John Boy Saint

Where's all the water? 'Cos I'm pretty good at demonstrating Archimedes principle

Likewise nowt against Claude, but similarly this has to have been the first season in years where I have actually considered starting to head for home when the added time board has gone up (if not before). And I am one of the daft sods who sat through our spiral downwards into league 1 without the merest thought about heading home before the ref blew time. (did wonder how cold the Itchen would be a few times post match crossing Northam bridge though!!).

Like was said at the time in a serious newspaper journal when FFP was switched on, instead of levelling the playing field as it was meant to, FFP kicks the ladder away, preventing anyone planning bridging the gap to mix it with the traditional top 5/6 clubs more or less pushing water up hill. Man City got pinged for breaking the limits a few seasons ago, then they had that Mickey mouse exhibition game in Qatar flying back on the morning of the 3rd round of the FA Cup which they lost to Boro. Alledgedly that exhibition game was put on by a distant cousin of the owner for an extortionate amount, that along with the naming rights of the City of Manchester stadium swelled the INCOME of Man City to the point where they were very unlikely to break the % v income rules. The days of Jack Walker buying the prem with his wealth are long gone, Bill Gates with all his billions could buy Saints but we would still only be able to pay our players what we are doing now, because unless he chicanes money onto the balance sheet by calling us the Google St Mary's stadium for a bonkers amount, why not Microsoft name on the stadium - because that's too transparent as to its source - pays matey at Googles uncles cousins sister who then invests it into Google to "buy" the naming right - bingo job done. Man U have enough traction built up that their overall income was £1b+ that gives them the strength to pay Falcao £340k a week to warm the bench when he was with them. VVD earning £200k per week at Liverpool there is nothing we can do to fight that, if we matched those wages for him we would probably incur an absolutely horrendous fine just to stop any other "little club" thinking they can stick two fingers up at the system. Just do a Leicester last season except for a few seasons on the trot and we might evntually stop the summer sales.

Well another one heads up to the great Film and TV studio in the Sky Peter Sallis the voice of Wallace in probably one of the best animated creations ever Wallace and Grommit, also famous when Last of the Summer Wine was good, playing Cleggy alongside Foggy and Compo............... not forgetting Nora Battys tights. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-40165443 RIP Peter - Cheers for making us smile.

Blimey I thought this was about the leak of the Rank Xerox/Air Florida style shirt design for next season.

Think Fabian Delph did this at Villa, he was featured at the centre of all the pre-season build up advertising photos, sat on a fat contract, pledging his allegiance to the club (which VVD hasn't done any of) 10 days later he is on his toes up the M6 to Man City having signed a bench warming contract with them, meanwhile back in Brum fresh billboard posters complete with his beaming mug on, were shouting about Villas imminent season. If nowt has been set firmly in concrete as to where he will be playing, all the new kit PR hullabaloo has to be put in place ready to roll on launch day. So just about everyone would have had a snap taken wearing the new kit.

Sad news indeed that TV legend John Noakes has died. It was probably a blessing at the end as his mate Peter Purves said that the Alzheimer's had taken a severe grip of him. Rest in Peace John and enjoy your walks with Shep up in the sky. must be getting old all these folks from my childhood departing in batches.

Meanwhile in the Turkey shed the farmer changed the calendar to December!!! ffs!

That nasty leg break aside, Les and his crew must be rubbing their hands together at the thought that they dodged a bullet and made some readies along the way where young Luke is concerned.

If you go back to last December - January we were having a bit of a stinker. Koeman stopped the rot by going to a back 3 sliding Bertrand in alongside VVD allowing Targett and (probably) Martina free-er reign to slide up and down the sides. Brother in Law is a Chelsea ST holder, he said that at the beginning of the season they were pants, then Conte switched to a back 3 and hey presto! He also said that the often maligned Moses suddenly was having an effective impact. As I said on another thread, wouldn't mind seeing Stephens, Yoshida, and (if he is still here) VVD as a back 3 next season.

Spot on...... if you walked out of SMS after results like that, you might get a bit piddled off at the result, but you would feel thoroughly entertained so that would smokescreen the issues in the team. The fact that we don't even look like being capable of scoring is what is getting most people's goat.

Cheers Billy for another season of alternative post match reporting.

just had one on Radio 5 - I have Muslim friends as yet I haven't seen an AK- 47 hanging up on their coat rack, nor the screwfix catalogue open at bolts and nails on the coffee table!!! You cant get a big pot of tar and a big brush.......... if you do then the nutters are winning.

