The9

We've already got one on the badge : "Southampton FC".

Funny that, I've been concerned about how poor it's been all season, the penalty areas in particular now carve up massive chunks of turf whenever there's a goal kick or any kind of sliding tackle - pretty sure on a decent pitch Fonte wouldn't have slipped over trying to cut out the ball to Hernandez in the FA Cup, and every time there's a backpass I'm expecting a dodgy bounce. It never used to be like that, whatever they did in the close season hasn't really worked out too well. I wonder if they're using much in the way of artificial fibres ?

Because he's a professional footballer in the 21st Century not the 1980s, possibly - and if he can't keep away from drink there are hundreds of other talented kids that will take his position in a flash. Not that there's any evidence, but if you think the club should put up with any player drinking alcohol 2 days before a match you're wrong. Then again, that's probably the reason some of them are in League One...

Funnily enough I don't think the substitutions made much difference. We completely dominated for all but 5 minutes and created plenty of good changes before and after Barnard got on the pitch. Swindon just weren't very good and we forced them into mistakes - they got a 5 minute flurry of confidence when Harding ballsed up (twice) and they had a couple of efforts they barely deserved, scoring from one that was 90% down to Harding and about 10% Kelvin not expecting the kind of shot he got. Guly was our best player up to the point he was taken off IMHO and someone I was with saw they said he got a knock just before, so not convinced it was tactical. Not sure Schneiderlin wasn't also due to Chaplow running out of steam again - he ended up on the right when Gobern came on, which does suggest he wasn't really part of the plan.

Yup. Not full strength. And to be fair they wouldn't have had to have been. PLEASE tell me MK Dons' winner today was from a right wing cross...

I'd prefer to think of the number of games we have in hand in imperial measurement, even if the tons then won't be as numerous.

Hi, thought I'd check in and help boost the post count for this thread, it's been about 700 pages since I checked it, but it looks like it needs the help. Personally I stopped caring when they dodged the second court winding up date and started actually inventing debt to elbow out HMRC. And people wonder why the forum crashes

6. They can't spell "their".

Surely flush and see if they sit at the bottom of the pan awaiting a rolled up sleeve. If not, that's fate for ya.

Is that we don't regard playing them as a Cup Final. Actually we've already beaten them twice this season in their cup finals...

Because that's what it's "hilariously" named after.

We already did this thread during the FIRST leg...

Our ground is great thanks, why do you think everyone else's looks the same ?

Richardson's been toilet the last 3 times I've seen him play (including weirdly in midfield at Peterborough).

Southampton 09/10 11 2 6 3 14 13 +1 12 pts (with the 10 added back) Southampton 10/11 11 4 3 4 11 8 +3 15 pts Last season... : Pld 29 12 11 6 49-32 +17 47 Pts (with the 10 added back) Current record : Pld 29 14 7 8 50-27 +23 49 Pts There's really not a lot in it... both seasons we started very poorly and both seasons we've recovered to challenge. But as I pointed out weeks ago, THIS season we don't have Norwich or Leeds running away with it, and there's no 10 point gap from the top 6 to the rest (or at least if there is we're the right side of it). The whole league is closer this season.

They weren't at full strength, they had a left back with only a couple of appearances (Pugh), a keeper who only plays cup matches (Sorensen), missing a midfielder who plays almost every game (Whitehead) and leaving leading scorer Jones on the bench. Point was that you weren't in that position on Saturday, you've gained 2 points on everyone since then, but your boys were bigging it up. And if it was us I'd be shi tting it.

I don't particularly either, but it's a game of inches. I'm just not sure what people were expecting - ignoring all the pre-season hype, we're still doing pretty well considering the early season sacking, the delay in replacement and the injuries to Lallana. Current record : Southampton Pld 29 14 7 8 50-27 +23 49 Pts Last season... : Southampton Pld 29 12 11 6 49-32 +17 47 Pts (with the 10 restored, of course) The difference this year is we've got the 3rd most points per game and we're shooting for the top two not a -10 play-off scramble.

Is that collar "Wight" and "Solent green" ? What a horrible combination with the yellow and black !

I have no idea what they actually do, but the improvement in Puncheon when the manager first arrived was tangible, and after 3 straight defeats without a goal, in the next 9 games we won 6 and only lost away at Huddersfield, so I'd be inclined to think they improved quite a lot of them.

