Ted Bates Statue

At the Millwall match I had to turf people out from my seats in Kingsland North for the first time as another group had decided to take over their seats to be nearer to their uncle or whoever. It's allocated seating FFS, I can understand it might be a free-for-all at away matches but it's bad enough trying to get to St Mary's without having to contend with a game of musical chairs. The only time it's ok is if there are empty seats after the first half, in which case fair enough, but that doesn't often happen these days.

Not sure if it's been mentioned that Matt Donohue was also the ref for us at Watford. Incompetence is one thing but I'm definitely not looking forward to the next match where he's been assigned to us. Did anyone else on here actually agree with the offsides calls? Tessem insisted the last one was valid, although the Chapel didn't agree. Maybe the annoyance made the linesman think twice about it, as I don't think we had another offside against us for the rest of the match and were actually permitted to attack effectively (too bad nobody had their shooting boots on today).

What about his ceiling though?!

To win 3 matches in 7 days would be very impressive, but it feels nailed on that Bazunu will continue his resurgence with his best performance at St Mary's for the benefit of the opposition.

I'm not a fan of goal music by default but if it gets the crowd going I can accept it. Probably works a bit better than James Brown's I Feel Good that I believe used to be played a while back. For those who don't like it, just have to sing louder to drown it out. Notably I remember this happening before the 0-0 derby match, crowd loudly singing something completely different to the music - probably the highlight of that day (that and hearing our support belting out Oh When The Saints from 2 miles away a solid hour before kick-off). Think we do need more singers in the Chapel, I would propose safe standing for just the couple of blocks closest to the away support, although I concede that might go against the point of it being a family stand. It is notable that that section always sells out last in the ground though, despite being one of the cheapest for tickets.

If the club thinks it's an issue, they should consider installing safe standing to create a buffer between the family area and the away support then. Ticket sales are usually lower in that part of the ground and it would encourage a better atmosphere there as an alternative to the Northam. On another note, I'm surprised that ex-Man Utd Finance Director didn't get voted in. With his CV and experience I thought he would've been an absolute shoo-in.

That's according to Alex Crooks though, so I would be inclined to assume that this is not imminent after all. I think it will happen, anyone can see that, but not for a couple of months yet. Thanks to Crooks I was able to predict Tonda's job was safe very early on:

Moving on from discussing Tonda's obituary...! Think Blackmore's decent enough but I've not really noticed this issue personally and sometimes I manage to listen to the Solent commentary in the ground as well (if it's not that noisy). If anything I think it's worse with other broadcasters. Case in point - the 2024 playoff final's commentary build-up to the goal consisted of nearly a minute of Martinball possession. This was ignored by Talksport, Sky and Solent (Ian Wilding with Dean Hammond) who were unanimously talking about Leeds instead until the defence-splitting pass that put AA through on goal. For me, that is intolerable. I think while he can get things wrong, the energy he brings to the commentary makes up for it and there's a good chance he's actually talking about us instead of getting all excited about how wonderful the opposition are. On Spygate, I think although he and Jo went over the top in the aftermath calling for Eckert's sacking, they should be allowed to express their own views. I get the argument for circling the wagons but think it's worse if a commentator can't express their own opinion, for fear of being shut out by the club that they're covering. I don't need to hear a happy-clappy commentator that just spouts the party line. I am very fond of Dave Merrington and his commentary but I think he had his own faults and came in for a lot of stick when he was working. We all know we don't want to concede a goal!

Think it was suspected at the time but Adkins admitted a few years ago that Cortese forced him to play Mayuka over him.

Guy Whittingham having a mare on Radio Solent after claiming that Saints have nobody in the dressing room who grew up and understands the derby, totally forgetting about JWP. Blackmore suggests that having to go to Fratton Park as a child probably put him off Portsmouth for life.

Easily some of the best social media the club has ever done. Nearly 10 years ago. I remember reading that someone bumped into him and he spoke very fondly of Southampton even though he is known to be a West Ham supporter.

Pierce Charles double save from a Jarrod Bowen penalty, what a hero

I think I see what you mean, basically we should have proposed that we'd contest the play-off final without Tonda and exclude him ourselves. As you suggest, it's totally hypothetical now and chances are they might well have rejected the offer. But it might have been just enough to have kept us in the competition.

But first of all, what are we going to do with Rob Edwards now that he's interim manager?

GTFO with your sanctimony and support Corinthian if you're so upset

I would be more circumspect but this has all the hallmarks of one of those Paul Allen takeover era pranks that everyone else seemed to be part of but me. All that "next Friday" bollocks and cryptic bullshit. I'll take it with a pinch of salt and move on. EDIT - thanks for the anonymous DM, wow that changes everything. I stand corrected. 😉

MB said JWP would be joining on loan in January. Applying a similar time lag, that means Tonda will get until the end of the season to get us promoted before he bows out with his ban. On a serious note, Parsons did say this could take several weeks to resolve from the time he gave his interview, so I'm not sure the verdict's necessarily coming before the derby.

Feel free to see yourself out then pal, one or two of us are actually having a discussion here about the crest's history. Sadly it looks like many of the recent responses seem to prefer to scream humourless inanities into the void rather than contribute anything meaningful. I'll put that down to the international break and the ongoing uncertainty.

To do it properly, you'd need at least a dozen people to achieve the full comedic effect along with a Benny Hill soundtrack. Fun and games, until Gibson has another sense of humour failure and unleashes the hounds at them

This surfaced on Reddit earlier today, some of the initial designs and sketches that Rolland Parris made when designing the crest. Not my preference, but I think the designs on the left hand side are remarkably way ahead of their time for something from 1974 and wouldn't look out of place on the cover of a match day programme from the early 2000s. I really admire how striking the red and white shield is on its own. In my opinion, the best version of the crest is the 1976 tribute version where 'Southampton FC' is shown without the black background, like this badge from last season:

If your threshold has only just passed, you're a lot more patient than most of us. My ITK source (voice in my head) tells me he's getting banned after we get promotion. So if he bombs the rest of the season with us then we're lumbered with him (and our current away form) indefinitely.

What's the point when the other 2,499 visitors decide to smash up the toilets as they did last year (like they do to their own town, even when they win). Pompey must surely cover the bill every time they do that, and they already have a very limited financial situation by Championship standards, so might as well let them crack on and we'll disinfect and rebuild afterwards as usual.

Chelsea must be laughing right now, Abramovich only sold the club because of Ukraine and the new ownership blew the whistle on themselves. Luton got docked ten points for a trivial offence that only came to light thanks to their own whistleblowing. Pro-rata, Chelsea should have been deducted something in the region of thousands of points. They basically serve to act as a 'look what you could have won' to Man City, could have got off scott-free just like another blue club. Having heard his actual words on 5 Live I felt there was a bit more nuance than the headline suggest. Basically that he can't comment on it but referred to his own experience as a supporter of Everton's treatment before sufficient details came out over their so-called cheating. It would be ludicrous if he joined the mob to bay for blood at this point. He's the PM, not James fucking Corden. If Abu Dhabi want to keep pumping money into the UK they are free to do so as long as they don't break the rules... my guess is they try and sell up to a friendly third party which might work in closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, but we'll see. All this reminds me of a different timeline. Imagine if Gao was able to get money out of China and buy the Danny Ings replacement we needed, maybe we might have had other problems to worry about down the line. Suppose we managed to actually receive funds from the LD Sports "sponsorship." Would be interesting to find out what really happened there.