Chez

bloody hell, that's a brave save

You'd prefer Lyanco was playing CB today?

Lavia is having another good game. A class above everything else we have, sadly.

Fucking hell Perraud. Woeful defending against Bowen. Get bloody tight.

Check out what he does for their goal. Bernard gave more of a fuck.

great run by Ely.

Ely gets in a decent position and fucks up the through ball. Got to better there.

Check out DCC's defending for that goal. He does nothing. Just watches it. Absolutely fucking crap.

Why on earth are our two CB's not fucking winning that header...or even challenging the header. Woeful.

West Ham fans booing their side after 22 minutes.

First Perraud cross of the day. Came down with snow on it. Walcott first touch there from the throw. Jesus.I'd be disappointed if my touch was that bad.

They do look poor, but we are also helping to make them look poor, giving them little space or ball.

Great pressure Saints. West Ham hoof into touch. Nice stuff.

he likes to come short and get it to feet

Armstrong making quite a few of those direct runs. Not come to much yet, but I should imagine they will make West Ham fans nervous.

West Ham crowd starting to grumble a little.

good control of the ball and nice attack, kwp maybe should have done better

Good pace from Walcott. Nice pass down the line to him too. Simple but effective attack. Cross blocked.

maybe his thought process is to go with the more `workmanlike' Ely and then bring Sulemana on when players are getting tired and there is a bit more space to work with? cOYR

It's difficult to understand the actual state of the finances club because the figures show the position at June 2022, so 9 months ago. Since then we have had two transfer windows with a huge amount of spending and very little in the way of transfer monies back. Next year's accounts will show all that, and I guess it will reveal significant losses. However, in turn, next year's accounts won't show the (potential) player sales this summer (maybe Lavia) that help balance the books (should that happen). Right how we have about £70m of net debt, plus about £115m of transfer fees to add on top of that. So debt could rise to £185m. We have £20m in the bank, so let's say we are -£165m. If we go down, our income will crash. £115m of TV money will drop to about £40m (parachute payment). Match day £17m and commercial £16m revenue will suffer too, perhaps not to the same extent, but it will still be significant. Let's say we lose £10m across those. That's a combined £85m less income compared to being in the prem. We lost £13m last year with the Prem money. Without it? Even if we halved our £112m wage bill (which wont be easy to do), we'd still be about £45m short of breaking even. Roughly -£165m and at least £45m losses next season in the Championship (realistically it could be higher), just shows the financial problems we potentially face. Lets hope for a win tomorrow.

Lambert makes my Bargain side at the expense of Kachloul. It was a big fee for league 1, but it still makes me smile that we sold McGoldrick for about £1m to Forrest in June and roughly the same amount was spent on Sir Rickie in August. What a fucking upgrade that was. I'd like to squeeze Jimmy Case in there that side too somehow, maybe Romeu too. Boruc Clyne Fonte Richards Bertrand Morgan Davis Marsden Beattie Lambert Pahars Good shout, especially Powell. Although Wayne Thomas would replace him in my Saw us coming side. £1.2m we didn't really have spent on a really poor CB because we were desperate. We paid £850,000 for Lee Todd in 1997. As bad a signing as Van Damme was, Todd takes the left back spot for me. I'm going McCann and Juanmi. Very tempted to go Prutton because it was a big is fee for us at that time, I had high hopes, but he was such a disappointment in the end. I'd like to get Dixon and Vestegaard in there too. Gunn Nilsson Thomas Hoedt Todd Juanmi Delap McCant Onuachu Delgado Carrillo

I'm not really qualified to read and summarise financial accounts, but they are available here if you'd like to take a closer look: https://www.southamptonfc.com/-/media/Files/Other/St Marys Football Group Ltd Financial Statements 2022 What I took from them: It is difficult to compare 20/21 with 21/22 financial years, because 20/21 had 6 extra games in it, carried over from the previous season due to the pandemic. So comparing years offers little value. It seem to be an actual loss of £13.2m after taxation. Another £7m of the loan money left the bank account, I guess to cover costs. £21m remained in June 2022. We paid £0 of the loan off. £8m of interest was added to the loan. Net debt £70.8m, up about £8m. Turnover £150m. Wages to turnover ratio now 75%. Wage bill £112m (no change on 20/21). Gave over £100k to charity. Spent a wedge on upgrading the Hero suite at SMS and the gym at the training ground. The summer (Bazunu apart - as his transfer is part of these accounts) and winter transfer dealings will obviously change the financial position somewhat, with remaining money from the bank used, shareholder cash injection, increased debt, maybe.

His posts questioning the legitimacy of reports that Russians had murdered Ukrainian civilians and that COVID patients in Italy were actors, revealed to me that he's just a little bit dumber than he looks.

fuck, they are bad. These seem slightly more in touch with the times.

You are right, Brantfoot's tactics were horrific, although I think that side might look a little better on paper than it actually was. Flowers Kenna Moore Ruddock Benali Horne Cockerill Hurlock MLT Dowie Shearer Moore was an average Prem player at best and was on the decline. Benali was limited. I loved Stomper. Not sure how good he really was though. Must have been pretty good to get that move back to Spurs. Kenna was still learning the game at that point. Cockerill was over the hill, Hurlock also. MLT became a non entity under Brantford except in the ZDS cup - where he scored loads of goals. Dowie was always only ever OK. Shearer was obviously an emerging talent, hence the move, but he did things at Blackburn in that first season that he hadn't shown for us. Yeah, maybe we weren't shite, but the best football from Flowers, Kenna, MLT and Sheader was to come. What formation did we play? Did Horne play wider or did we play three in the middle and MLT in the hole? I just noticed that we lost after extra time. That is not something I remember at all. I'm getting old.