, so we've all kind of sort of had to assume that "no news is bad news", and it's not like anyone knows exactly how much they need to find, is it ? Anyway, this is all very old news, and I'm expecting the worst, so this time round people who can't afford it CAN be accused of bad planning - and if we do have an instalment plan then I suspect very few people will be complaining that they now still have the ST money they'd saved and don't need burning a hole in their pocket.

I'm quite keen on the Liebherrs paying for it all as part of the "three years remaining" plan, to be honest. When we're in the Prem the tv money can cover it.