Ted Bates Statue

Any chance of a full match replay anywhere online? Evening ruined when I returned home to find I'd managed to record the Cherries' radio commentary

In that case you need to re-read my post and watch the goals again

I get what you're saying. I heard that he actually approached the skates prior to enquiring about a return to us but they said no because he'd played for us for too long. That's why whenever you see a picture of him now, he's frowning even when it looks like he's pretending to smile. Even in the derby you can see how uncomfortable he looked playing for us and in some instances he even celebrates the goals in front of their supporters instead of ours. He really is a disgrace

It's been a while since we talked about how our defenders could do a job for us in midfield... perhaps Jack Stephens could provide cover for us there if he's no longer going to be first choice in defence? I seem to remember that theory was floated a couple of times on here.

Good luck bringing that in. On Saturday on my way in, I was informed by the steward that all bags will be banned in a few weeks unless you have a medical exemption certificate (and I assume drinks containers would be included, as they are usually the thing these environments latch onto first). The irony with all this is that they can't ban pockets, so there's still plenty of opportunity to find a workaround, but with zero water points inside it's a bit much to expect us to have to smuggle in tea or water with a hip flask. I'm not sure if the chap was severely misinformed, as this is incredibly draconian even by standards of places like Wembley or Spurs, and official policy on Southampton's website still states that an A4 bag is acceptable.

You're an absolute genius if this works on the Saints website. I understand why they do it, but it has put me off in the past

That's too bad, there's a ready-made song for him right here. If we just stick to the first couple of lines it should be easy enough to learn the lyrics, although it remains to be seen whether the Northam can handle the octaves.

Saw this yesterday and immediately thought we have a rival to the Crumps' compo face pictures. I hope this isn't considered too far off-topic, bearing in mind the amount of shit we've had to deal with this decade

Anyone else want to predict the attendance? Charging £25 as they have done, it will be a struggle to sell more than 15k tickets, or they could have priced tickets around £15 and got around 25k bums on seats. Either way, takings would be about the same, but the bigger stadium crowd would make for a far more positive experience... assuming the result doesn't upset the fans even further. I don't begrudge the club on trying to maximise revenue but everyone knows this competition doesn't matter this season and the crowds aren't going to be up for this one with ticket prices that high.

When the FA decide to finally punish Tonda with a hefty fine, perhaps they could put the proceeds towards funding futsal programmes again after they decided to cut it around Covid, if I remember correctly.

When he said that I didn't anticipate it being more like "stand up if you want Sports Republic out" with the entire ground spitting feathers as we edge closer in our metamorphosis of becoming Stoke

In a way I'm not surprised given we've been unbeaten for months in the league, but that's quite staggering. Even if we just compare league results with those who managed us in the 2nd tier, it's 60% and 2.06 points per game, beating even Adkins and his Liebherr-powered squad. I'm not worried about a touchline ban but the only thing that concerns me is long-term injury to either Larin or Peretz could destroy our season.

Why is it that we had to give up our satellite academy in Bath to placate the clubs in that region, but it's ok for Chelsea and Man City hoovering up all the prospects in Hampshire? Another instance of Saints simply surrendering to the EFL (and PL).

I'm wondering when we were slapped with the initial decision, why didn't we ask to separate the appeal for the points deduction, for it to be heard at a later date in the very distant future. There was no need to get a 24-hour verdict on that particular aspect.

TBF for a while I think he might have stepped down to let Tonda's football do the talking, during that short-but-sweet period where we went 21 matches unbeaten

I think there could well be a faction within the FA that considers there would be a poetic irony in making an announcement after 1:30pm on the 13th of August, leaving us just 72 hours to deal with the ramifications before our opening league match.

Or do a Chelsea and tell Forbesy to get the big laundry basket ready

Bilmey, so it is. Just in time for the offside goal before HT. Too bad there's no English commentary though, for once in my life I'd be prepared to tolerate some youtube nerd live streaming and chatting nonsense in the background.

The precedent was there for the FA to throw the book at Chelsea after their treatment of Luton in the late 2000s. They blew the whistle on themselves and were rewarded by enough points deductions to get launched into the National League. The relative scale of what Chelsea were doing under Abramovic would have meant a pro-rata punishment of thousands of points being deducted, but the FA's initial stance was -15 (which would have relegated them last season) and then decided to row back to the point of giving them no punishment at all. Between Gibson teleporting his team into the playoff final, Trump intervening with the Balogun red card and now Chelsea with their illegal payments, Dragan now hopefully has his eyes fully opened as how all manner of tomfoolery off the pitch can be accepted, providing he can back it up with the right legal team. And I really hope we do now, as we know full well that it'll drive the parmo-eating simpletons up north completely bonkers.

Perhaps the best way of imagining how a WC would look like without UEFA is to take a look at the old Confederations Cup, and while I think it had a better premise than the Club World Cup which replaced it, did anyone ever actually watch it?

Still think anything more than a 3 match touchline ban would be overkill, and over 5-6 matches we'd be looking for a new manager. I disagree, as that would be classified as aggravated breach and come under rule E3.2. The reason for my relative optimism is that he's only been charged under E3.1 which would seemingly relate to the act of spying and not the miscellaneous innuendo around bullying.

Banned from the entire planet. But actually it's not for 10 games, it's 10 million seconds, which I grudgingly accept as a fair punishment

Exactly, all these examples were deemed as aggravated breaches of the basic rule which Tonda was charged under, so it would be really quite something for him to be slapped with a comparable (or worse) ban.

Surely even the Crook wouldn't be so stupid as to take that bait, not exactly subtle when it has his name on it?!