CB Fry

"Let's slag off the club for selling players that have only been sold in my imagination" is a new one.

We appointed someone whose only managerial achievements were finishing 13th in L1 with MK and then two mid table nothing seasons with Swansea, including huge streaks of terrible form, and absolutely loads of goals conceded. It was always a risk (it's worked out OK for Leicester with their inexperienced appointment) but it hasn't for us. Yet. He might still come good in the play offs but he's never managed a single play off tie.

He gave an incredibly forceful defence of Bazunu in the early season fan forum. He aligned himself firmly with Bazunu as his chosen Number One. And he hand picked that crocked Jock.

Two Championship promotions vs achieving fuck all at MK and Swansea? Yeah, I reckon.

80% possession, though. So when you think about it properly, we actually won. Well done Russ and the boys.

Leeds and Leicester showing what can be done on comparable resources, and Ipswich showing what can be done with much more limited resources. We've dropped below the 2 points per game as well, so we're not even on track "in any normal season" either. On all dimensions he is failing right now.

Only listened to the commentary but sounded absolutely dreadful. Tessem raging through most of it about our tactics/shape/etc. It's going to be the play offs for us. Just goes to show how fucking moronic the talk of us chasing down Leicester to win the fucking league was. We're now solid fourth.

Just the nine wins in a row with two goals conceded since New Years Day, though. I'm not sure they are fluking this.

Stand Up if you love the Royal Charter for a Metropolitan Unitary Authority

There is an incredibly plausible scenario that Russell Martin's football doesn't work in the league above either. (Ditto Maresca). It's not going to stop anyone enjoying promotion if they get it. A year ago everyone was creaming themselves over Vincent Kompany. Leeds will bin off Farke before Christmas if it isn't working in the Prem. And anyway Farke has only ever managed low budget Norwich- he might get more of a crack at Leeds.

The march to the title is on, on, ONNNN

Look, I love the exchange of pendantry. Just to be clear and to avoid any confusion, I was in fact referring to our away match in Bristol ten days ago, rather than our last away trip to Bristol Rovers thirteen and a half years ago.

I apologise to @whelk in this instance. His contribution more than adequate. I missed it. Mine superfluous. But still, plenty of mileage left in this topic for sure.

Our title hopes hanging by a thread here, lads.

Russell Martin said he was out for Bristol, not "he's close". He hasn't been saying he is close for a few weeks because he hasn't been injured for a few weeks. He's been injured since Hudds two weeks ago.

0.5/10.

But do they though? How do you Bertrand will? I have no doubt there are plenty of veteran players who turn up, do their own thing and fuck off home again. There's no way they are all bloody mentors and teachers. In contrast there are young players (Harwood-Bellis) that are leaders now and will be leaders for the next decade. Not that hard to understand IMO.

Pretty sure you said that Adam Armstrong - 30 starts in the Premier League - was "never given a chance". I think we can confidently say that Sulemana will never ever be given a chance based on your expectation of what a chance is. There is huge competition for places in his role right now, and he is way down the pecking order. He needs to actually do something when he gets his sub appearances. Just like Fraser did, just like Edozie has, just like Brooks has, just like Rothwell has.

It was unthinkable, it was never going to happen and here we are it hasn't happened. All the scenarios and calculations and it was all a load of bollocks boiling down to "other teams will just lose games to give us what we want". Meanwhile we win every single game as a given. The whole thing was horseshit.

There always was, and still is, "something to grab" - it's called automatic promotion. It was the twattish belief that we could over turn an 11 point deficit in only 14/15 games that was then, and is now, absolutely laughable. The sneery arrogance that second wasn't good enough for super Saints. And the fact that people have reversed like an Italian tank at the first sign of adversity, shows how fuckwitted it was.

Feels guaranteed to move.

Leeds will win and the whole of Southampton will be buzzing with Championship title winning fever.

But our record against the bottom half is excellent. Against anything resembling the top half is not good enough (for automatic promotion). I'm not saying we will lose all three, just saying we will not win all three. Also, I am not quite the distinction you are drawing between WBA and Hull being that they have both been top 6 or thereabouts all season. Hull are as "decent" as WBA.

Win or lose (we will win) we're in the play offs. We've got to go to Leeds, and Leicester and Ipswich. I think the only way to be in with a shout of automatic promotion we will need to win all three. We will not do that.

The problem we have is that the teams we might face in the play offs generally come from the top half of the table.