CB Fry

More interestingly is that QPR drew 7 home games and Norwich drew 6, something we don't look close to doing. So worrying too much about mirroring what others have done (aside from the points tally) is fruitless. If we keep up our unbelievable home form - say remain unbeaten and draw a couple more - then our away form can be pretty average.

Did Birmingham "concentrate" on the League Cup at the expense of their league form? Or did they just happen to win it? And the league cup final was at the end of February, with the end of the league season at the end of May, with about ten or eleven league games in that time. City won the cup and got relegated but that does not mean, in any way, that one caused the other. And anyway, most Brum fans I have read or heard have said they wouldn't change it. A day out at Wembley and a trophy or a tedious, forgettable scrimp to 17th. I know what I'd take every single day of the week.

Don't really see the point of not trying to win - a nice little cup run is just another thing to help build momentum, and we are capable of going on a nice little cup run. I don't expect us to win it, but a nice jaunt through a few rounds before bowing out to a top six Prem team live on TV doesn't sound too bad to me. And Cardiff played Barnsley in an all CCC (as was) semi final only a few years ago. That said, I'd say we can beat Coventry and rest players, so I think we can please everyone.

I'd say that time and date is set in stone. It's the last day of the season and all matches will be played at the same time, so Sky would already have planned that into the schedule. It's a bit of a shame that the last day of the season of a league that is genuinely exciting is shunted into Saturday lunchtime. I'd wager the last day of the Prem will be full of the usual tedium of "will stoke or Everton claim that last Europa League spot".

Stoke seem to have done a pretty good job of signing some grade A utter c** ts - why hello there Jermaine Pennant - and melding them into a team. So probably as much about the manager as the players. Adkins has a different style to Pulis but hopefully the result will be similar.

You're far from alone. You are allowed to have gut feelings on this forum, but forum rules from the happy clappers tell us that you are only allowed to have gut feelings if they are wholeheartedly unreservedly positive - ie this guy is and will be a Saints legend, I worship and adore him, even though two days ago I'd never heard of him. Any gut feelings of trepidation, worry or being underwhelmed will get the betwetters flooding their hallways with gallons of pi ss. And they'll be dredging up your forum posts weeks later when said new signing has a half way decent game. Be warned.

Very acheivable. It would be worth seeing how bad our form needs to be for us to finish only sixth. My guess it would need to be pretty (and unrealistically) horrendous.

It was on the sky broadcast and on the football league show. So on the iplayer if you want to see it.

No you didn't. The we will slide down the league thing only started after we had already started strongly and you needed a new angle for your wind-up bull sh ite. Your start of season prediction was, oh my aching sides, 17th. Forum wind up from the absolute top drawer. Anyway, I have broken my own rules by even replying to your ha-ha-ha-ha-look-at-me-on-a-wind-up-jolly-funny-aren't-I rubbish.

Have another go, and see if you can make your contribution a little more pompous.

You never said we would start strongly. You said we were going to finish 17th and that we had no intention of trying to get promoted this season. You've been wrong about everything this season, so just belt up you wind up merchant.

If we were turning away 10,000 fans every week in the Premier League as our resident computer gaming div is trying to make out, why on earth did we not sell out of season tickets (I think the max we could sell was 25,000 and I don't think we got near that) and why wasn't there a season ticket waiting list. At the Dell the reason we knew we needed a bigger ground was because we had a season ticket waiting list and the only way to guarantee seeing regular games was to get a season ticket. If there really was 10,000 additional fans desperate to get in to see Bolton then I am sorry but they wouldn't all just shrug their shoulders and give up, they'd get a season ticket. That's what demand for tickets is, that's what demand for tickets manifests itself as. And anyway, I don't understand why these 10,000 fans only thought about buying a ticket on the morning of the game? Just fairyland. If there was 40,000 fans fighting for 30,000 tickets there would be tangible, regular, visceral demand. Queues round the block. 30 minute sell outs. And, crucially, loads and loads and loads of season ticket sales. There wasn't, because there wasn't.

I don't understand why there is such a strong defence about why these "casual fans" don't turn up now (children, work commitments, money worries, location, travel time etc etc) but the same people are arguing that these "casual fans" are suddenly going to turn up in droves entirely because we've spent £xxx million on 10,000 new seats. Why does having a bigger stadium make all these work commitments go away? Unfortunately, here in the real world, we don't build or extend stadiums for casual fans, we build them for regular fans, or potential regular fans that can't get in - hence why season ticket waiting lists is a good measure of potential return on investment and every single measure that Matthew Le God suggests (cherry picked random games, made up demand, something about Chelsea in 1983, "look at Wolves", something about Roker Park) isn't. And anyway, we've all read Matthew Le God's grand plan for kids for a quid, pensioner discounts and cut price family tickets, in which he proves us human beings right with his own cock eyed strategy - if the only way to fill 10,000 new seats is to sell them cheaper than now, there aint the demand old son.

