The9

We were good last night, didn't score when we had the chances (somehow) and overall Swindon were better - in fact they were excellent. Simple enough, some other games we've underachieved but yesterday was an even, well-competed game and they got the result.

Can't argue with that, but then he was MK Dons' only decent player in the first leg at theirs too, it didn't take a great manager to spot him !

Came on as sub in the season opening debacle at Villa : http://www.soccerbase.com/results3.sd?gameid=428553 Southampton: Niemi ,Dodd ,Lundekvam ,Higginbotham ,Le Saux ,Fernandes ,Prutton ,Folly (Delap ,45 ) ,Nilsson (Anders Svensson ,45 ) ,Phillips ,Ormerod (Crouch ,68 ) Subs not used Smith,Kenton, THAT TEAM HAS NO MIDFIELD !!!! At least he took the right two off...

Well, Saints and Millwall.

http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/page/FixturesResults/0,,10280,00.html Of players who have played for Saints in the last 3 matches, the first friendly on July 4th at Eastleigh featured only Wayne Thomas (and he only came on as sub on Saturday) and we changed the entire team at half time for kids and Poolis. Not a single player who played at Totton preseason (again swapping all XI at half time) has been in our first team since Lloyd James got dropped. Only Davis and Lallana of the current side played against Bournemouth. Only Thomas and Lallana of the current starting side played at Cheltenham. Davis, Schneiderlin, Thomas and Lallana played v Ajax. Davis, Thomas, new signing Harding and Lallana played v Hearts, which was on 27 July and our first win of preseason - that's right, we didn't win any of the previous matches, some form... I have no idea what Otsemobor, Jaidi, Fonte, Seaborne, Antonio, Waigo, Hammond, Lambert, Connolly and Barnard were doing for preseason, but the point is that they weren't playing for us at the time and therefore wouldn't be contributing much to the team at the start of the season. Pardew didn't even join until mid-July ! How people fail to comprehend that the team we were putting out in preseason and in the first couple of months' games barely resembles today's and it's therefore logical to extrapolate form from the point where the core of the CURRENT team began to perform is beyond me. The first match this season where we looked remotely competent was against Birmingham in the League Cup (a surprise as there were few changes to the league side at that point but they played much better), and the first league match we won was at home to Yeovil. By the time we faced Yeovil [sep 15] the side was : Davis; Thomas (Wotton), Jaidi, Trotman, Harding; Lallana, Hammond, Schneiderlin (Mills), James; Lambert, Saganowski (Waigo). Can't say that looks TOO dissimilar to the team from the weekend excluding Fonte for Trotman, Puncheon for James and Barnard for Saga. And that's when we had the core of a decent side for the first time. Not in July, not even in August. In mid-September, and we've improved the squad again since then.

One Vision was presumably used because BSkyB used it to promote the Premier League in one of the first seasons of the Prem. Equally, "Ready to Go" by Republica, "The Time Is Now" by Moloko, "Are You Ready For Love" by Elton John and about 7 or 8 other songs are about as relevant. The Saints Are Coming is a rubbish version, anything with a dance beat over OWTSGMI is rubbish, the oft-mentioned Darude's Sandstorm is our Prem relegation season music and given those awful choices, I suppose we should be glad that at least they didn't suggest Amarillo.

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/79029315/Bob-Thomas-Sports-Photography

No in-fighting this year, I remember last season's "dropped to the bench for (not) drinking" controversy and the childish gestures...

Falling away from contact with the play-offs can be explained VERY simply by this run of results : Match Date Opponents Venue Result Position Points 24 28.12.2009 Colchester United away L1-2 13 28 25 16.01.2010 Millwall away D1-1 13 29 26 26.01.2010 Brentford away D1-1 15 30 27 30.01.2010 Stockport County home W2-0 11 33 28 06.02.2010 Exeter City away D1-1 12 34 29 20.02.2010 Norwich City away W2-0 12 37 30 23.02.2010 Wycombe Wanderers away D0-0 11 38 We got 10 points in 2 months from 7 League matches (6 of them were away!!!), but because we were still winning Cup games no-one really noticed. Saints beat Luton, Ipswich and MK Dons twice in that period. In the meantime, there were a minimum of 21 points up for grabs in the league and some other sides also played more league games than us at the time. We now have a run of home games to compensate for the run of aways.

