Patrick Bateman

Very nice, but looking at that list you have to wonder what on earth Chelsea do to their kids if they've got 5 there! I know, they loan them out seemingly forever, but it just proves to me that I would rather watch a team full of home grown talent than a team full of overseas players. Although admittedly, the European trips and trophies would be nice ...

Jesus christ. Is this is the kind of insightful guff (that is also incorrect) we're going to be viewing on here all summer, then I'm out as well. Back on Sept 1st ...

Hence I presume another one of those "commercial revenue streams" that the new board alluded to that could be improved. If we were waiting for stock on many items which the club was hoping to have revenue attributed to, how much money was potentially lost? Probably only a couple of hundred £k, but certainly enough to add up from that area.

Ugh. I hate their stuff, especially their snide trainers.

The roads might have been packed with them returning home to where they live, but every single Man Utd fan I saw/heard (and they do like to project) had a proper Manchester accent. They might have more tourists at home, but their away support is always very good and full of proper fans. With their support base, how easy do you think it is to get away tickets??

With only Joe Hart who is English (heck, even British) in their team and ONE goal out of 102 scored by an Englishman (Milner). It's why I think it's a shame Liverpool didn't get the title - them winning the league would have been as much of a 'fluke' as Saints finishing top 6, in my view. Over the season, we probably had only 3 matches we 'should have won' (Spurs home, Villa home, Sunderland home) - that extra 9 points would have only moved us up to 7th. Who knows, keep the squad, get more lucky with injuries, add a goalie, centre back and 2 forward players and we might scrape top 6 in a fluke season. But it'll cost to get the quality in those 4 players that we need rather than just average squad players.

Yes I think you're the only one! Shaw was up against a skilled/tricky and very fast player - it was obvious he was told to not bomb forward so often just in case Januzaj's pace was used on the break. I thought Shaw was excellent again and adapted to a slightly different (more defensive?) role very well. He had it covered, no problems - he really will be an outstanding player.

While they invade the pitch, I'll be running backwards and looting the free drinks in the boxes. Sorted.

Also thought they were "too big", they are enormous, especially in China.

Veho?

Hypothetically speaking ... with the same manager, keeping the same players, adding three or four new [quality] additions (GK, CB, 2x forward-types) and some luck in not getting so many injuries (Wanyama, Boruc, Lovren, Jay Rod) ... who is to say that we couldn't "do a Liverpool" next year? I know I'll get shot down in flames, so it's hypothetically speaking. If they all really believe they can push on, then the next natural step would be surely for the team to crack Europe. Aim for top 4 (!!!!), but hit the top 6. We can dream, hey?

He'll end up at Liverpool.

I can't even understand why people are suggesting this. Although he may turn up to the Saints FC awards tonight in full kit, to claim his trophies.

That is vile. It looks like a primary school version of what was a fairly decent badge. Also, to those saying our tree = New Forest ... isn't the tree representing the common?? That's what I was led to believe anyway!

Just you. It's unique, every part of it has a connection with the club or area, it is brilliant!

1. Lallana vs Hull (was a proper "wow" moment from the Itchen North) 2. JRod vs Fulham away (again, a proper "wow" moment and decent celebration) 3. Osvaldo vs Man City (quality goal) Best celebration? Away at Man Utd.

I know many of us joke facetiously about "shoddy journalism", but actually that really is! A proper non-story with no substance, quotes or anything. Awful.

Thank you (And MLG)

Can you post what it says please? I opened it, but forgot about the ridiculous white text on a black background and my eyes have already gone funny.

I was thinking about this last night sadly. He did do a good job and to those of you saying "but he did it with other people's money", well that's no different to the CEO of a VC backed business who has an invested pot of money to spend to meet an incremental growth target. However, what it does show how overpaid everyone involved with the Premier League is. SFC is actually a small-medium company in terms of revenue and staff size and I doubt you'd find many CEOs earning that much of companies with considerably more revenue. This is the extreme scale, but take Virgin Media's last CEO; http://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/apr/30/neil-berkett-virgin-media (take in to account revenue of almost £4bn, the reach, staff of circa 16,000, the network they own, the responsibility that comes with that network and broadcasting to home of the public etc etc etc.) I don't think there's much point moaning, it's just another example of football being driven by money and being overpriced/overpaid in many aspects.

Please tell me you're younger than 13?? Please.

On what basis is there no point in taking Henderson? He has been fantastic this season for Liverpool. They've really missed him while he's been out, as good as Joe Allen is, he's not a patch on Henderson - he has to go!! Flanagan isn't bad, but I'd definitely prefer to see Clyne called up at right back - it may happen ... you never know!

Mods, can you ban this blatant trolling attempt to derail a decent thread?

What?? FA contracted agreement with Sky & Premier League clubs over guaranteed minimum revenue is more fragile than other revenue streams?? (i.e. fans paying on the day & buying merchandise) In terms of fragility, it's the one the club would worry least about. Even club sponsors would be considered a more risky revenue stream as they have clauses to be able to pull out if anyone does anything stupid (i.e. we hire Anelka and he does some gesture which is considered 'racist' by some quarters) Sorry Barry, you're scraping the barrel with that one!

But this is very simplistic. What business case, where you want to spend capital investment offers no return on investment apart from the intangible aspect of "more people"? It'll be built more like; Capex request: £25m (to build 10,000 seats on the Kingsland stand) Anticipated sell outs x4 (vs Man Utd, first game, last game, league leaders); 10,000 x £30 ticket (average price) = £1.2m Assume 1000 extra tickets at x5 matches = £150k £1.2m used to increase base salaries of players to a) retain existing and b) attract better in lacking areas/squad depth £150k to pay loan interest of £25m Better player investment/retaining key players means a push for Europe (top 5) European competition generates £60m incremental revenue £60m incremental revenue to pay capex request and invest etc etc etc. We no longer live in a nice friendly world where extra room means the prices will drop. You want capital investment, you pay for it and recoup a reward over, what, 3 or 4 years in this case (my version in too simple, but you get what I mean).