The9

I have, now back at our Chester hotel, there was a blatant push on Barnard in the box 2nd half in front of us, Fonte "dive" was a pen as he was pulled back, their pen (at the other end looked like their bloke fell over trying an overhead kick after dinking it over a defender, and the free kick they crossed for the opening goal wasn't a foul either. When the ref gets booed off and called "cheat" repeatedly and various versions of "2-1 to the referee", "you're not fit to referee", "who's the midget in the pink?" and we spent most of the second half sarcastically cheering any decision in our favour, that kind of stuff suggests it wasn't the team at fault. Pitch wasn't perfect but it was dry and mostly flat if a bit bare, we played decent football and when we didn't it was a lack of tempo rather than anything else. Probably deserved to win 2-1ish on another day, but with our squad we need to be getting out of sight so terrible refs still can't hurt us. We're clearly one of the best 8 teams in the league, the best on our day, too many off days away though and we need to move the ball quicker (Puncheon in particular was hogging it a little). But we did start with a 20 point handicap on the top sides by the time we'd got started...

Hello, at the game, played well enough to win though not well, utterly robbed by the ref, should have had at least one pen and theirs was cobblers.

Agreed. Get Mikael Nilsson in there, and you need Tejera and that Portuguese kid who Henry slaughtered on his debut as well. By the way, Kleber Chala won the South American version of the Champions League a few seasons ago.

Didn't being picked for England completely ar5e up Beattie's Saints career, as he wasn't considered BBBBFFs with them and realised he needed to move (and a fat lot of good that did him)..? Suggest we keep schtum, aside from the fact Lambert's about 20th in the pecking order, probably still behind Beattie.

That would probably get you one, considering how few people usually write.

I think it was 7 points at one point, due to games in hand etc. But then it was only 10 at the start of the season.

Dammit ! I won't be writing one anyway, been there, done that, best place to watch a match is behind the home end when stood on the road, other than the police constantly trying to move you on. It's a better view than the away stand anyway. PS It's not exactly midweek, it's the night before Good Friday, so the start of a Bank Holiday weekend. And any civil servants will probably have the afternoon off for Maundy Thursday as well. I know I used to

Yeah it is, that's what Michelle's been saying for weeks.

UXB. It's on the Echo site already, with two comments from people saying "send it to Fratton" and "exploded at Fratton, £1m worth of improvements". I L'dol.

http://www.european-football-statistics.co.uk/attn/archive/aveeng80.htm Note the drop from 52k in 1980 to 36k in 1989 for Manchester United attendances - are you suggesting their ground also shrank by 1/3 at the time (bearing in mind 1990 was the first season affected by post-Hillsborough ground changes and isn't a factor here) ? Man U, like everyone else, had loads of empty spaces on the terraces during the 1980s, and they'd been overtaken by Liverpool in average attendance by '89. Which is the basis for most people's argument about plastics filling the ground now. They weren't going to matches in the 80s when Man U weren't winning stuff regularly (a couple of FA Cups), even though they were thought of as "well supported", i.e. popular.

To be fair, this is exactly what he said in the press conference live on SSN last week, when he had a shred of credibility because people hadn't figured out he was just one of Chainrai's lot and the best placed person to try and cover up the financial irregularities which may cost them -15 if not the club altogether. My post here : http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/forum/showpost.php?p=630558&postcount=18068 covers what he said - I still think it's hilarious that THE ADMINISTRATOR is going to turn up to argue that they shouldn't be deducted 9 for being in administration.

With me, that's everything... I've still got an ex's phone number from 1990 stuck in here jangling around. 265560. Rrrrrrubbish, why would I ever need that, her family went to cable in 1991 !?!!?

Risk of injury, I suppose ?

Not sure that's true, Puncheon had a lot of the ball (and was the nearest we had to a decent player), but we just didn't seem to have possession very much in that match. Wycombe were able to run through the "mud" and we were just giving it back to them all the time despite not really trying to pass it much.

Interesting, as cup matches are additional games (in which a player like Fonte, for instance, wasn't always cup tied) I'd think it would give us the chance to introduce *some* of those players more quickly than if we'd only had league matches, and without risking our league results. If anything, the postponement of some league games due to cup fixtures (and snow) until after the January signings have settled has helped us in the long run as games like Huddersfield and Swindon will be played with a settled side who now know each other. Meanwhile the cup games have given Pardew the chance to have a look at fringe players and compare them directly to what he thinks is the best XI. There might be a slight impact on the familiarity process from having to change the side for cup matches, but training usually underpins the cultivation of those relationships anyway. Not sure the inability to play on poor pitches/against the bottom teams linked to any of this, and that's what's costing us points.

For the record, Tahar's new boots were silver Reeboks. And I think it was these.

It was the 2002 World Cup (they named the squad 2 days before the game) and no, after theatening to sue, the poncy tvvat still made the squad comfortably despite being injured most of the time, and even played against Sweden, Denmark and Brazil. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_FIFA_World_Cup_squads#England http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kieron_Dyer My Fantasy Football team for 2002/3 was called "Tahar Shot JR" in reference to the media outrage that followed El-Kelloggs' hilarious tackle, which was the last game of the season, when Paul Telfer also lobbed the keeper from 35 yards.

As a comparison, I didn't even notice Trotman was playing for Huddersfield last night... Doubt Lambert or Barnard did either.

So far in the three matches I've seen them both play in they have swapped sides for a grand total of about 5 minutes and they didn't bother doing it at all in one match. It's hardly "continually" switching, just something basic to disjoint defending for a few minutes and keep them thinking. Helps that Puncheon's right foot crossing is also solid.

Yeah, they have both the Patrick Air Florida broad stripe and no-stripes plain red Draper Tools (though the ad is HUGE on the latter) in authentic-looking shiny polyester 80s material.

If you look at the BBC fixtures on the site, they have us v Bristol Rov postponed from April 1 (rearranged for April 15th-ish) and us at Brighton postponed from April 3 and they haven't put the April 1 date in instead (presumably because there was already a match on that date etc).

We were definitely in the West stand for the CCC league match circa 2006.

Which rules, where ? There was nothing beyond "maybe" on the Saints front.

Yikes. Had a brain scan in 2009, otherwise few details. http://www.mtfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10393~1982833,00.html

So interesting I'd already posted the two Saints teams on here. If that's as far as you've got you're missing a lot of funny stuff...