Ted Bates Statue

In the 1990s we were the best team Man Utd faced all season, according to Fergie - but I have a feeling he was much less complimentary towards us when we actually had the nerve to beat them. For your health, I'm glad we don't have Fraser Forster attempting to do that.

Again, I think it's been floated before, but I'd like to put in a word for the chorus to Sailing. We don't necessarily even need to change the words. Great anthem, which incidentally, I recently found out was not originally by Rod Stewart. However, for the benefit of those who are capable of only vocalising along to the Rickie Lambert song instead of singing the actual words, I have taken the trouble to devise some alternative lyrics that are slightly easier to grasp. It goes like this: Southampton, Southampton, Southampton, Southampton. Southampton, Southampton, Southampton, Southampton. I strongly recommend that you all absorb this and do your utmost to commit these lyrics to memory so it can be belted out at the weekend. Thanks

Agreed but if there was a repertoire of the old songs, we'd know about it by now. Looking at that thread from a few weeks ago all that used to get sung was the Woolston Ferry and that song about being illiterate. Make of that what you will. I like how the first post about it on the Ugly Inside has someone moaning that OWTS is now too slow. I thought the problem a few years back was that we sang it too fucking fast. I would appreciate official guidance on the acceptable BPM and maybe I'll download a metronome app for the next game.

Don't overthink it. Not sure why people are slagging off the COT. Probably because they aren't receiving the highly informative PMs. I remember the really dark days of ITK fuckery, when we were meant to be taken over by Paul Allen or similar, deus ex machina style, and it was definitely going to be done by Friday. Whenever we got to Friday it was actually meant to be next Friday. Rinse and repeat for about 3 fucking years. It feels stupid just writing it down, but that's how I remember that era.

Don't get me wrong, I don't get overly excited looking at that table in itself. It doesn't exactly demonstrate any great historic achievement. To me, it shows that Saints are a medium-sized club (notwithstanding our gargantuan catchment area, and legendary stadium expansion plans). We don't have a divine right to be there, but considering we have spent most of the last fifty years in the top flight is a decent achievement. Despite relatively little investment in players, we have still thrived. I consider Saints to be in the mix for the cups most seasons, because we have had the consistency of playing regularly in the top-flight, notwithstanding our lower spending power. It is a shame that we haven't won more major honours, but there are bigger clubs out there, who have spent comparatively vast sums of money on transfers and salaries to achieve not much more than us. Take Villa, Newcastle, West Ham for instance. They've all had purple patches recently but had to spend tonnes of money, and for what? A few relegations between them and zero major trophies this side of the century. What Huddersfield achieved a hundred years ago is nice, but I don't think it means much to anyone except the stars on their crest. If anything it must be a bit embarrassing for them to be dwarfed by their history like that, a bit like if we waxed lyrical about our 1900s FA Cup final appearances. After a point it just becomes a historical anomaly to cling onto. The difference is, as long as we're in the top division most of the time, we still have a chance of a decent cup run - and a shout of winning it outright. The longer we spend out of it, the less chance of that happening. Some might rightly argue that we were already making up the numbers over the last two or three seasons, but we still managed some cup runs in that time. For me, that shows the value of being back in the top flight, for all its faults.

https://www.worldfootball.net/alltime_table/eng-premier-league/ I think we get a healthy level of semi-final appearances, as others above have mentioned. Trouble is we didn't go all in when Pochettino or Koeman were here.

Absolutely, league football is fun but a club our size exists to compete in the cups. We're easily one of the top thirty teams in the nation historically, so if the likes of Birmingham, Wigan or Swansea can win a trophy then why not us. The longer we stay as a big fish in this division, we end up with our best players getting picked off, like with Walcott, Bale or Oxlade-Chamberlain when they broke through. I can't imagine it's too much fun being Pompey, having led their division at Christmas on a regular basis in recent years, only to fail to achieve promotion. It's like a kind of slapstick routine in slow-motion. Or is an imaginary 7th place trophy something to now aspire to, when it comes to the lower divisions? As far as offside interpretation goes, I like the idea of a daylight rule, but you would still end up with some retired lunatic in Stockley Park enhancing the pixels and pretending they're on CSI. The process obviously isn't ready for full automation yet, so for now leave it in the hands of the on-pitch refereeing team, except in the case of clear and bloody obvious error - e.g. Gabbiadini's "offside" goal at Wembley.

