CB Fry

Personally I'm glad he's dead.

None of that means we couldn't have employed a replacement that would do better than Pellegrino has. We very obviously could have done that - Puel's sacking is not the issue. His dreadful replacement is.

We won't need four wins. 3 plenty with the league as it is, plus a couple of draws and thats 38 points. Not saying that is easy or that we'll do it.

You might be on to something. I remember last year we had to play on the Saturday and then in the cup final the day after. Must be because we're not one of the so-called top-six elite "big" superior main major elite big clubs.

Yes but the question was why Sky have planned a Friday night game on FA Cup weekend when the answer us they've planned it because it is FA Cup weekend. The only odd thing is picking a team with a high likelihood of being in the quarters but there you go.

It's international week so it will not be the Monday. Sky are probably showing a game on Friday night because, errr, it's cup weekend and BBC and BT will have big games across Saturday and Sunday. Pretty obvious really.

Why is Matthew Parris writing directly to Saints Web contributors? Any chance he can do one for me? I read his column every Saturday and everything.

The day the fixtures come out is the day they reset all the league tables.

Cup win and twenty thousand fans die in stadium fire?

What's childish is conflating one relegation with spiralling into oblivion like Coventry, when it took even Coventry about a decade to get to there. On that logic, we could stay up this season and then go down next and still become Coventry anyway. If you think do little of our prospects that we couldn't even weather one season in the Championship then I don't really understand how you think we have much chance in staying in the Premier League for much longer anyway. We're clearly doomed I tells ya, doomed.

Indeed. The option isn't win the cup and be relegated into liquidation and becoming the next Coventry OR don't win the cup but stay in the Premier League for infinite seasons and never ever be relegated. Win the cup and go down this season, don't win the cup and don't go down this season. This season. Just this season.

Jesus wept.

And me. Unspeakable night. Still annoyed about it.

Presumably we'll be on the BBC as fourth choice tie.

Delph off. Name on the cup.

All pointing to a Wigan procession in the second half. No bother.

Tonight's the night we find out who we beat to get to our first Wembley semi final. I've been sucking on Uncle Joe's Balls all afternoon for good luck. So fingers crossed.

Fair enough, that's a customer service/loyalty issue then which isn't Les Reed's remit.

You're back to this old routine are you? Of course you've never explained what your point is, or given any examples of a comparable football club that isn't "playing the fans".

Well I wouldn't have, just like I didn't want us to sign Sturridge before and after WBA signed him. And I wanted us to sign Promes before and after we didn't. It's pretty easy to hold a consistent position to be honest. All I could see was a player with no record of holding down a place in the team or scoring any goals. Just weird statto heads trying to pretend that, y'know, if you carry the one and multiply it by all games ever played he's actually Eusebio. Anyway the early signs not great and we're already giving him pats on the head and maybe he'll come good like he's some kid from the reserves not the man we've paid more for than any other player. Another triumph just like our other recent record signings.

I have so many happy memories of our eighth round tie against Arsenal in Cardiff all those years ago. Shame the result didn't go our way.

Wigan will absolutely smash them on Monday. Then go on to beat us.

You'll have remind me who these unattainable suggestions were? Marco Silva, recently relegated with Hull, barely seems like some pipe-dream and he was probably the top pick of this forum. What point are you actually making?

Among all the Saints fan in my friends and family, plus all the comments from every single contributor on this forum, and not one of them, not a single one mentioned wanting Pep or Mourinho to come, because obviously they wouldn't have done and they're not absolute fu cking idiots. Your mates down the pub sound very, very special.

The statistical experts told me he scores a goal every other game so I looking forward to seeing him banging them any game now.