Good to see both Maya and Jack driving out of defence into attack in an effort to get something to happen, Jack in the last 2 games made me think of VVD when he glides out of defence for a change of scenery. Young Jack has had a bit more of an air of confidence about him these last few games, I think the best thing for him was having Maya alongside him because even when Yoshida was flitting in and out of the team you could always see that he is very good at reading the game. Plus he was invariably looking to protect Jack, which is how they sometimes ended up in the same place at the same time. If Virgil stays, wouldn't object to us going all Chelsea with the 3 of them at the back!! Romeu, as he has been all season, was again getting stuck in and against hurley burly Stoke the kind of player you want on the pitch to hand back at them. I liked in one of those videos the club do where they ask the players what they like for their tea etc. "Who do you least like tackling in training" just about all of them said Oriol!...... Even Charlie Austin. Good to see Charlie back too trying to get things going and getting in where it hurts, and fair play to him when he made an error instantly holding his hands up in apology: unlike someone else who would blame a swooping seagull circling above the pitch if he could. Just a shame not to see Gabbi playing off Charlie.

This from further down that article would have made things interesting!! Paul Doyle: Teams should be docked a point for losing without scoring.

Sat down the other end didn't hear any of the Puel out, just the "you don't know what you're doing" which seemed to gain a bit of traction with quite a few fans in other stands. Best chant has to be "we're on the pitch if someone scores".

That's me out of the game then. Didnt want the £10k anyway

The only players who deserve pick up this weeks pay packet from today's game were, Stephens, Yoshida, Romeu, and Austin. Those of you getting your knickers in a twist over the reaction of others in the crowd to the substitutions, you must be the people who order a steak in a restaurant and ask for it to be cooked medium, when it turns up it's well done and your mushrooms are tepid and when the waitress comes round and asks if everything is ok with your meal, you just say yes thank you. When the average fan in the stands sees the deck chairs only being changed and not rearranged week in week out, at some point they are going to stop sitting on their hands and voice their opinion. They have invested good money and time to watch the games, Yes you can call this season the transitional one that's probably been long overdue, but Claude and his team are paid handsomely to find solutions to the problems and we ain't seeing any solutions being tried out. Finally I noted in the paper yesterday that the ref today Lee Probert had only reffed 3 premier league games this season, boy did that show today, he was woeful. The lass running the line in front of the Kingsland also looked like she had been picked at random from shoppers at West Quay 30 mins before kick off. Well that's it folks, 38 games, 8th in the table, a Cup Final, memorable trips in the Europa league: maybe if we hadn't been so bloody dull over the last few weeks our glasses might have been just over half full.

Don't let the door bang on his backside on the way out. Said for a long time he flatters to deceive, shows odd flashes of brilliance, but overall not as good as he thinks he is, when he loses the ball for the umpteenth time in a game he blames everyone else in pointing distance.

Because Thorpie bagged the 11am hour I will go for between 10:00 and 10:59 tomorrow morning. Les already let the cat out of the bag at the Awards dinner when he said "it will be a quiet summer".

2003 probably stood out because after many years of getting away with it, ok Hoddle bucked that a little, Strachan suddenly had us Saints fans reaching for the oxygen and enjoying the view from an unfamiliar position high up the table. The last 10 minutes of games were fun because Strachan had the team fit enough to last 120 minutes. I always remember driving home from the Boxing Day Spurs game which we won 1-0, Mrs JBS said "did you feel the atmosphere change in the ground when the clock on the screen clicked over to 80 minutes? It suddenly became tangibly tense and nervous!". I said that I didn't, probably because I was contributing to it. We actually got to a FA Cup final too, the first final for 20 (?) years, we weren't sweating on needing ours and others results to go the right way on the last day.

was that the one where Olomola came on, and went on a mad rum across their defence like he was being chased by fierce animals and Claude rushing out to the edge of the technical area telling him to calm down.

Blimey there's an echo in here

No it isn't they have put it on ice because of the.M3 being closed for tarmacing and finishing the replacement bridge.

As others have said the cup final when Gabbi scored that second especially, plus the singing of OWTS as one. That has to be closely followed by the trip to Milan, we had a bit of a road trip having flown into and out of Geneva, what a wheeze.......... but almost 7000 Saints fans in the San Siro singing their faces off (again as one) for a club of our size that is bloody impressive. So it's all been about we the fans!!! On the pitch West Ham away was fun.......... But Jack Stephens getting a toe to the ball in the box ahead of the slimy diving Origi, the resulting corner coming into our box and being headed away to Josh Sims who just put his foot down and was off up the Anfield pitch, having the presence of mind to run across the front of the retreating Liverpool player, then passing to Shane Long who simply just puts it in the back of the net. Lets hope this thread is a bit more action packed next May