The9

I don't want to mess with your timeline, but the Bradford fire was in 1985 and Wimbledon didn't even get into the top division until 1986/7, so it most definitely could have happened in the aftermath of Bradford as unless you happened to have gone to Plough Lane in 1978/9 for an FA Cup tie (and Vinny Jones wasn't playing then) you must have done that after the Bradford fire. Getting back to the Le Tiss stuff, I've never seen that Norwich dribble and bender inside the post before, what an insane goal. I'm guessing all of that was ITV-owned League Division One (and League Cup) footage, which is why no-one ever gets to see it ?

What's there to work out ? It's a bunch of people singing which start they're in. They repeat the first bit as above and the end bit is "...over here". Mind you posting it on here can make you second-guess yourself.

I wasn't cherrypicking, I've seen Brighton place twice this season, neither time did they pass the ball well nor look potent going forward. One time they looked completely outclassed by what can generously be described as an artisan Stoke side, and the other time they came to kill the game from the first minute at St Mary's - and succeeded. In contrast, everyone could pick games where Saints haven't played well, but you don't have to go back to pre-Adkins to cherrypick them ! We've had more than enough games where we've underperformed, and I've seen Saints play much worse than the only time I've seen Brighton in the League on a few occasions. But as with last season, we've mostly started badly and improved as the season goes on. I think we'll finish comfortably second, but the title race has been over for about 3 weeks now, just because your lot haven't faltered much in terms of results when they looked like they could. We can't argue with the league table, and there's certainly a difference in BHA results against the lower sides compared to Saints'. It says a lot about the players' levels of motivation, and for us the games when we were directionless at the start of the season (the Plymouth and Rochdale games you mentioned, and we haven't played either since to get a more recent measure). Title winning sides generally don't have those issues, or some of the key injuries we've had. But they're the breaks over 46 games and they can happen to anyone. Of course the league table also says you lot haven't finished above 20th in the Championship in nearly 18 years, so we'll see what happens up there next season. More importantly for us, we've got to get there yet. I don't think we're playing particularly well at the moment, but we have generally played far above ourselves in important matches, especially against decent passing teams. Fortunately for us, all Saints' remaining matches are "important".

Delgado WAS good, just not for us very often. And that compilation of Theo stuff was ALL from before he left Saints, which is a reasonable comparison with what AOC has done so far - it's not as if we're taking the skills out of context either, most of us would have seen it all at the time and just forgotten just HOW good Theo was.

In case no-one has noticed, during Brighton's 8 successive wins, they have won precisely ONE match by more than one goal, a 2-0 home win to Tranmere. All of the others have been single-goal scrapers. In most of those games they've scored in the 57-74th minutes, and that's often been the only goal. So they usually wear sides down around the hour mark. The stats against Dag and Red on Tuesday were an indictment of their performance - D&R had 9 shots on target and 9 off, Brighton 2 on and 3 off. But Brighton somehow won. They're clearly marginally better than most, but you can't argue with the points. Personally I think we'll stuff them at the Withdean if we get an early goal, because both times I've seen them this season they've been toilet, and we raise our game for the big matches (which is of course part of the problem).

He's "short" compared to Lambert, who according to many people in the Northam "stands at over 6 ft 3". He is in fact not over 6ft 3. But he still makes Barnard look short.

Well watching that he's miles better than Chamberlain.

Or you could have noted my break down of his "clues", and (as he also did) noted the legal warning stickied on this website.

Also, Steve moved to London.

Actually I think it was because you were answering something on behalf of all Saints fans in a way few of us could take issue with, as opposed to issues which might be divisive to us. Because I agree with you, I therefore think it's intelligent.

Assuming you mean this season, he arrived (back) on 12th Jan, at which time they were 5th with a game in hand on us but 4 points behind. http://www.statto.com/football/teams/southampton/2010-2011/table/2011-01-11 We were second, weirdly enough. Now's probably not the time to mention we were 3 points behind Brighton but had played a game more.

