CB Fry

In fairness it's not impossible we can finish in the CL spots, just very unlikely and if we do it and we will do it our way, and require at least two of the big six to have awful seasons. The dinlows will always want us to spend spend spend and they all drooled over the fabulous investment made by Palace and Stoke and West Ham in the summer which has got them precisely no further than we are right now. But some people just want to see vanity spunking of money away as if that's an end in itself. Can't see it personally but some people are desperate to wa nk into a sock over the net spend table. If we finish top eight five years in a row then that will be unprecedented for a club our size in the Prem era - it's only Bolton who I can think of that have done four in a row.

You love your little routine about fans having their "tummy tickled", it's a theme you return to again and again. What I like about you is you refuse to sit back and take the horrific abuse you've suffered as a Saints fans these last few years, you will not have your tummy tickled. You won't trot off happily, will you? You're furious aren't you? No one tickles your tummy do they? You're not "laying on your back" are you? Just remind me exactly what you have actually done to fight back against the awful treatment you have experienced as a SFC fan. Your active, relentless and determined struggle can be an example for others.

I'll aid the lucidity of my argument with the fact that we're eighth and doing fine thanks. Must be those awful journeymen what we're lumbered with.

I look around the squad and all I see are callow young feeble minded waifs with absolutely no experience of top level football. Shivering, nervous wrecks like Forster, Fonte, VVD, Bertrand, Davis, Tadic, Long, Austin and Rodriguez. How we can ever expect the side to do well when we're relying on wet-behind-the-ears infants such as these I'll never know. I wish we were Crystal Palace. I wish we were Crystal Palace.

In fairness it's difficult not to look at the giant strides made by West Ham, Palace, Stoke and Leicester City in the league this season - they've INVESTED IN THEIR SQUADS AND EVERYTHING- and feel we've been totally left behind. Their business models are, like, loads better than ours. Loads.

Being that you have said on this forum we should have thrown the Arsenal game and have already given up on the Liverpool semi final as a definite defeat, I'm not sure what point you're making.

You'd have to get over it.

I'm missing Jonathan Creek for this.

Shane Long coming on, so that means goals goals goals.

With Redmond off, who is going to get the goals now?

Of all the infrastructure projects for the city of Southampton that public money could be spent on, I would put a mini train station for a few hundred football fans to use 25 times a year just below a silver plated ladder from the Bargate to the Moon on the priority list.

Not sure why one or more of JWP/Clasie/PEH/Reed couldn't step up in those circumstances in exactly the same way that Romeu himself did only six months ago. It wasn't long ago that Oriel was the archetypal sell high buy cheap crappy old replacement we can't keep doing this etc etc etc. Buying yet another central midfielder for big money seems a far stranger course of action than letting one or more of those four have an extended run in the side.

I'd not seen the stuff about a train station on this thread before. Looks utterly laughable to me - what would the train station actually be for? A football stadium in use about 25 days a year is not the answer to that question.

Personally I hope we spent £40m on two centre backs and £20m on a new goalkeeper this window. Desperate we are. In all seriousness I'd rather we concentrated on solving where we are short - creativity and specifically a goalscorer - and not worry so much where we are strong. Romeu is doing great and we have cover a-plenty in that area. We don't need Morgan and we're not signing him or any player like him in this window.

So the day after Morgan Schneiderlin signs for Everton there will be on this forum exactly the same level of demand for us to sign a defensive midfielder for about £15-18m this January window, right? Because that's what we need, right?

German car makers banging on Merkel's door means we get everything we want out of everything.

I've heard they set up a George Michael shrine near one of the corner flags, but then as a mark of respect moved it to a different one.

Also means we've made it clear he's not going in this window.

Sounds like a Simon Clifford type signing. Is "freestyle" football like doing keepy-uppies while sliding down a stair rail in a shopping precinct or hopping round the edge of a city centre fountain?

Actually I think and hope it's that Portuguese central defender. Samedo or whatever his name is.

Please God let's hope we've spent about eighteen million quid on a central defensive midfielder because apparently that's what we desperately need now.

We're not going to sign Morgan Schneiderlin. Get used to it.

Oh no. That means our young players will have to play in youth matches, reserve matches and try and break into the first team. You know, like every single young player that's ever broken through for any club anywhere in the entire history of British football before this stupid competition was cooked up eight months ago.

It's a competition there to give the kids some kickabouts against professional lower league teams. Job done. Winning it, or even coming close to it would be something of an embarrassment to the competition and the club. Hilarious people grizzling about this, a total nothing competition. What next? Outrage if Sammy Saint doesn't win the mascot Grand National? Uproar that we didn't win Stadium Meat Pie of the year? Get over yourselves.

We have got ambition to do that, Les Reed has said it time and again, but we'll do it our way, which being that we have finished 8th, 7th, 6th and on track for a decent top half finish again and a cup semi final, it seems to be working just fine.