sotonjoe

We know that Liebherr's wish was to return the club to the Premiership as some sort of 'gift' to the city which he had had business dealings with in the past. That is how he put it to us in his early interviews just after the takeover. It is only Cortese who has spoken since Liebherr's death and started talking about a plan which goes beyond Saints' return to the Premiership, and it is him who has started talking about targets of reaching the Champions League. It is my personal opinion that, with Liebherr's original ambition seemingly what I described above and his untimely death moving the club ownership on to his nearest and dearest, selling Saints once they are a Premiership side is very likely. Whether it would make more sense to do this immediately upon promotion or to wait a year in order to make the club look like more of a stable Premiership team remains to be seen. The crux of the matter is that I can't see why the Liebherr estate would have any interest in holding on to Saints once Liebherr's original wishes had been achieved. If Cortese has got the bug then I don't see why he couldn't continue to play a role in running the club, provided the new owners want this. Indeed he has suggested in interviews that he has contact with parties who are willing to invest in the club should the Liebherrs wish to sell in the near future. It's perfectly feasible that we continue our Cortese relationship for a longer period than our Liebherr one.

Worth it just to listen to the players and 'manager' banter.

Things like a national rail network should never be privatised. The need for profit always skews the cost to the customer unfairly. What benefit is there in a privatised network? It's not as if we even have 'choice' as we do when it comes to utilities providers. If you're going from Southampton to Waterloo, you get on South West Trains and pay the set fare. It's not as if we have another operator operating a similar timetable on the same route but offering different prices.

This is part of it. I'm not interested in paying £90m for a piece of 'art'. I want a stadium I can walk to from town, one that feels like it's at the heart of a city. I want a stadium that can pack a decent crowd in and with reasonable sized concourses. I want my stadium to look like a modern football stadium, not a crumbling monstrosity or some garish monstrosity either. I want symmetry as far as practicalities allow, a reasonably steep pitch to the stands and no pillars to obstruct views. St Marys fits the bill down to a tee whether or note other stadia share similar blueprints. Even though inflation is what it is, that £30m looks good value to me.

Any chance we could come up with an original chant for the lad if he signs; one without racist undertones if at all possible? Cheers.

It's worth about the £50 you're starting the Ebay auction for so I hope you're not holding out hope for too much more! If you get an offer of £75 I'd snap that person's hand off.

Interesting detail about Lee's game there. They stress the fact that he likes to play deep and link with the midfield and that he's a good target man. Not sure if that all seems rather similar to Ricky though to be honest.

To add insult to injury at missing out the first time round, I asked the ticket office if there was any chance of us getting anymore tickets and was told in no uncertain terms that there was no chance and that there was no point me asking again or checking the website with a view to seeing if some had been released. Then I hear on the grapevine that there will be some more but that they're essentially only available to the unemployed or retired because you need to be prepared to go and get the bloody things in person. All this after not getting round to checking the official website on a thursday, but logging on on a Friday afternoon to find out that an initial allocation of tickets have been announced, released and sold out all in less than 24 hours. And I have NO REASON to be at all annoyed according to some? This is a monumental cockup by the ticket office. How hard would it be to have some policies in place that say there will be a minimum period of 72 hours or something similar between tickets being announced and actually going sale so that there is a chance for news to filter through?

Could see these whilst driving back from Lyndhurst on Thursday at about 6:45pm. Followed them all the way back to the pub like a saddo just to see what they were. Turns out it was just some chavs wasting money they haven't got on an electricity bill.

yep and you can't even phone up for them. What happens if you work for a living?

What were you expecting? Bronze buys you a seat with a cushion and access to a cash bar doesn't it?

When you say "going posh" do you mean you've opted for the 'gold package' or just the 'cushion on a seat and cash bar for £45 package'?

Good to see Holmes being mentioned. If Nige is intent on trying almost anything but De Ridder on the right, then I'd like to see Holmes on the left and Lallana on the right. To be fair, if we put Lallana on the right, we'd have all sorts of options at left midfield ... i.e. Fox and even Dickson as well as Holmes.

On sale 9am to personal callers at box office only. One per season ticket. Pain in the arse that it's personal callers only.

Well, purely from my own point of view I thoroughly enjoyed the day and the bubble didn't do much to dampen my enjoyment. Before it was announced, I was giving the bingo bus serious consideration anyway. Whilst most of my away trips this season have been done on the train and included a few beers, there were issues with the train this time round which were putting me off. I was pretty convinced that whatever train I got was going to be completely rammed. Usually I'd just get an earlier train and spend more time in the pub, but I couldn't see myself going into any pubs in Pompey. Getting the train would also mean a frustrating walk to the ground, kettled by police, having stuff thrown at me and standing a poor chance of making kickoff. So in practical terms, I didn't have that much to worry about when the whole bubble thing was announced. My main concerns beforehand were to do with how well it would be organised and to what extent I would end up waiting around in a great big herd of people. In reality it was smooth and swift. Everybody got on the buses in plenty of time and we were underway by five past eleven. Skipping the traffic lights etc meant we got there quickly. When we got dropped off at Fratton we initially had no idea where to go, but a brief pause and a bit of common sense meant we just follow everyone else! Signage at the stadium was appalling so we had no idea if we could use the turnstile we were or not, but we just got on with it and it was fine. Because we'd arrived early there was no queue for the toilets. My mate even had a cheeseburger and thoughts they were alright. Things were just as smooth going back, even though the bubble literally burst! There was no significant police escort once we'd left Pompey. Buses started overtaking each other and we had to wait at junctions and traffic lights. We got round the lack of booze by going to the pub straight after, then on to a curry house then on to a few more pubs. So we still had the usually beers on the day out just at a different time. That said, I did take a hip flask on the bus and in the ground and I wasn't searched at all. The steward on the bus said "You haven't got any booze have you?" and that was it. I even managed to take in a 2.5 squash bottle filled with water (because I am a 'big girl' / had a hangover from the night before) complete with bottle top! It's not surprising that people git flares in and miniature bottles of spirits etc.

