Alanh

As long as it's a home match I'll be happy. off on holiday the next day so would like to go having seen the first win of the season. Seperate question - what records do you think Saints could break this year? Most wins in a season, most points, most goals scored, most goal scorers, best goal difference? Not sure what our club records are for those stats but we must have a great chance of beating some of them.

Agree, and given that we hardly ever sell out in this league I can't see the membership scheme being worth administering if it is only about preference on the priority list for scarce tickets. Something that means that members don't pay the £3 transaction fee would make perfect sense even set at £15.

You realise that buying in ash on the day is usually the most expensive way to buy a ticket so you will probably end up paying more if you do this. Also, the £3 booking fee is per transaction. If the ticket office make 10 matches available for sale you could buy your ticket to each of them in one transaction and cut your 'ticket tax' to 30p per ticket - a pretty reasonable transaction fee. I suspect however that your protest is more about shouting for the sake of being heard.

Alpine obviously turned over two pages on his calendar - It's June, not July. Even if we had signed 10 new players they wouldn;t be adding anything to the squad as they would be on holiday. If, in a months time we haven't signed anyone then start to comment, but until then relax. Having said that, I'm sure someone else will start another thread later this week with the same subject.

Just because we may be buying from other L1 teams doesn't mean that the players we are buying aren't nPC standard.

That's a pretty balanced squad. I'm a bit concerned that he's taken Ferdinand and King who have both had injuries this season and haven't recent been able to play back to back matches. I'm pretty sure that will mean Upson starting at some point, although he has been OK for England. Looks like Barry is a certain starter so it's just a matter of how to bring a balance to the rest of the midfield and attack and including the likes of Gerrard, Lampard and Rooney. Looks like Heskey is there as a foil for Rooney when we need to play 4-4-2 with Crouch to be the option off the bench. At least we have plently of pace in the squad with Lennon and SWP. not sure Theo would have brought anything different to the squad that those two don't have - they are all similarly quick.

Google translate suggests it's close to a done deal. Still don't know how reliable that website is though. Freddy Adu is on his way to Southampton, the club that operates in League One, equivalent to the Portuguese second division. The advanced medical examinations and awaiting work permit to seal the transfer, as the English club has reached an agreement with Benfica, also trading with Aris Thessaloniki, where it should stay until 2010 / 11.

For defence I'd drop Warnock, Dawson and either King or Ferdinand as you can't take two injury liabilities. For midfield I'd drop Huddlestone (Carrick can do his job), Parker, Wright-Phillips (if Lennon is fit) and Johnson (would like to take him but Milner and Cole are better options on the left) For attack I'd drop Bent (not convinced he can do it at international standard) Surprised Zamora didn't make the final 30 after his Europa Cup season.

The FL and the PL have different rules related to clubs going into admin. In the PL the -9 is applied when the admin happens regardless of when that is. In the Fl -10 is applied to the current season unless it happens after a certain date, in which case it applies the following season. We went into admin after the cut off date last season so got our -10 this year. The FL haven't said anything yet because PFC aren't under their juristiction yet. Just wait until the start of the new season and what might happen when they liquidate the existing club.

They haven't avoided the same points deduction penalty that we got, they just took it this season rather than have it carried over thanks to FAPL rules not having an admin deadline.

From Matt Smith on Twitter CVA will be HMRC-backed compromise: 5yr deal that will run 4 9 months as PCFC then transfer 2 new company for remaining 4+ yrs...old co will then be liquidated & assets/league membership transfered 2 new co. Full investigation will take place of old co. Creditors 2 get minimum 20p/£, team payroll cut 2 £10m pa on projected revs of £25m, Premier League advancing £ 2 cover current shortfall. Based on that, they aren't going to dissappear but will likely start next season on 0 points in CCC. Dissapointing outcome if it comes to pass.

He never felt comfortable here and his heart wasn't in it. He wanted to make a point to Mandaric but once he had done that by joining us he didn't have a reason to be here anymore. Lowe's style of managing probably didn't work for him either - chequebook manager v accountant philosphy.

That's great in theory, but how many teams ever have a 100% home record. Even Arsenal in their Incincible season didn't. In practice we need to have a strategy to win every game next season. We won't do it and there will be upsets and unexpected results along the way, but our form since October suggests that more than 2 points per game is achievable. I know you were joking but we should never attempt to play like Oldham away from home. If we replayed that match 10 times with each team having the same strategy we would win it 9 times. They got lucky in that we didn't get a break all game - just about the only home game all season that has happened.