I had my heart set on losing a penalty shoot-out in Leicester but there you go, you can't have everything. I can just about stomach a open top bus parade.

"I don't just expect to be promoted this year, I want us to be champions". Car to name the "idiot" who said this in September? I'd daresay that person does not think the current squad is "overperfoming" at all - he'd say we are where he'd expect us to be. The only "idiots" in the forum here are the ones desperately trying to reposition outselves as plucky little overacheiving underdogs where its the taking part that counts and fingers crossed lets scrape tenth wouldn't that be marvellous. We're here to win the league so "in reality" we should be precisely where we are.

I've heard from a source very high up at the club that Cortese doesn't just expect us to be promoted this season, he expects us to go up as champions. So let's not pretend that expectations are being raised purely by our current performances or by the fan base. Its been raised from the top down. Probably doesn't really help Adkins but there we are. The expectation is to deliver promotion in first place this season. The manager, the players and the fans are just going to have to live with it.

Still on more than two points per game, and WHU lost as well. Still well on track for promotion. But a couple of signings in Jan would give us some more options up front which I think is critical is we are going to deliver top-two.

Sunderland won't be interested in Adkins, not enough glamour and no history with the club or the area. And Cortese and Adkins would collectively say no. Adkins is not going to be agitating for a move to the Stadium of Light. Bigger fanbase, but in reality no more chance of winning something, or getting into Europe, than staying at Saints (as long as we go up this season of course). Adkins really won't interest anyone until we get promoted, and then he's going to have to get us top ten for any club of any significant size - your Villa, Newcastle or Everton - to take any interest. And even then he probably wouldn't want to go if he's top ten with us.

No one is arguing we shouldn't plan it. The debate on here is from the self proclaimed "intelligent posters" who want things to happen now now now and disregard sensible measures like - do we have 25,000 season ticket holders and a waiting list for season tickets, is our stadium locked out weeks in advance for most games, have we truly established ourselves as at least a top ten Premier League club, have we maxed out revenue streams from tickets and corporate entertainment meaning the only viable option is additional seats. That's what me and the "thickos" as we are described by Wes Tender and Matthew Le God want to see. Planning, thought, and genuine business need. Plan for ways to grow the business. Absolutely no doubt that is what Nicola Cortese is doing. Us thickos want planning. It's the self proclaimed "intelligent" ones who want to build it because Wolves might do the same, and their plan to fill it is by running discount promos left right and centre to give tickets away to school kids, and selling thousands and thousands of additional tickets to fans of opposing teams whereby gift wrapping the atmosphere of the stadium over to the opposition. It's the self proclaimed "intelligent" ones who want a 44,000 stadium just to make them feel good, regardless of whether it makes us a dime. But what would the rest of us know. The intelligent posters know best.

In a word, yes. Sunderland averaged nealry 30,000 when they were top of the league a few years back. I go back to my original point - where on earth are 20,000 - twenty thousand - extra fans going to come from? Oh, sorry, I remember - you "intelligent posters" have the answer don't you - spend xxx million on the stadium and then fill it by giving tickets away to school children, doing family discounts and kids for a quid nights. Oh, yes, and how can I forget, selling 8,000 tickets to travelling Man U fans to help the atmosphere. Brilliant.

Did you not bother to actually read my post - this is a thread called "expansion to 44,000". To make a move like that anything like viable then we would be needing twenty thousand extra fans than turned up last night for a top of the table clash which marked a record breaking home league run. Your game against Bolton you refer to - was there a lock out - were there 10,000 frustrated Saints fans desperate for tickets - did the game go on general sale or were those oh-so-rare tickets snapped up by the membership with watertight buying records? How many of that crowd were season tickets - was it anything like the 25,000 minimum we'd need to justify sticking 10,000 extra seats in? So, not actually that easy, is it?

Nights like tonight don't convince me we're going to pull twenty thousand extra fans through the door for a game against Bolton on a Monday night on Sky. But as the people who think they are in charge of "intelligent debate" on this forum have said: Turkish said last season we wouldn't get promoted which therefore means we can definitely fill at 44,000 seater stadium or something. Thank god they're here to help us "get the point into our thick skulls".

For the love of god can one of the admins change the title of this thread.

Well, he did get Wolves out of the Championship.

Probably not far wrong. Hoddle and Strachan never bought better than Jones did. Could well have been our Tony Pulis.