Ted Bates Statue

Funny how all these cringy millenial fancy-dress types usually seem to be quite a bit older than the demographic Saintsweb expects them to belong to. Must be the stress of glory-supporting a team like Southampton rather than Basingstoke Town, Salisbury or whoever the fuck they're supposed to support instead, bearing in mind the invisible and unspoken catchment area boundaries. Speaking of Adam and Jo, the comment that springs to mind from them is "If you have a ticket and you're not prepared to scream your head off for 90 minutes, give your ticket to someone else." I only read about what it was like against for example Norwich in 2005 so would be nice to see the stadium rocking. What are we supposed to do, treat it like the snooker? If we lose, at least we can't blame ourselves. I can't be arsed to turn up early though, hope all those meeting the bus don't run out of puff early after half time if we haven't yet scored.

This is a distinct possibility, no matter what league we're in. Might as well aim for misery on the moon.

I'm not fussed about the opinion of a club that had an open top bus parade of the last time they held us to a draw... David Norris Day 🤣

Hope you won't be too disappointed at this @Noodles34. Do the likes of Sammy Saint, Mary Saint and Mahamed Mahamed pay for their tickets? I suspect not, and that's crucial revenue the club could be missing out on. Cortese wouldn't have stood for this nonsense.

No but I've got the next best thing. Looking forward to see all of you in the 1885 squad decked out in the new uniform. Having said that, not sure why RM is pictured in some degree of pain from getting pelted by several footballs, hope it isn't a bad omen.

I managed to buy a ticket around midday, having checked the website on the off-chance some spares would pop up. I'm guessing there might be a few here and there for people who bought in haste before they realised they couldn't make it and asked for a refund or something, so those currently without might benefit from doing similar over the coming days. I managed to get mine near back of Chapel block 15, so assuming some of the usual lot make it, there should at least be some decent noise in that corner win or lose, for the last time before most of them presumably migrate to stand in the Northam.

To paraphrase Kevin Costner, if you talk about building it, MLG will come. Same time next year then...

I'd rather have a solid back if all they can manage is stripes on the lower back. Wonder when the last time we had stripes on the back? Guessing Koeman era, maybe.

Obviously I didn't press F5 in the correct manner. Now where are those stadium expansion plans? We definitely have the catchment area to handle it.

Did anyone manage to buy tickets for the home leg today on general sale? I was on the website from 9:30 and absolutely nothing came up for me, but apparently they only sold out over an hour later.

Would it be fair to suggest that Downes has a higher ceiling than JWP? 🙂

Yeah this is embarrassingly insulting. I remember seeing this about 15 years ago, it's like something Jeremy from Peep Show would say. I'll be checking in with https://soccer03.store before I spend anything with Puma.

https://www.southamptonfc.com/en/membership Great advertising by the OP to all those Saints "glory hunters" out there

I'm hoping it gets to general sale personally, but I don't think it's much of a stretch to guess that the biggest home match all season is highly likely to be a sell-out (or very close to it), regardless of your thoughts on the manager.

Not sure what relevance this has to the discussion here. In this thread we're talking about a match between sides who have both previously employed the greatest manager in Europe.

If this is the result of finishing 4th in the Championship, Russell Martin needs to be careful or he could end up as our next director of football

It's a dead rubber between two sides that have each conceded 11 in their last 6 matches so I doubt habits will be broken for the final game. I expect there will be goals at both ends like last season's final game. 3-3 is my guess.

I was surprised to see this viewpoint as I blindly assumed they would be set at a mandatory 1.1m height. Disappointing if not the case but I guess that's what happens if the club wants to save a few quid. Still think it's a step in the right direction but there are flaws that may need ironing out over time. Given the number of people who seem hell-bent on remaining seated though, I expect I'll still have to select seats at the very back to avoid upsetting them. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/oct/18/safe-standing-barriers-are-anything-but-says-former-wembley-stadium-manager

It's probably not too much of a stretch to say most football managers have to answer to the owners in some shape or form, and it's been that way for generations. I'm sure Brian Clough had plenty to say about boardroom interference in his day. Nowadays there's a bit of extra separation from the suits. Ratcliffe has decided he wants to put his own stamp on things so he's brought Wilcox to be his puppet and we've got some pocket money out of it, no doubt to be spent on whoever's next in line from Man City's academy conveyor belt in the summer. Katharina had Les Reed and didn't we do well with him. Maybe see if we can prise him away from Wrexham and get him back here. I want to see exciting, attacking football, taking the game to our opponents by playing a high-intensity game. And he certainly knows how to achieve it. Let's bring him home. Dragan and Rasmus need to get it done, and preferably before the playoffs so we can get our new manager bounce at just the right moment.

They've already taken our director of football, very concerning news if Russell Martin is in the frame to replace Ten Hag. Why can't they leave us alone?

I think we might still get away with this style in the division we're in currently, but it certainly won't get us anywhere in the PL. I reckon Sport Republic are banking on Russell Martin getting us promoted and preparing for a swift change when we get a baptism of fire. Someone like Steve Cooper, who I believe was sounded out as a potential Hasenhuttl replacement when Semmens was still in charge.

At least it can't be 9, can it

Need to make sure that this makes an appearance in this thread. It's only been a few weeks since it was last posted.

Would be peak Saints to drop points in this fixture