Ted Bates Statue

Would be an insane bit of business, if true 🙏

The whole episode was mind boggling. Almost as impressive was how there are actual photographs of him doing it on the pitch in his defence. Clearly nobody at the club was prepared to enlighten him, so I can only hope that Putin has provided him with all the latest research materials on the Nazis since then.

When England finally tire of Southgate I reckon they could do no better than to delve into Serie A for their next coach. Good times guaranteed.

We've been relegated before the season started almost every year since returning to the Prem. And yet here we go again. We must get promoted an awful lot, but you never hear about those.

Bingo. Home shirt is a 99-00 homage although as you say, these look like fan-made mock-ups so it would be very surprising if these were indeed the final product. Personally I expect a fair degree of disappointment anyway, if it does turn out to be the reverse Air Florida kit. Just because the white sash on red kit worked, it doesn't mean we would be happy to turn out in the Ajax kit.

I wish we were Norwich.

Audio commentary available here for those without TV licence https://www.southamptonfc.com/news/2022-05-21/live-commentary-southampton-wolves-fawnl-play-off-202122

Keep it at arm's length like the rest of the media frenzy around certain clubs... it's bad enough with them praying for Liverpool to win the quad and Everton to stay up. Here's a nightmare apocalypse scenario for you, imagine if West Ham actually won something. 😳

Not that I've seen any, but surely that's got to be respected in this day and age when so few players stick around long enough to make it to double figures at a club (as I note JWP is due his premier league debut milestone at the start of the next season). Always appreciate the small expressions of lurve between you two and I eagerly await the inevitable heartfelt exchanges on the misuse of the ignore function.

I would probably compare the women's game to Formula E at the moment, early days for both sports and there will be similar levels of discussion (and relative lack of speed...). The difference however is F1 fans who aren't interested in Formula E tend not to feel a desperate need to announce it.

Objectivity is fast becoming an alien concept to sports broadcasting. I get what you're saying. Having said that, it would take a minor miracle for them to be proven wrong in this instance.

Living inside your head

Tella is barely a year younger than Djenepo, but one of them is a rising star - young, hungry, guaranteed to improve - and the other is being run out of the club having exhausted his chances with everyone having given up on him, no future. Djenepo might not be the answer but I don't think Tella is either. I would like to be proven wrong but sitting on the bench or going off with cramp does not help his cause. I expect he was kept here as insurance against an injury crisis, but to the detriment of his development. As you say, he should have gone out on loan somewhere to demonstrate he can do a job at any level. Have to interject - he was like that at the very start!

Once they bin off Rodgers they ought to get Claude Puel in to show everyone how it's done, I've heard he is a rather underrated coach. Purely hypothetical but with players of their calibre, he would surely show his true managerial ability.

Funnily enough, if you take their league results only, RH and CP happen to have a similar win percentage with RH's still being slightly better. Of course, there is plenty of time yet for Hasenhuttl's percentage to become even worse. With hindsight I think the club recognise that aside from Ings and for a short spell, Gabbiadini, we have lacked a reliable goalscorer, and that has helped RH stay in contrast to CP's sacking.

Stop pissing on our bonfire, we are definitely getting relegated and we will never win a game ever again. Fact.

Wow, so it's the Ajax kit then. Thanks both for sharing your info.

Nobody would have dreamed of calling them that when they were languishing in the Championship, Selhurst Park was very quiet the season we got promoted and the Ultras seemed like a naff idea born out of desperation to breathe life into a club that was losing the will to live. The difference between now and then is being in a league that teams actually want to be in.

They have been incredible since January, apart from the loss to Cambridge. On that basis I think Howe has done enough to take the next step and earn himself an interview with us. Of course he will have to answer to stiff questioning from the board as when Saints show top 5 form for twelve fucking months on a relative shoestring it doesn't mean a thing, so it still remains to be seen as to whether he can do more than achieve the coveted 9th place trophy that most mid-table sides dream of.

"I hear you're a racist now..." I'm sure we can afford ourselves a bit of amusement, notwithstanding his IP address telling you that his real location is actually a bedsit in Camden or wherever.

Maybe it was a muddled attempt to ask why we had to use our away kit when we could have simply played in red and white? Instead we ended up with two teams playing in blue!

'Mr Chocolate' springs to mind, AKA Mark Wotte who also had a high opinion of himself apparently. I recall someone on here claiming the academy players came up with that one. I'm sure we had another manager since then with the nickname getting recycled. Guessing it would have been Pardew. Agreed with all the above. My guess is a lot of information was probably gained from chats in the pub, and all that completely dried up when the pandemic hit - gossiping with Zoom or Skype isn't quite the same. Without anything of substance, we're reduced to shouting shit at each other on here (and ditto even when there is, realistically). It also doesn't help that on the pitch we veer from the sublime to the ridiculous over the space of a few weeks.

Yoda sometimes speaks with a unique syntax pattern, but always with the correct grammar.

Behave, Benitez did not get Newcastle relegated

Depends which liars and propagandists we're talking about. If it's Russian liars and propagandists, then that's just following the crowd, man. You are merely basic lamb riding the bandwagon. But if you can rise up against the western liars and propagandists, only the most enlightened and politically aware are capable of it and that takes true wisdom and courage. KGB Colonelship awaits (or not - just ask Philby). Of course it's a lot easier to rail against the mainstream media when you've just lost your contract with, er, one of the big players in the mainstream media and find yourself at a loose end. I guess his experience with drumming up interest for his autobiography must have opened his eyes to the awful world of journalistic sensationalism. Perhaps MLT can put his scholarly youtube research activities to one side and actually go to Ukraine to investigate the truth behind the noble peacekeeping operation.