The9

He does this so much that I've even suggested it might be tactical, not that I've ever heard of it before. Nice to see another one who can't take a sensible discussion up there, claiming we're being critical "because he's not Messi". Read and debate the actual point or please just don't bother, eh ?

I'm saying that if he hadn't been pants for the rest of the match he might have contributed more. I'm also amused that people don't seem to be able to differentiate between scoring goals and playing well, especially when it's not the goalscoring that is the issue, and he's often done that despite not having much impact other than that and when otherwise playing poorly. Doesn't matter anyway, he's well past his latest run of poor touches and giving the ball away cheaply.

So, we've established that he wasn't very good at all at Bournemouth for about 92 and a half minutes, and did that in the other 2. Were you there ?

Ugh. Sad, empty losers.

Yup.

Sorry, I had assumed that you already understood the other part of the concept, which was that teams don't both wear the same colour shirts in matches against each other. My mistake.

I'm not going over this again, read the thread, specifically my response to Manji.

Have you even read the rest of this thread ? Their away kit is white, so they're hardly likely to have worn it against us when we play in predominantly white at home.

I can do both, they're not mutually exclusive. Would be nice if the club hadn't decided to chose a match against a team in red and white to try and sell red and white stuff, whether people want to buy the kit or not. They must have a ton of red and white junk too, you'd think they'd be trying to get rid of the black replica kits at £20 a pop first...

The match programme I've seen says we are.

I'm watching it on +1 now...

Ever heard the saying "two wrongs don't make a right?"... It's basically pathetic namecalling on the most tasteless level, and we're all better off out of it. Going back to the point, I quite enjoyed us passing the ball around for a couple of minutes against Man U just after half time. Not the instant gratification of he Brighton winner, Lambert's free-kick at Bournemouth or the comeback against MK, but we looked Prem class for a little while there. What makes me laugh is not a single person has mentioned us beating a Prem club in the FA Cup .

So you're saying if you don't buy tickets to all 23 matches separately you're not a real fan, right ?

You must have me confused with someone who was bothered whether there was a fan on the board. For the record I think consultation with your customers is a good thing for any business, and launching misleading if not outright false advertising campaigns to shift end of season leftovers isn't the kind of thing a good organisation does for the people who buy their products. I have no problem with them saying "buy Saints crap, it's cheap and you can take it to the last home game !", I do have a problem with them saying "buy red and white crap that we're desperate to get rid of, even though we're not going to be doing the red and white thing ourselves in either of these matches".

Yes, but various Saints programmes which show which shirts we'll be wearing have us down as playing in black. Probably because our white shorts and dark socks clash with their white shorts and dark green socks so they've decided to change the whole thing. Pretty sure we need to wear any away kit a certain number of times per season as well, so we're probably doing it to meet the rules - and Plymouth were highly unlikely to wear their change kit at St Mary's, as it's white. Either way, we're supposed to be playing in black, and it's just a little dishonest to push the idea of buying things in the normal home colours specifically to support the team when they're playing away in different colours.

Can't say I argue with much of this, other than I think "back to his best for quite a while" is pushing it. You only have to listen to the frequency of the chants for Lambert during the course of the season to know what the majority were thinking. I also think certain others have been blind to some of his failings, and a critique of when, where and in what ways he's been poor is a lot more objective than stuff like "OMG he's set up loads of goals and scores loads and is our best passer" with little relevance to context or, in some cases, reality. He's a decent player, but if we're going to blame Pardew can we at LEAST decide if Lambert was too fit or too tired or what ? There are two opposing arguments every time this comes up, but seriously, that only explains the 2 goals in 11 at the start of the season. Lambert was then decent and scored 4 in 5 October but suddenly in November he didn't score in 6 matches and that's supposed to be still the same problem ? That's totally illogical. The really interesting thing for me is that his goalscoring spells don't even correspond to when he was playing well : He was playing poorly for the games against Peterborough (a), Carlisle (h), Hartlepool (a) and Swindon (h) and scored 4 goals in those matches. I especially remember how bad his touch and short passing was against Carlisle. He then failed to score in the next three games, and he was gash at Bournemouth apart from the amazing freekick and winning the ball to cross for Barnard. Goals can mask a poor game, but as people are spouting about great passing and hold up play, EVERYTHING else he did that day was mediocre at best. But the two things he did well basically won us the game. Bizarrely, during the next 3 games without scoring (Charlton twice and MK Dons) Lambert showed a marked improvement in his all-round game, and despite not scoring he's coming back to his best just as we need him most - but don't let the goals mislead you, it's just not as simple as that - especially as he's now only got 2 goals in the last 8 games and he's clearly not playing badly any more!

Yup, brought on Martin and Seaborne to play as full backs.

Yeah, cos I've only checked what the club has already said about it.

