The9

If you believe some of their fans, they weren't up for it against us either. So apparently their natural game is cynical and timewasting even when they're not bothered. As for the Colchester match, they were gash for 60 minutes then started playing for the last half hour. FWIW I thought their goal might have been offside too

Also, if everyone could wear Brentford's team colours that'll really show them too : http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10280~2348762,00.html

Get that flag that's planned for the Walsall match and somebody spray paint "ARE YOU COMFORTABLE NOW ?" on it, sharpish. Thar'll learn 'em.

...Exhibit A : http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10280~2348762,00.html "Wear your colours this weekend to create a sea of red and white", with links to the online store, and encouraging people to buy flags, shirts etc. Except that on both Saturday AND Monday Saints are playing in their black change kit, and on Saturday any "sea of red and white" will make us completely indistinguishable from the home fans. Sometimes I do wonder about the desperate need for the club to create and then shift this stuff... I think I'd mind marginally less if it wasn't aimed at fans who don't know this, who are then disappointed to find they've been duped. On the bright side the away kit is now 50% off, so you might want to try for "a sea of black" instead.

When he signed there was an Oldham fan on here saying he was a Steven Gerrard style player, so at least we know we definitely haven't seen what he's capable of yet - might take him a bit of time to settle, but I'd say he's at least shown enough to suggest he's squadworthy a league above, and he could be better than that - Adkins has plenty of previous in getting young pros moulded into a winning team with Scvnthorpe so I'd be inclined to think Dale Stephens might stay.

On the bright side, I'm in the middle of 11 days off, so that's a good thing.

Murray was certainly injured when he chucked himself on his shoulder against Saints, and went off (eventually) holding his arm to sympathetic chants of "she fell over". He tried to gesticulate at us about it, but his arm hurt too much. I laughed. As the bloke in the Brighton kit on the train back to Fareham said, "Murray's the one who holds the ball up for us, once he'd gone off we didn't have anyone to do that and had to hope Bennett could do something on his own". They have had a week to work on playing with Noone on the left instead of Murray up there, but I'm not sure how bothered they're going to be. On the bright side, the excitement should have worn off by now, and they'll be thinking they should be proving why they're champions on the day they get the trophy after being made to look cack for a couple of matches.

I was questioning their professionalism for the first half against Colchester, and no mistake.

Centre mid is a horrible position to have to slot in though, as there's stuff happening all around you, you don't know the people around you, you're integral to the linking of play from back to front, and generally more involved than anywhere else - you have the defensive responsibility of picking up runners or marking, and poor passes are punished more than those of strikers. As a striker you can always create stuff as you go even if you don't know your supporting players and your defensive responsibility isn't usually all that vital (though admittedly good teams will exploit it if you're a passenger). As a defender, it's tough to get the decisoin-making right, but plenty of it is positional and basic communication, and the top-level stuff comes with understanding of each others' tendencies. Central Midfielders by definition can be shown up a lot easier than other players - it's even more difficult coming on there as a sub, as Simon Gillet proved time and time again a few seasons back when his first touch usually set up an opposing shot.

I think they're basically about the same level and we need a new, established centre back to partner Fonte if we go up, safe in the knowledge that either Seaborne or Martin can cover adequately in the event of injury or suspension. And if we don't go up I'd hope we weren't looking for one to replace Fonte...

CM probably peaks at 28-31, so about 7 plus years yet! See above.

For some reason I thought he was 24, so ok, replace that with "pretty good for his age and still has the potential to improve". It's an interesting contrast between Gobern and Dale Stephens actually, to see where they are relatively in their development.

Jaidi should get a year as he's not completely fallen apart yet and his experience is invaluable Harding may get a renewal but will have to play like he did on Monday every week to deserve it Butterfield could get a renewal as he's been better than Richardson who isn't going to improve much, depends what our intentions are there. Gobern - borderline case but the role he had at Brighton suggests he could stay Martin - definitely due a renewal as he's got plenty of upside Connolly - offer pay as you play for 2011/12 I think... Pulis - bwahahahahahahaha N'Guessan - hasn't impressed D Stephens - I might, possibly, he's not done much wrong in a position where that's the key - it depends if we've got bigger targets in mind and he's nearing his peak.

It's entirely logical that Alpine's 1-2-3 would mirror the most popular choices - as we know he doesn't attend matches and has basically only got comments of others to go on in building an opinion. Over a large group of responses over a season, the popular and unpopular would be pretty obvious and there wouldn't be any grey areas caused by seeing something others hadn't. The need to be "right" (or in this case "as right as possible" by being in line with other fans) to strengthen his position as someone who knows about football is more important than his usual position of posting contrary and often unpalatable angles on existing topics. They're similar in that each is based on the knowledge of what the majority of others will find arguable and designed to get as many responses as possible. It's broadly similar to the definition of trolling, but on the poll the key is to "match the majority" to look as knowledgeable as possible, whilst in "starting arguments" it's to oppose the majority. In the spirit of this trollishness, my new 1-2-3 is : 1 Pulis - hard worker with a long career in football including at a Premier League club, I've also never seen him on the losing side in a Saints shirt. 2 Seaborne - he has very short hair, and that's the most accurate scientific measure of centre back ability according to some criteria from the world's most knowledgeable Sports Science organisation which I may once have seen online but can't find the link to right now. Also has covered well at left back, which Fonte hasn't. 3 Puncheon - Premier League player, say no more. This stuff is easy.

But that's a hypothetical argument, there's clear evidence of Lallana's absence negatively affecting us.

At the moment (and for some time actualy) there are lots of rumours about smart cards and turnstile entry systems, so next season may not be the same. Suffice to say no-one has checked my ST other than to take the match voucher in any of the 21 matches this season and me and my wife often use the "wrong" STs.

It's not there any more.

That's why I voted for Lallana too. Fonte has been brilliant, but he's been brilliant in some 0-0 draws which have messed up our promotion push - and we've also coped well enough without him on a few rare occasions . Meanwhile, whenever Lallana's missing we have some kind of crisis of creativity, and numerous times this season we've changed the entire midfield system to cope with his absence. But they're both head and shoulders above anyone else.

If nothing else, this proves the infinite number of monkeys theory.

It's in the minutes of one of the PLC board meetings that there was an approach by Allen isn't it ?

Yeah, Ankergren (the cheating feigning wuss) managed to get booted on the achilles just before and got himself substituted within seconds of that massive balls up of a goal. It was Calderon who should have done anything OTHER than pass it to the striker. I literally burst out in hysterical laughter in the pub, I don't think anyone else was watching it...

I've also just remembered that having been overcharged for our tickets (£20 for the away end and about £2 to get in for home fans), we got a refund as dictated by UEFA at some point in the following year as well.

Was the Dubliner the bar near the Unirea Shopping Centre (last one of my pics) and the Harp somewhere off to the north of the city ? Seeing as a few people mentioned it, here are some Ibis pictures, including the incredibly uninspiring view. And one of the coach trip from the Ibis to the ground... and a random photo taken out of the airport bus

And since then he's only gone and bought the Seattle Sounders franchise in MLS. How naive we all were to think that a bloke who'd made his money in software and had no interest in sport to our knowledge would be interested in buying a football club.... http://www.soundersfc.com/Team/Staff-Members/Paul-Allen.aspx BTW, when do we become Southampton Chivas ? Haven't heard much about that recently.

It is their last match at Withdean, this is not the first time it has been mentioned on here in the last couple of weeks...