As a major complainant about Cortese Tax and someone who knows "teh owners", I didn't bother subscribing until it became obvious that by doing so I'd get a chance to play at St Mary's. It's entirely possible that many people who don't like the service now no longer use it. Can't say I've had anything other than a minor issue with it myself, I don't come on here on match days as I'm either at the match or avoiding the knee-jerkers.

We've been alternating Seaborne and Jaidi all season, and contrary to the beliefs of the "he's changed nothing" brigade, the Lallana injury (and lack of goals immediately evident against Notts Co and Tranmere) led to us changing the shape of the midfield - which worked well to counter the staleness of the approach without our best player as we started scoring goals without Lallana for the first time this season. The bit I couldn't figure out was taking away the narrow diamond BEFORE Lallana was back against Carlisle, thereby expecting N'Guessan to create as much as Lallana does. That was Adkins' first obvious error in my eyes, but even that can be argued away by him needing to see if N'Guessan could step up in that formation. Because he didn't (he might yet) Adkins then risked Lallana, and we killed off the match and won, albeit a tad unconvincingly for those used to us hammering forward at all times. I can't really comment on what's happened in the one match since as I wasn't there and I haven't seen how we set out, but I'm not surprised that after conceding 4 at Peterborough we've suddenly become more defensive, with two clean sheets in a row - that usually comes at the expense of goals - the criticism of Chaplow for not getting forward might hint at the key to this. One thing's for sure, Ox-Cham's not burnt out, he's played less effectively since he was forced narrow for a few games in the diamond during and after Man U, but he was very good at home to Carlisle back as a conventional winger. The other possibility of course is that he's getting more closely marked - which should create space for the other attackers anyway.

This makes me laugh a lot. Saints and more importantly the vast majority of teams in the top two divisions already have such novel concepts as "a training ground with lots of pitches" and "a manager who wants all the teams to play the same style". Funnily enough we're just rebuilding our long-standing Academy to improve it even more - this wonderful thing that's happening to your club has already happened in numerous other clubs and all you're doing is playing catch-up. Poyet's savvy enough to know that. So other than the chance to get Brighton into the Championship which will raise his own stock, and a nice new mid-sized ground on a par with more attractive prospects a lot higher up the league, there's not a lot of reason for Poyet to stay. He'll also be exactly the kind of big name that won't look like too much of a gamble as soon as the likes of Wigan or Wolves give their manager the boot as well, and then we'll see if he's just talking big, or whether he really wants to do something at Brighton.

Interesting theory, but can you now find an Oldham fan with a similar opinion ?

One on the opening day under Pardew, one in September when God knows what was going on, and since then just the one home league defeat to Brentford under Adkins - and anyone can have an off-day. http://www.statto.com/football/stats/england/league-one/2010-2011/table/2010-09-21 The League Table on 21st September had us 9 points off the top and 9 points behind Brighton. Not much has changed in terms of the gap since then and until Tuesday it had actually closed. Our terrible start and managerial pi ssing about is what's cost us, but we still have plenty of time and matches to overcome it. The long and short of it is we still have a lot of promotion rivals to play (Brighton, AFCB, Colchester, Rochdale and Charlton away; Charlton and MK at home) and if we win those matches we'll deserve to go up and if we don't, we'll probably only deserve the playoffs. We still have 6 matches against the bottom 7 to play as well, mostly at home.

Funny that, as our match at Rochdale was called off when I was half way there last weekend I decided to go to Stoke v Brighton instead. You lot were embarrassingly bad in the first half against a Stoke side that had little more than strength, a quick right winger, and decent execution of set pieces. It took them stopping trying for 20 minutes when 3-0 up before you could play your passing football. Meanwhile when we played Man Utd we passed the ball around beautifully whilst leading against them, even keeping possession for a significant period when we should have been under the cosh. We both lost in the end, but only one of us looked like a quality passing team against Prem opposition. In addition, your lot were cynical time-wasting garbage from 5 minutes gone at St Mary's and didn't do much then either. And as far as arrogant goes, we also happened upon a couple of your fans in a local pub. Blimey, you'd think you were already in the Championship !