The9

In the interests of balance, what about in comparison to Lowe between (say) 2000-2004 ? New ground, top half Prem finishes, attracted a former England manager, FA Cup Final and UEFA Cup appearance. I'm all for slating the guy for his shortsighted signings in 2004, Strachan's rolling contract, the half-baked attempt at avoiding Admin, the unnecessary -10 and nearly sending the club to the wall, but he was quite decent there for a while... And we'd still have been decent enough to stay up in 2005 if Killer had been fit...

Hey, don't knock it, they're good facilities. Well, they were in 1991 for a Southampton University fresher not used to flat pitches, there was sod all else there apart from a sand-based Astropitch and the Wellington Bar. Though why they choose to train on the hockey/cricket pitch I have no idea.

Has last three performances haven't been as a wide attacking midfielder, either. Playing Ox-Cham in a narrow diamond has stopped him making dangerous runs past defenders up the line because he's getting the ball and starting the runs 15-20 yards further back than he was. He's also got twice as many opponents to beat if he comes inside. The run into the box v Peterborough that won the penalty was one of the few times I've seen him in a position to do that in the last 3 weeks. It's not his form, it's the position he's being asked to play at the moment - and given that THAT is Adkins' response to us failing to score in a standard 4-4-2 without Lallana, and since then we've scored against Man U, 2 at Exeter and 4 away to Peterborough, I'm not knocking it.

Actually, now playing in Uzbekistan as of the start of January. http://sportacentrs.com/futbols/legionari/01022011-pereplotkins_parcelas_uz_uzbekistanu He was at Skonto from 2004 until very recently, getting his Latvian passport in 2007 to enable him to play for Latvia (and change the spelling of his name to the more Latvian "Pereplotkins"). Also had a 6 month loan spell at Derby County in 2008/9 when he played 2 matches. Presumably Latvian membership of the EU from 2004 meant that Perepl(y)otkin(s) didn't have any work permit problems that time around, though Ukraine still aren't part of it...

Five starts in the league plus two sub appearances, and four FA Cup starts with one sub appearance. With hindsight this "weakened" side we put out against Man U in the Cup wasn't that much weaker than the first team : Southampton P. Smith, M. Cranie, C. Lundekvam (C. Davenport, 45), A. Jakobsson, D. Higginbotham, P. Telfer, M. Oakley, A. Svensson, O. Bernard (N. McCann, 62), H. Camara (K. Phillips, 80), P. Crouch With Niemi and Mikael F'cking Nilsson on the bench unused.

Surely this is so stupid it can only be an attempt to get pedants to bite ? Not the hilarious Pele confusion, but the fact that "that" Pele wore number 10. Always.

No-one, I remember Jacinto Ela Eyene though. Pretty sure he got a game against Espanyol in the St Mary's opener. That's who we signed him from anyway... He was at Dundee in 2006 and has now retired. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacinto_Elá?wasRedirected=true

God, he was bad. Painfully one-footed, easily forced inside onto his weak foot and lightweight enough to get muscled off the ball. His crosses weren't up to much either. People saying he'd be a good option on the bench now seem to have forgotten who he is - Holmes (in his 10 games when fit of course) looked like a Prem player to Smith's League 2 level as far as our wide options went, and it's hardly like Holmes has escaped criticism since, he barely made the bench himself when fit earlier this season.

I even drew cartoons about how bad Alan Bennett (alongside Chris Makin) was on his debut, and for the first month or two before some people on here thought he suddenly became good, when actually he just got slightly less crap with a bit of experience.

Billy Davies was why we didn't go up that season, thanks to his kicking rota on Kenwyne and Bale... as well as Pele's stupid pull back on the Derby player's shirt in the playoff first leg.

He was brought in as a CB and clearly much better as a DM.

Jakobsson (for that is how he spells it) was not even the worst Saints player on the pitch for most of his Saints matches in the Prem relegation season... he was a damn sight better than Nilsson for a start, and then we signed Davenport and Bernard...

I'm not very impressed with our crappy-looking wonderbuilding to be honest. A massive great big "meh" from here.

Nope, given that Ali Daei was reasonably widely known by the time Ali Dia made his appearance, and no-one's going to confuse an Iranian with "George Weah's cousin".

Actually I'd pin it on the "50th anniversary of Munich" Manchester derby in 2008, when supporters of both clubs were given the plain scarves to go with the plain commemorative shirts the teams were wearing. Later that season (or possibly 2008/9) northern rock gave away a huge number of plain black and white scarves to Newcastle United fans as well... ...and then there's the Man U "green and gold" protest. All long before Mancini pitched up at Man City, never mind wearing his scarf.

I guarantee that he was, and of the two, I only saw Liptak play. http://www.soccerbase.com/players/search.sd?search=Alledine+Yahia&type=player

I have a begrudging admiration for making so much money with so little ability. But then even that was his dad's doing. It would make my year if the Skate Cheats signed him in the summer, but somehow I doubt it - unless they go bankrupt in the meantime and are restarting at Southern League feeder level.

Replace Stockport with Barnet.

It doesn't seem to have had any bearing on Lambert's selection...

Speculation, of course. But there were plenty of rumours about "player power" as well as the stuff about egg stains.

I'm really trying hard not to succumb, but at some point in the next week or so I will almost certainly cave in to a rant on this subject and post everything I hate about everything. You knows it.

No, what you said was "Non league clubs have gone a few times, but a league club will be liquidated. We were lucky, hopefully Plymouth will be, but a club won't get away with it soon." Which implies (by saying that it's happened to non-league clubs) that it's never happened to a league club. It has. Which is the point I was making. As opposed to yours, which was that it might happen some time, implying that it hasn't happened before.

Newport County (1912-1989) also went kaput the season after finishing miles bottom of the Football League.

I shall be sitting somewhere to the side of the pitch, pretending to be neutral until one team goes ahead, as is the wont of the Monmouthshire Mongrel. My dad and everyone around us will be supporting Wales, my wife will be keeping schtum (if she's got any sense) and supporting England.

Some people don't believe either.