CB Fry

This is slightly ambitious. Currently fifth from bottom are on 11 points, a point per game. Assuming the fifth from bottom team continues to accrue a measly point per game.... We need Championship Winning form (2 points per game) over the next ten games to overtake fifth from bottom. After we play our 21st game of the season (home v Tranmere, 12th December) and have maintained two points per game, then we will overtake fifth from bottom at that point. (Saints 22 points, fifth bottom 21 points). So with Championship winning form we'll be out of the drop zone with one game to spare before Christmas. Not quite getting to mid table by Christmas. It's a long slog.

Yes, we are the Chelsea of this league, and yes we should be delivering championship-winning form (2 points per game) pretty soon. Not sure Chelsea fans, if they had won one game in ten would be lauding that form as you did on this forum in the last week or so. And Chelsea wouldn't be taking the performance of a relegation plagued struggling club (SFC early 2000s) as their benchmark as you did. So its easy to rabble rouse about how we need to be positive, but when you are lauding one win in ten as some magnificent triumph we shouldn't dare complain about it doesn't quite ring true. You want to win every single game and get all Churchillian about it, but shrug shoulders "never mind" at one win in ten. Not sure that's quite the mindset of Alex Ferguson et al you claim to be exclusively channelling on here. Make your mind up.

Don't understand this "swing" thing you've mentioned a couple of times. Yes Gillingham can never now get three points away from home against us this season, but so what? They can win lots of other games where we have no say in the result at all. Six pointers count between small groups at the top or bottom of a league, or in the closing stages of a season, but you can't apply that theory across every single club over three quarters of a season. Anyway, it is possible to make the play offs, but following the appalling start we've had (which you were raving about as Strachan-esque) it is now very very unlikely. We should have knocked off the ten points by September - that was possible/come on we can do it/we just have to believe/get behind the lads/etc/etc/etc - but we didn't. Anyway, Quite frankly I think you've underplayed things - why aren't we going to win the league outright? There's still 105 points to play for and who says we can't win every single game from here on in? Anyone who says we can't do it is a rubbish negative saints fan. You disgust me with your lame negative "let's scrape the playoffs" whining. We should be winning the league. Get a backbone man.

That's exactly what I said at the start of the season. The fact that we've spent the first quarter of the season in relegation form is reason enough to change that view. Play-offs now are highly unlikely - we need Championship winning form from here on in. Not one win and four draws in five and "aren't we doing well". Two points per game average for the rest of the season, and even that might not be enough. And finally, just for Le God - after our fine win yesterday we are now....wait for it.............still 16 points off the play offs. Someone forgot to tell the rest of the league to stand still while we win...

It's an "as it stands" table.

In ten games time the play off teams will have about 32 points - thats on a pretty conservative 1.5 points a game. So even if we win the next ten games in a row we still wouldn't be in the top six. A highly ambitious 2 points per game (Championship winning form) for the rest of the season from now would see us maybe, maybe scrape the play offs, some seasons 71 points has been enough. But that's Championship winning form. You need to get your story straight, Le God. The other day you were saying how fantastic Pardew was doing because it compared to Strachan's early performance for a relegation-plagued Southampton in 2000 when we were one of the lowest spending teams in the division. When in this league we are the highest spending teams by a mile and you benchmark us against perennial relegation strugglers. And now we're aiming for the playoffs?? Make your mind up.

Ponty isn't and doesn't want to be a teacher so is well within his rights to use "yeah", especially as we're on a forum here and no-one is teaching kids anything via Saints Web. Expecting people not to use the word "yeah" is a forlorn hope these days. And I prefer to be more specific on the "enough..already" line - it's a lovely New York Jewish turn of phrase and I make no apologies for using it. It certainly isn't "wrong". That's the beauty of English - there's loads of it around, ever evolving, expanding, growing and even eating itself. That's the kind of thing teachers should be inspiring our kids with instead of bellyaching about being asked to act like adults with a profession, whining about how only they do any work in Britain (work weekends? finish at 6pm? gosh) and on the scrounge for the next free day off they can get off in the name of we're-hard-done-by industrial action. And the lad defending teachers posted a grammatical bombsite which is hardly a glowing endorsement of these working-till-six-in-the-evening superheroes, is it?