You could say that the -10 cost us the chance of getting to the play-offs and poor start caused by the work needed to construct a competitive squad cost us the chance of automatic promotion. Having said that if we had neither the poor squad or the -10 then we would probably still have been in the CCC with the previous regime in charge. After the season we have just had I'll take where we are going to finish and will look forward to next season and hopefully a championship to celebrate.

It was one of those games where we needed a break but didn't get one. That was partly down to Oldham's defensive commitment and partly down to the ref who failed to spot a couple of blatant handballs in their area. The ball and 18 - 20 players was in the Oldham third of the field for the vast majority of the match so there wasn't much space to open them up. We tried pretty much everything - crosses of all sorts, dribbling through, long shots, but nothing came off. It's all very well criticising the players and AP for decisions during the game but to me it looked like a game where we needed a spark of inspiration or a lucky break - the sort of things that typically happen at least once in every match but didn't last night. Looks like play offs are not on for the season but I'll be happy if we get 7th place and are within 10 points of 6th. Looking forward to the announcement of new season tickets, the new home kit for next season and spending the summer watching the World Cup and then having a 3 week break before 2010 / 2011 kicks off.

Depends if we get promoted or not. If we are in L1 next year I'd sign him, but I'd think twice if we got promoted as I don't think he's good enough for the CCC at the moment. I can see the comparison to KJ to an extent and it would be great to think that he will develop in the same way.

You star. Thanks very much. Just need Saints to turn around this scoreline now.

Wise Bates Dodd Nicholl ??

But surely they have to be a fully functioning club in order to receive the payments. If a team that is relegated them promoted before the parachute payment schedule is completed (i.e. after one season) the remaining parachute payment is distributed among the other Football League teams. If a club is liquidated in the same timeframe then surely the same thing would happen to the outstanding payments - they would go to the FL clubs. The PL have never been tested on this but I would have thought that would be the course of events.

Saints winning and Colchester loasing are the two most important results this afternoon. If MK and Rovers draw that's the icing on the cake but if one of them has to win let's hope it's Rovers as we then get the psychological boost of going up a place.

Gonna have to disagree because I saw Lallana and Puncheon being double and triple marked during the Swindon match. I agree that wingers hugging the touchline is a way to spread play, especially when play is through the middle, giving the centre mids options to spread the play wide, but when play is on either flank the opposite wide man needs to come in to support the centre mids who automatically track across.

I've seen Lallana and Puncheon receive the ball on the byline loads of time this season so to say that they don't provide width is nonsense. Neither of them are speed merchants so you'll rarely see them get a cross in from the byline, but to be honest you rarely see that from any team in this league and only rarely in the top flight as it's pretty common for full backs to be as fast as wingers these days. Our wide midfielders provide variation thanks to their close control and their ability to come inside and play the killer through ball. If they were out and out wingers we would be one dimensional in our attacking play, which would be far more frustrating than what we have at the moment. Other teams might get the better of us occasionally and Swindon managed it by double or triple marking Lallana and Puncheon every time they got the ball, and then capiltalising on the fact that Morgan and Hammond had poor games and controlling the centre of the park. i don't think that they were a particular threat down the wings all game.

Yes, and all the season at SMS before that. I should have said, the worst game this season to be fair. I thought it was the worst game because not much football was played. The ball was hoofed or mispassed or miscontrolled too often by both sides to develop any sort of pattern. We played a lot better against Swindon and got nothing which just shows how football works sometimes. I agree it wasn't our best team and AP deserves credit for changing the formation, but overall we were poor and couldn't do the basics right. We will lose more matches than we win if we continue to play like that.

One of the worst games of football I've seen at SMS. Neither team could string a number of passes together through the entire game. It's our second poor performance at SMS after the Swindon game so I hope it's not a sign for the rest of the season, or for Sunday as we will struggle to get anything against Carlisle if we play like that. Saints really missed Lallana and Schneiderlin when he went off and Harding at RB is not ideal as Mills is weaker LB and Harding doesn't look comfortable on that side of the pitch. Despite a couple of lapses in communication I thought Seabourne was good, especially in the air and his distribution on the ground was much better than Jaidi's. A win is a win, but we really laboured to get there and I can see now how the draws and defeats to the likes of Wycombe, Tranmere, Brentford and Exeter away from home have come about if we have played like that.

For next season we need to improve the squad in central midfield so that we have more options than just Hammond and Schneiderlin. James being back is decent cover but I think someone with a bit more experience would be good - a better version of Wotton. We also need to get off to a flying start, which should be more possible than this season with a more settled squad, a decent pre-season and no -10 points to content with psychologically. If we can convert about half of the 12 draws that we have had so far this season into wins then we will be in position to challenge for the top two places. This season has been a freak year for points scored by the top 6. Hopefully next season won't be the same and we will be able to challenge with the sort of form that we have shown since October this season.