Ted Bates Statue

Exactly, which is why the co-commentator asked pointedly in the first place. Because it's a load of bollocks. *although they may have been trying to make a sauce pun which went over my head at the time.

After last night I am all set to boycott the tournament.

Just broke his goal drought with England U20s against Chile (Edozie also scored). Possibly for the best that we didn't go all out to bring him in, at this point in time.

Only 90%, you think it was that low? Now that you mention it I would be interested to see the Puel Out poll.

I'm looking forward to withdrawing my emoji when you hit 24. The lord giveth and the lord taketh away.

Pathetic for larger clubs to moan about replays. If they want to scrap replays at earlier stages of the Cups, if scores are level after 90 mins, they should award the tie to the lower-ranked side instead of going to penalties. That would concentrate minds as to how seriously the top clubs want to progress, and it rewards the lower club in similar fashion to achieving a replay. If the Champions League clubs can't beat a minnow without a penalty shoot-out, why do they deserve to go to the next round? And for what, more Champions League group stage nonsense? Or pointless friendlies in Asia or America? Also floated in the same vein of conversation is the ridiculous idea of relegation playoffs which nobody will want to watch, because as we know, all the teams at the bottom of the table are rubbish and Sky can hardly bear to put them (us) on TV as it is! If they want to spice things up in that sort of fashion, I look forward to Euro qualification playoffs between 4th-7th place to decide between the last Champions League spot and the Europa places. There you go, 3 more games to meet the '39th game' crowd and I can suggest an 4th match between the losing semi-finalists to decide which unlucky loser gets Euro Conference football. Of course they won't go for either idea because it's too risky for the bigger sides. But I guarantee you it would make things a hell of a lot more interesting than whatever tripe they end up proposing instead. Forget about All Star matches or moaning about cup matches being too difficult.

The first person who told me back in July that Poch was considering a return to Saints was a Spurs supporter, who claimed a few minutes later that he knew all about the Apollo moon landings being faked. Even he stopped short of arguing that Poch was rubbish. I think that answers your question.

It's ridiculous how many people will spout names of top managers as potential replacements, as if they would give us a second thought. lol

Better snap him up quickly before Leicester get him back, then. It's occurred to me that with Koeman waiting to start the NL job after the world cup, not a single one of our former managers from the last decade is currently in work as a manager.

Audio commentary on the official website, for those of you who are interested.

Yep, impeccably observed according to The Mirror on twitter, as long as everyone overlooks the trivial matters of it not lasting a minute and not being silent

Now that Jack Stephens has left, it didn't take long for us on Saintsweb to start suggestions for one of our remaining defenders to convert to a midfielder did it? Has anyone informed Caleta Car or Lyanco about their new roles yet?

0-0 it is, then.

I, like others, had no idea Nathan Redmond's agent had such a way with words.

Good point, which means next Saints match isn't until 1st October against Everton. Hope we can fit in the rearrangements in before then, because that's one hell of a gap. Not sure why. No league cup fixtures until November either, surely there isn't usually such a long time between the 2nd and 3rd rounds.

I'm sure we are preparing targets for January's transfer window... perhaps Broja will be back on the menu by then?

Love these old threads where we speculate as to whether Tuchel, Emery, Schmidt or, er... Pellegrino would be our top choice to manage a high pressure, passing stylish kind of style (copyright Les Reed via Saints' Board of Directors PR aka Jeremy Wilson at The Telegraph) Should have got Marco Silva in with benefit of hindsight. He wouldn't have stayed for much longer than a season and we would've still ended up bringing in the next in line out of work manager, but we would've actually won more than 7 matches in 2017-2018.

Indeed - four major trophies in 25 years or so, all while they've spent a fraction of that time in the top flight. That's a haul we could only dream of, not to mention the likes of Everton/Villa/West Ham/Spurs. It's a complete joke but the big club supporters must lap it up or Sky wouldn't bother with it. Pathetic really.

I personally feel that he is much better suited to Twitter. I had a look the other day and he was quite rightly taking Hampshire Police's football account to task over Man Utd fans with flares being included front and centre on the Saints website's best images of the day. If he were still on here he would be wasted on us, trying his utmost to get other posters tangled in his sticky web of pedantry. But if he wants to berate other fans into believing that Gakpo's most likely destination is Southampton, I am all for that. On a final note, please could the mods put this sort of epic chat in a thread separate to the transfer window discussion? Maybe Turkish could come up with a title.

Idiots in music crowds has always been commonplace, I've heard stories of Oasis gigs being fairly unpleasant with the constant aerial threat of piss bottles. When I saw The Who around 15 years ago, during an instrumental solo someone took it upon themselves to throw a bottle at the stage from a fair distance away and it hit Roger Daltrey in the head. It must have been quite a nasty impact and it did cut him a bit as I recall, but he just took a step back and got on with his tambourine playing. Absolute pro. I should imagine Axl Rose might have taken a different attitude. Not a festival in the same vein as Reading/Leeds, but there are always reports of trouble at Notting Hill Carnival, to the extent that police are requesting for it to be held in Hyde Park instead. Honestly can't tell if things are getting worse as I don't really get out much generally, but there could well be a bit of post-covid exuberance involved as people learn to socialise again.

Shaqiri-style Albanian eagle celebration incoming...

Could still end up that way

Had to check the annual table to see how bad we are this year, and embarrassingly we still have fewer points in the prem than Burnley (24; we're on 23) although funnily enough we have both played 22 matches. Burnley must have had three games called off in 2021 due to Covid. On the other hand, I was surprised to see some 'good' sides only having collected a few more points than us - West Ham (25), Villa (26) and Wolves (27) and two of them have played an extra game. I had assumed there would be a really large gap of around 10-14 points. Leicester aren't much better and Leeds were very much part of that group until last weekend. Considering we've endured a long spell with barely a win, there are evidently plenty of other sides doing their level best to find new ways of disappointing their supporters. At least West Ham have enjoyed a cup run this year but for the likes of Gerrard and Lampard, they have bright futures ahead of them in the field of matchday punditry. The longer it takes for Villa and Everton to realise this, the better for us.

Solent stream just started working for me.

Yep, the same issue for me.