He was dealing with an injury from the Plymouth game.

Think that's a bit harsh, although maybe my view of it is enhanced by repeated viewing of MLT wearing it against Newcastle. Was it really that unpopular compared to, say, this season's style? I reckon if Nike produced something similar today, people would be all over it.

What's more, just the week before last, we fell 12 points behind them after drawing against Coventry. Long way to go yet, but I think we are doing alright now... https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/championship/spieltagtabelle/wettbewerb/GB2?saison_id=2023&spieltag=21

Listening to Exeter v Pompey, how is it possible to enjoy a football match with that stupid bell tinkling away? For all the moaning about our support, I would die of embarrassment to be associated with idiots like that.

4-D chess by the club to enhance the Chapel Kop of legend that we all know and love. Such was their intention from the very beginning.

A few days ago I saw some interesting stats across the division on this. I can't find the original but this summarises it: https://www.footballwebpages.co.uk/championship/attendances/average-as-percentage Got to hand it to most supporters, basically unless the club has really pissed off the fans (Venkys, Birmingham City etc) then the support is there. I guess the chance for most teams to be within touching distance of the playoffs helps greatly too. The other factor is ticket pricing. When we went down in 2005, the ticket reduction was minimal, and we lost a good chunk of supporters right from the get-go. At least this time the tickets are priced for the division we're in.

They must be gluttons for punishment, they only got thrashed about a year ago by a Wrexham XI containing Lee Trundle (we should sign him)

For the first time this season, we're further ahead on points compared to the same number of games played in Nigel Adkins' promotion season. Back then we had a bit of a wobble in December, but it was still enough to stay top with 47 points. At this stage, in both seasons we have 14 wins, the key difference being we've still only lost 4 this time around. https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/championship/spieltagtabelle/wettbewerb/GB2?saison_id=2011&spieltag=24 https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/championship/spieltagtabelle/wettbewerb/GB2?saison_id=2023&spieltag=24 Still a long way to go, but back in September I really didn't expect us to trouble the top 2 at any point, so it's tremendous that we are on this run. I'm sure there will be bumps along the way and the odd defeat shouldn't de-rail our season, but it's increasingly looking like we are capable of fighting for automatic promotion. Whether we get it or not, who knows, but I'm enjoying it. Bring on the rest of the season.

Not great news, but have to LOL at people losing their fucking minds on this thread.

"Too many games" but the pre-season nonsense tournaments and European group stages get more and more bloated every year. Who really gives a shit about group stage matches, except for supporters of the teams directly involved? The League Cup has already taken a hit since winner only gets Europa Conference qualification (although I would still consider the possibility of winning it as a potential highlight of supporting Saints).

“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come."

So if there are people on here who claim to know Danny Ings, can anyone verify Nick's claim on the Ugly that he's moved back to the Southampton area? And by Southampton area, does that mean Winchester as I thought that's where he lived?

When his win percentage made him one statistically our greatest manager since Lawrie Mac (let's not mention that almost everyone else had to contend with the added difficulties of competing in a higher division).

We may only be fifth now, but we're still only two points off top of the division and automatic promotion. I don't know how much we've spent relative to others but we're not doing that badly, as far as I can tell.

In the long-run you'll probably be best off leaving it blank because he definitely won't be supporting Saints for long, as soon as he finds out that Newcastle have such an efficient name and numbering service at their club shop.

Relevant quote from Farke in the article shared by @Alanh "It’s sometimes a coincidence when two or three teams are winning that many points. Over 46 games it can level in the end and if you are there with an average of two (points per game), like we are at the moment, then definitely happy days." Hopefully that'll be us by the end of the season (and tonight, as we climb our way up the table).

If we're concerned with the quality of our current away support, what better than to delve into our own back catalogue and wheel out the big guns.