Yeh, I was tempted to join the dots on that one too. Interestingly, I can't really remember Nige openly criticising players in that way before so I saw it as quite a significant moment. It's interesting that Derry mentions Steve's passing as well because I swear that in the Blackpool post-match interview Nige actually said Steve's crossing isn't very good, so that's obviously one aspect of his game that they're not happy with. With Morgan being a good passer you can see how Nige might be thinking when playing Morgan instead of Steve. However, I don't think I agree with that decision as I can't see Morgan being good enough on the ball to beat his man and get himself into a good crossing position. Of course, an interesting thing to think about is the role of the full backs in all this. Nige always has them overlapping and I'd say they get called on to do as much, if not more, of the crossing than the 'wingers'. I'd be tempted to play Steve even knowing his crossing isn't 100%, safe in the knowledge he could beat his man / create things and then make use of the overlapping Richardson if need be. I guess ultimately it's Steve's decision making which they're not sure of as well.

I'd like to finish top two. I'd be disappointed to make the playoffs but satisfied. I'd be suicidal (not quite literally) if we didn't make the playoffs.

Not surprised someone got there before me but, depending on how you define 'arsehole', I'd say Punch has a pretty good chance of fitting the bill. The whole Punch saga shows you how the club would deal with arseholes at the moment, but maybe things would have been a little different if Punch didn't play so awfully at the beginning of last season.

A lot of his opportunities from the bench have seen him playing up top and we were told this was on his CV when he was signed. However, I'm not sure if the fact that he has played as a striker a fair bit is because that's how Nige sees him, or simply because he was been the only attacking option on the bench in the games when this has happened. I don't have the stamina to go back and check the records but do remember seeing many games recently when Connolly and Barnard have been injured and Steve is the only 'striker' on the bench. It would be very significant if we saw Nige shopping for a right wing player in January. Personally, I'd want a striker at the top of the list.

Guly did take a while, that's fair (I don't want to get into a discussion about Guly's recent form though ;-) ), and Steve is a lot younger I suppose. To be fair, I trust Nige enough to think that he would stick with a young talented player like Steve and help him develop, as opposed to chucking him off the bus after a couple of months just because he's not playing 'the right way'. Maybe it is still early days.

When Steve was signed he was hailed as a great prospect. The obligatory Youtube greatest hits video excited everybody and his debut against West Brom preseason excited everybody even more. So why has he failed to cement a place in the team? When he has come off the bench and played out wide I have been consistently impressed by his desire and ability to run at the defence (something many of our players seem afraid to do). I seem to remember talk earlier in the season that he was defensively naive and that it would take time to make him play the way we expect and that his first team options would be limited until the management felt this process was complete. Recently though Nige made some pretty explicit comments about Steve's failures against Blackpool (his decision making at the end of the game as he ran with the ball in particular), and Steve doesn't even get a run out against Pompey in a game in which having somebody with his pace may have been a great boost late on. Reading between the lines a little (as we inevitably must, seeing as were not privy to everything that goes on), I wonder how happy the powers that be are with Steve and his development. In my opinion the fact that Nige keeps improvising when it comes to deciding who to play on the right wing suggests he still lacks confidence in Steve. Over the past few games we saw Chaplow getting tried on the right, where he did alright and it's understandable this kept Steve out the side whilst it was going well. However, since Chaplow's injury we've seen Morgan tried on the right and having seen the games I don't think he's stood out as playing particularly well in this position which is unnatural to him. It looks to me as if Nigel is trying almost every other option (options which include playing players out of their positions) before giving Steve a start. So I wonder how other people read 'the Steve situation'?

My understanding is that it's your responsibility to list the extras when you get the quote, at which point the insurer will give you their quote and make it clear whether they will insure the extras or not. You then either agree to that or not. In your case, it's up to you to work out whether you asked them to quote for the extras and / or whether you think it was made clear to you that the extras weren't included (bear in mind that it's your responsibility to read the terms and conditions in full).

Any chance you could upload those videos from bus 9 as i was on that one too? cheers

Nice to see people sat at home watching on TV having the gall to criticise the real supporters who were actually there singing their hearts out. Mongs.

Nope. Missed out on Brighton and no way of watching on TV.