He was saints for barely a year, so cannot be described as one of our most successful manager, he was a glorified caretaker. And he was a miserable failure everywhere else, excluding Swindon, when he had Glenn Hoddle the player to pick in his team. Weirdo.

It's called dinlow Hubris and you're king div. You posted all those rumours to wind us up and we're using the same stuff to wind you up again. Its only the fact you take yourself so incredibly seriously that you don't get that. Christ, you aint no guru on all things Portsmouth. Just a plank obsessed with posting on a Saints forum day in day out. And we're laughing at you.

Christ, if you can't see a throwaway post for what it is, then the long explanation is.... It's a reference to one of our premium "I-go-to-the-training-ground-in-the-knowers" telling us that Saints had delivered training kit to Gordon Strachan's house over the summer and he was definitely, definitely our next manager.

Yeah is a word. It's a colloquialism but it is a perfectly acceptable word to use, especially on a internet forum. Enough rubbish pedantry already.

Someone has told me that Saints have delivered SFC training kit to Keegan's house this afternoon. FACT. He's starting on Monday.

I'm sure you'll deserve the time off.

Here we go.... For every poster saying "Pardew out" there are 25 posters saying "can't believe everyone wants Pardew out etc its disgusting etc etc Alex Ferguson blah blah". The pontificators far outnumber the people that want Pardew out: there's about four on this forum, and Alpine and Delldays aren't on that list. Spare us the moral outrage. Hardly anyone wants Pardew out, but feck me people are allowed to grumble as we are still on minus points in October and staring down the barrel of a relegation battle.

ballbags.

Errr - a "forward's tackle" ie a tackle executed by an attacking player (or "forward"), ie a tackle executed by somebody lacking some of the required skills of timing/judging said tackle. A euphemism for a crap tackle by a crap tackler. Heard that referenced in football commentary for twenty five years.

Nice.

Why on earth do Saints need Churchillian sentiments to beat Bristol friggin Rovers?

...only because of the contracts the club drew up with TheSaint (ie itself) and subsequently radio hampshire and the ClubWorld/Player people. If the club didn't object we could all listen for free, there are clubs you can hear for free anywhere online.

What a load of old guff. You can get hammered more easily in the UK in 2009 than at any other point in history. Have you been in an Asda or any high street in Britain recently? "Thin end of the wedge" type rants are delivered by people with no perspective whatsoever. "Control all workers". Right you are, Wolfie.

Teachers moaning like the world owes them a living? Hysterically overreacting to what would be perfectly normal requirement for any employee in any job, public or private sector anywhere in the country? Griping and groaning despite being well paid, well holiday-ed and pensioned up to the eyeballs to a degree that most private sector workers could only dream of? Convinced that they are the only people who have ever done a hard days work? Shut up crying into your copy of the Guardian and get into the real world because you're all whining like sl ag s at the moment but you wait until Cameron and the boys in blue start work next summer. You won't have it this good again, because they'll be stopping the union fuelled gravy train the public sector have been on since 97. Get ready to really have something to grizzle about.

Nope. Not old enough. Played fewer than 200 games for us, and all of those appearances were during his Indian Summer, not his peak. So in terms of matches played, you'd be better off naming a stand after, say, Matty Oakley. Alan Ball in terms of contribution/affinity to Saints is not Channon, Davies, Le Tissier, Paine or Bates.

If he wasn't dead, there is no way people would be going on about naming a stand after him. Good (not great) manager for us, but only did one full season and was off up the M6 for the money as soon as his old chum Franny came calling. Anyway, I like the current names, naming stands after players is lame, naming them after the areas really puts the stadium (a modern building) in the heart of the old city.

LOL.

My favourite readers comment is this absolute gem: Oh yes, there are some "you people and your messageboard comments have ruined everything" types amongst the blue few as well. Hilarious.