There's always the arguement that Leicester should never have gone down in the first place with their squad - and that Holloway was a poor manager there, I don't think you can say our relegation squad didn't deserve it, though the managers were pretty much on a par with Holloway... ...which is not to undermine the job Pearson did in getting them winning immediately.

I used to come to Prem (and initially CCC) matches from South Wales and there were a few other Saints fans who used to get on the (direct) train at the same time - I used to see others around in Saints shirts too. The potential catchment area for a top tier side playing attractive football is the whole of the South West/Central England up to the midlands, except for a few patches in Swindon, Reading, Bristol and Plymouth where allegiances are already formed. That is, if they know they can get in every week - look how quickly Reading sold out in their seasons in the Prem - Saints already have a history of selling 30k plus and the likes of Man U, Liverpool etc with all the plastics would sell the place out twice over. Depends whether you want the risk of hearing empty seats echoing for Wigan and Blackburn really, doesn't it ?

Strange that I have no recall whatsoever of One Vision being played at the Dell between 1991 and 2001, even though it clearly happened a lot. I suspect this may have been due to the time I used to get into the ground, or possibly the quality of the PA system. Or Pat from Poole's clapping.

Fan vote from the three selected candidates after nominations to FourFourTwo, IIRC.

Her tattoos ruin it for me. Bleeeuuuuugh.

It doesn't, it just makes you a smarter one.

He probably could have retired Lewington in the League at St Mary's and at Stadium MK, we used him over and over and he was always there and always got the better of his marker. He created most of our chances in the first half away and gave us an outlet to prevent them attacking us for a few minutes at a time, though he hesistated when clean through on the best chance we got. The goal was alright, neither here nor there really though, his role as a pacy outlet was the key that night and in the League match. The home leg was his worst performance against them, mainly because we didn't play it to him much.

I'm actually shocked at how terribly "even" those highlights are considering we dominated for all but about 5 mins after kick off and 15 minutes at the start of the second half. It shows their early (non-) free kick which didn't even get into the 6 yard box, ignores about 5 of 6 of our good chances altogether, and aftwer showing Leeds improving at the start of the second half, then skips almost the entire second half and Gradel smacking Harding.

Apart from the fact that there's someone on 606 who's already got theirs...

Actually I was just calling you a gimp. Now I'm being pressed to counter your rubbish argument about Antonio, I'll just say that just because other players are better, doesn't mean he's not good. Puncheon has been at or near our best player in most of his games, but that doesn't mean Antonio didn't take MK Dons to pieces on his own on two occasions, score a great goal up at Bristol Rovers or look like a threat in pretty much every match I've seen him play (except Wycombe away). As for the other thing, shhhhh, not on here... :cool:

If his username is LA77 I'd say there was a 50-50 chance he was around 33 years old.

25,001 then ?

Strange, as Sturrock won won and lost one in his tenure, more than enough for midtable.

Gimp.

And having now seen the photos I can actually see why the ref thought there was a foul by Fonte - obviously for the holding of the Leeds player's arm. It was still a penalty 10 times before that happened, but I now at least know what he THOUGHT he saw. And he couldn't have played advantage even if he saw it in our favour as he'd already blown just before the ball went in - which makes me think he'd decided to give the foul against us immediately, rather than my initial instinct that he'd changed his mind. Doesn't mean he wasn't crap though. But still not as bad as the Tranmere ref last week who was as bad for longer and cost us the game.

He's at least right that Hammond also should have been sent off, he bottled that one too, due to play continuing and him having the time to think about who'd fouled. Gradel was a straight red, at least a two handed push to the face, far worse than Schneiderlin was sent off for against MK at their place too.