CB Fry

We can close out 30 seconds, can't we?

6 freaking minutes will feel like it.

Fu ck off you clay pot making cu nts. YESSSSSS.

In the second half.

Balls.

Well, we won't be doing that.

I am awfully terrified over how picking that team tonight is going to obliterate our league form in April and May 2015 next year. You know, after next Easter. Whatever shall we do? Or, in the real fu ck ing world, Ronald Koeman has got his selection bang on. Go for it boys. Effing go for it.

...

Hilarious.

It's sweet. Can still remember the BBC Football League Show feature when we played them at their place in L1, a parade of Boscombe fans rambling on about what a big game it was and what rivals we are, plus special flags and banners ago-go. Then cut to a couple of vox pops with Saints fans shrugging their shoulders, being nice about AFCB and generally bemused by the apparent excitement.

English isn't your first language, I get it.

Well it doesn't. How about reading the post I replied to before you read my reply. (Lickle Hint: the post before by Batman talks about fan reaction if we lose, which I then comment on). Happy to help. Christ.

Well, they won L1 and we didn't, so it's a fair point. Also don't think Norwich had the funds to spend £2m and a four year contract on a striker to use for only six months and never play again. After our respective first seasons back in the Prem things diverge but fortunately no one in m-board history has ever claimed Norwich have had a comparable Prem record to us, so that's all right then.

I think we know what the clubs true aims are already. And they don't involve spun king dopey money around chasing top four. Top four, if we achieve it, will be done our way. We won't be spending much in January, whether we're third, fourth, eighth or fourteenth. And I, for one, am more than happy with that.

It's not an opinion stated as fact. It's just an opinion. "Give opinions supported by evidence", laughable. It's Match of the Day not a paper in the bloody Lancet.

It is our best chance of success. People saying "wait for the FA Cup" are ridiculous as we can be in the semis of this before we kick a ball in the FA Cup, that's two legs away from Wembley. I will be gutted if we go out, but I doubt RK will treat the cups with the contempt that Argentine did. We'll be giving it a go.

What? I'm not certain we'll lose and haven't said we will lose. What are you on about?

9 points from 10 is "the level of results needed for 5th/6th"? Crystal Palace and Leicester fans will be delighted - they've got 9 from 9 so will be planning next year's Europa League away days already. NickG, your "stats and logic" truly are beyond me.

Will depend on how we lose and the team put out. And, as has been explained, this is a completely different set of circumstances to the Sunderland FA Cup game. I know it won't impact your usual "everyone is a hypocrite" schtick so not sure why I or anyone else is bothering in pointing out the differences. Enjoy spending the next 48 hours making the same point over and over again.

Yeah, your "stats and logic" are beyond me. This coming from the man who spent all of last season desperately trying to make out he didn't say something even when people requoted the exact quote back to him. What do you think our "realistic aim" is this season? Tell me what it is today and don't worry you can pretend you never said it tomorrow.

It's perfectly possible, 6th certainly although it gets exponentially more difficult to move up to 5th and then 4th. In the same way that it takes two teams to make an 8-0 scoreline - one to be great, the other to be appalling - we will likely need a meltdown or two elsewhere for us to sneak into fourth. Newcastle finishing fifth was helped in no small measure by the worst Chelsea league campaign in the Abramovic era. To finish sixth we just need a wobbly season from someone else and Spurs, Liverpool and Everton all look capable of obliging.

So, just so we're clear, you can start threads creating some convoluted "alternative" table with a fabricated "real" points total. That's fine for you to do that. But someone pointing out we haven't played many "big" teams, and when we have we've lost, is someone who doesn't understand how leagues work and has no perspective. Okay then.

This is based on what exactly? Please don't say Ruud Gullit saying we have some tough games coming up last night.

Because we could secure a spot in the semi finals of a major trophy before we kick a single ball in the FA Cup. And we might draw Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in the FA Cup third round.

I think he people that think that can be measured on the scale from pretty much no one all the way to no one.