Ted Bates Statue

he clearly knows how to drive on the correct side of the road, so that makes him an instant improvement on Downs

That's a bit rich, considering the slop you put out on a daily basis here

a) it's his parents who would have decided on the spelling b) it's pronounced "seal"

If you could have cited a more recent example within the last ten years, that would have been encouraging. For me, I was personally opposed to Danny Ings considering he was injured for most of his first season although he was very good once we signed him up permanently. But as others have said, we've been short in this area for a long time and hopes are understandably not high. When was the last time fans of other teams were this glad to be shot of a player? Feels like this guy is going to be more Guido Carrillo than Sadio Mane. A lot of posters on here were very hopeful over Damion Downs, by the way. Happy to be proved wrong, of course!

2-0 up already with another shot having hit the post

To be honest I didn't think it was worth bothering to dream about, knowing what we're usually like in the second half.

Had a dream the score was 0-2 before HT. I'm going for a run to try and mitigate this.

The soup isn't good, it is SMOOTH yum yum!? Yeah, that really clarifies everything. Sounds like multiple people in the club's management have been acting like Cortese spending money like water, but with absolutely zero success to show for it. And drunk driving. Lots of people drunk driving. Romain Molina is the same guy who suggested that we have loads of passengers in our own non-playing staff team a few weeks back.

After the derby match at St Mary's last year I realised that Saints are very much still a team best observed via radio. Even in our purple patch under Tonda, I still managed to miss most of our live televised goals due to our infamous second half performances.

still need to make sure we're on course to finish safe of relegation before they can think about next season. One league win in almost two months isn't going to cut it.

Yes

He's talking about the wrong player I think you might be talking about the wrong player

This chap has witnessed the derby 29 times, going back to August 1960 when Saints won 5-1 in a sign of things to come. I imagine there may be a handful of us on here who have similarly extensive derby experience, although might be tricky finding anyone with 30 derbies just yet - that next previous one was held in 1927.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jan/22/southampton-leo-scienza-championship-interview-brazilian-sweden

I didn't need to see this because I knew it already, but it's sad to have confirmation that since our last win in early December, pound for pound, we are by a long way the worst team in the division.

I read that he left due to homesickness rather than footballing reasons. Anyway he cost £5M and we recovered most of that when we sold him.

Not our club, but Blackburn Rovers. Some might feel there are parallels as in the 2000s post Jack Walker era they enjoyed several top half PL finishes and European campaigns... followed by a takeover in 2010 and 15 years of mostly bad decision, starting with Allardyce's sacking. https://www.brfcs.com/articles/painful-acceptance

I was probably looking forward to doing a mid-season comparison in November, but our form for the last month put paid for that. Points after 26 matches in our previous Championship seasons: 2005-06 31 points (W6 D13 L7) 2006-07 44 points (W12 D8 L6) 2007-08 33 points (W9 D6 L11) 2008-09 23 points (W5 D8 L13) 2012-13 50 points (W15 D5 L6) 2023-24 52 points (W15 D7 L4) 2025-26 33 points (W8 D9 L9) 18 years after the 2007-08 season and once again, we're flying in 15th in the same division on the same points tally, once again having endured a similarly dreadful run of games over the Christmas period. The only difference being last time we did it while beginning to tighten our belts, whereas this time our owners have spent a considerable sum of money to achieve the same feat. I find myself wondering if Nigel Pearson would be interested in returning to management.

Some of them don't even have the sponsor's logo on the front. Truly appalling.

Callum Wilson has just been released by West Ham. He probably CDAJFU but we won't be able to afford his wages. Analysis of West Ham's recruitment of strikers in the Sullivan/Gold era:

Nah that'll be too obvious. He'll give us a glimmer of hope by scoring 2-3 goals over the course of the month, before sadly and unexpectedly injuring himself in the warmup at Fratton Park. Rumours of a loan striker will follow, but nothing will materialise before the transfer deadline, except for the signing of yet another right back.

Both he and SKD posted some good info until the pandemic, glad to know both are still posting 👍

Would be nice if we could keep this to a single thread, as some of our much-missed posters don't always make the roll call. Some names that spring to my mind: The9 David In Sweden Minsk ericb Guided Missile It's times like this that this phrase springs to mind: “At some point in your childhood, you and your friends went outside to play together for the last time and nobody knew it..." Although being honest with ourselves, it would be more accurate to say, “At some point in your terminally online lives, you and your friends internet acquaintances logged in to bicker about the mostly-downward fortunes of an occasionally-mighty South Coast Club for the last time and nobody knew it”