I'm having fun working out who the whispering campaign person is... "Northern" clubs recently relegated from the Prem : 2010 : Hull, Burnley 2009 : Newcastle, Middlesbrough 2008 : Birmingham (!), Derby(!) 2007 : Sheff Utd 2006 : Sunderland. Assume recently relegated means "hasn't come back yet" which leaves Hull, Burnley, Middlesbrough, Derby, Sheff Utd. stories of them approaching the financial brink rules out Burnley, who made £14m last season. The others have had some questions about their financial status - Sheff U lost £18m last year. So from Hull, Middlesbrough, Derby, Sheff Utd. The "before he parted company with them" bit rules out anyone with the same chairman as when they went down... Boro have the same owner, Steve Gibson. Hull... Paul Duffen replaced in the Prem season by Adam Pearson. Derby had Adam Pearson as Chairman (spooky) in the Prem, he's left since (to go to Hull). Sheff Utd : Kevin McCabe was their Chairman when they went up http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/s/sheff_utd/4908046.stm and left in Nov 2010. So it seems we're down to 3 men. Linked to a consortium who were said to be interested in buying a Championship club not a million miles a way. That's probably going to be either Reading or Portsmouth, who are the two nearest clubs to Southampton... Adam Pearson search on "takeover" finds only takeover news for Derby County and Hull. Kevin McCabe search only finds manager news and something about Sheffield United buinding links with a Chinese team. Hmmm : http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Portsmouth-are-the-target-of-a-10m-takeover-bid-from-former-Hull-chairman-Paul-Duffen-article612957.html Of course, that doesn't mean it's true.

You sound a lot more intelligent on there than you do on here, I wonder why ?

Honestly, I don't actually think Alex is playing all that well at the moment and there has only been maybe one match this season where I've thought he's been the difference. He's hugely fast and that's about 75% of his game, and it terrifies defenders when he runs at them. But he hasn't been doing that much recently, his crossing is hit and miss, he's not up to much defensively, and as soon as he's pulled inside and doesn't get the 1-on-1 situations with defenders he loses most of his effectiveness. He's got a solid enough touch, his passing is decent most of the time and his decision-making is quick, so he's got the basics, but he could turn into a bit of a one trick-pony if he doesn't improve his effectiveness all-round. Though having said that it hasn't hurt the likes of Lennon and Pennant - but they're much better players at the moment, Alex is merely showing the potential to be at that level and better. Hopefully he'll be able to find a niche where he becomes as effective as he has been in some games this season, and he's doing really well considering where he was a year ago - but consistency is always the bane of flair players, and he needs to be able to function and do the boring stuff even when he's on an off-day to be a top player.

"their". HTH.

As I said on the JH-S thread : While you said : Did so, then pretended you were taking it seriously.

We have a shedload of players with squad numbers who've done no more than get less than 5 appearances on the bench this season, I'd be surprised if we kept anyone who was on the fringes when we got relegated for another contract except Bart and maybe Gobern.

So anyway, we're STILL in financial trouble, we've been taken over since Markus died, and we've released the entire academy despite having one player valued at around £10m - who came through the Academy - right ? Well that all makes perfect sense.

No, and my shinpads always put the ball exactly where intended. As do Wayne Rooney's, apparently. Still, any excuse :

Most of them have a new colourway on their current boot style every match, never mind new boots. My favourite thing is that people actually break the boots in for them now by wearing them to soften them up !

No really, it's true.

Well that's a massive big fat load of crap, isn't it ?

It's horrendous, I went in 2005/6 when we were waiting for the Brighton thrashing to turn our season back around after shipping out 10000 players when Burley took over. Shockingly we actually won, not that we could tell. I'm still keen to go this season though, the missus hasn't been yet and it'll be her last chance to see what a craphole it is. If you don't go, you're not missing much, even in the current situation !

Nice to see you finally accepting Pardew's motivational skills and, managerial abilities aside, accepting that a single injury to a key player could be the difference between a successful season and one that is not, which implies that no amount of "cover" would do.

Sounds like a silly idea as they'd need to be adding at least one booking each (I think Chaplow's on 7 and Hammond to get to 9 to even be in a position to get suspended "when they want", and the suspension is more than just one match so any "deliberate" yellow getting is a stupid idea. The latest they can get suspended for yellows is Leyton Orient on 9th, the deadline is 10th. We have MK Dons and Charlton before that, so 3 games left for them not to pick up (at least) 2 yellows. That deadline means they CAN'T miss the Brighton game due to yellow card suspension, as we play Rochdale and Bristol Rovers first and those matches are the latest the suspension can apply. They could of course get sent off...