A link would be nice, cos I've read both previews and I can't see it. I'm assuming either that you misread, made it up, or they've just removed it : THE MATCH Brentford v Southampton, npower League One, Griffin Park, April 30 2011 THE KIT Article continues Advertisement Brentford will be in their red and white home kit sponsored by Hertings For details on all club partners click here THE OPPOSITION Southampton need seven points from their final three League One games to ensure promotion, although six will probably do the job. The Saints almost reached the play-offs last season after a remarkable late run and began the campaign as favourites to go up this time. They had a slow start this term but following a change of manager and a fine run of form in 2011, Southampton look set to follow fellow south coast side Brighton and Hove Albion in to The Championship. The Saints have been on a downward spiral for a few years - they were relegated from the top flight in 2005 after 27 years and, after narrowly avoiding relegation twice, dropped to the third tier in 2009. They were docked ten points towards the end of their relegation season when parent company Southampton Leisure Holdings went into administration and as they went down that penalty was carried over to last term. They started slowly, it took them until October to wipe off the deficit and were still in the bottom four at the start of December, but they finished like a train. The Saints lost one of their last 12 League One games and won the Johnstone's Paint Trophy by beating Carlisle United at Wembley - they eventually finished seventh and would have been fifth but for the deduction. They were firm favourites to go up this year at the start of the season but won one of their first seven and lost their grip on the JPT with a defeat to Swindon Town. Manager Alan Pardew lost his job at the end of August and Nigel Adkins was brought in. That decision looks set to pay dividends - six points over Easter kept Southampton second in League One, level on points with Huddersfield Town, who are third. The Saints have a much better goal difference than the Yorkshire side and a game more to play so seven points will make sure of promotion but six should be enough. THE MANAGER Nigel Adkins took over as Southampton manager on September 12 after The Saints agreed a package with S****horpe United for his services. The 46-year-old played in goal for Tranmere Rovers and Wigan Athletic before taking over as player-manager at Bangor City. He became physiotherapist at S****horpe in 1996 - having gained a degree in physiotherapy from the University of Salford when he was Bangor boss - and took over as manager of the Lincolnshire club in 2006. He took them up as League One champions after five months in charge and although they were relegated he took them back up to The Championship via the play-offs in 2009 and kept them there. Without Adkins, S****horpe look set for relegation while Adkins has taken Southampton to the brink of promotion. THE DANGER MAN Rickie Lambert has been one of the most prolific goal scorers in the country for the past two years and although he has not been as prolific this term, he is still the man to stop. He joined Southampton in August 2009 from Bristol Rovers in a deal worth in excess of £1m after scoring 29 League One goals for the West County club in the 2008/09 season, making him joining top scorer in the country. He scored 37 goals in all competitions last term - one for Rovers - 31 of which came in the league as he was again the country's top scorer. This term he has 19 goals to his credit, still enough to make him The Saints' top scorer. THE FORMER BEE Ryan Dickson joined Southampton last summer after his contract at Griffin Park expired. The former Plymouth Argyle trainee cost The Saints £125,000 after a tribunal set the fee and the total cost could reach £250,000. The 24-year-old joined Brentford on loan from Plymouth in late 2007 before making his move permanent early in 2008. He played just short of 100 league games for The Bees, scoring three goals. THE BRENTFORD VIEW Brentford captain Kevin O'Connor said it was much better at this stage of the season to play in games where there was something at stake. The Bees' last two fixtures see them play the teams currently second and third in League One. And O'Connor, speaking immediately after the 1-1 Easter Monday draw with relegation-threatened Notts County, said the atmosphere in the stands for vital games lifted everyone. "Our last games are big games for the teams we are playing against," said O'Connor. "It is definitely better to play teams with something to play for. "It gets us up for it, it will be a good challenge for us and we hope it can lead on for next season. "If there is something at stake you get big crowds. "It was buzzing here today and I think the lads enjoy the atmosphere and want to play well. "We will come up against good teams and it will be a big challenge for us but we are looking forward to it." Click here to see a full video interview with Kevin O'Connor on Bees Player Click here for odds on the game from the club's official betting partner, Coral This match is ALL TICKET and tickets are no longer on sale. Any that have been ordered can be collected from the red booth in Braemar Road from 12.30pm on Saturday. The Club expects long queues at the booth so please arrive early.

It would be a minimum of 15 goal swing by then - it's currently 13 and for us to win and them to lose in order to get the 3 point gap by Monday there's got to be at least a one goal difference both ways. As for "mathematically", who's going to do the probability of Saints averaging two 5 goal defeats and Huddersfield winning by 5 as well ? And even then it would go to "goals scored".

He's the second best long passer (after Morgan), and his first touch and short passing was utter crud around February until after we played Bournemouth. He's been much improved in the last 5 or 6 matches in terms of control and laying the ball off short, a few months back every pass under 10 yards was going nowhere near it's target but he's got that back now.

And he's never played above League One, so what does that imply ? I'd also add that fitness is essential. This season he's been decent and reasonable. Last season he was impressive.

I disagree, he's been ineffective for vast swathes of a lot of matches due to his immobility and failure to get into the box at vital times - and funnily enough from the comments above Lambert himself has indicated he's not been happy with himself, which is as good a guide as any.

Where's that, I can't find it anywhere ? Incidentally, to wrap up my "all ticket" spouting from a week or so ago, Brentford HAVE now explicitly stated that there will be no tickets sold on the day (or tomorrow, in fact ticket sales ended 22 minutes ago and they're not posting any due to the bank holiday). http://www.brentfordfc.co.uk/page/LatestNews/0,,10421~2348970,00.html

I should think most of them are explained away by segregation. Orient gave us a bigger allocation than most visitors (inc Arsenal in the FA Cup) and Exeter have a tiny away end anyway. It doesn't necessarily follow that more tickets = more money if they have to pay for more police due to the changes in segregation and splitting of stands. Saints are as guilty as any of being inflexible with allocations once you get up to 10% of capacity and we've restricted away allocations whilst not selling out a few times since we dropped out of the Prem.