John Boy Saint

It that had been on target and half the Walsall squad were stood on the line they would have all ended up in the back of the net along with the ball. :-)

They obviously didn't go to Hartlepool then, a mate with us last night, made the long haul up there and he said that we were much much MUCH worse than last night last week. Trouble is, as I said earlier, there is so much desire and passion for us to win our way out of this league that sane judgement of the teams performance goes right out of the window; especially 10 minutes after the final whistle of a defeat. Glad to have it confirmed that I know my Lallanas from my Hammonds re the booking.

Definite case of throwing the kitchen sink at them second half but fair play to Walsall they defended like they had been told before kick off "If you concede a goal you will be taken out the back of the stadium put against the wall and shot". At times they defended like Ice Hockey players or even Presidential bodyguards. Felt sorry for Jaidhi as always he was solid, but one ball skewing off the wrong part of his head landed at the Johnny on the spot Walsall player who did what he was paid to do. Seen better refs in my life, as usual Rickie gets climbed all over and gets nothing goes shoulder to shoulder with a player and its a foul!!?? What the players have to learn is to be polite to officials when asking or doubting their intelligence, Chaplow and Lallana got cheap bookings for obvious dissent, the refs haste to his pocket means a few effs & jeffs were included in "how is that handball ref?". Frustrating given the chances we created, what sometimes compounds the frustration is the desire being a fan for the team to do well....... Still I have now been inside the Stadium I have driven past so many times on the M6.

Useful observation........................... TV is worse in Denmark on a Monday night than it is here!!

Leaving Southampton at 16:15 in Walsall at 18:30ish that will be very impressive Hope you have stealth capabilities as an option on your car!! Oxford at 17:15 what joy. M6/M5 junction backing up from about midday. I live in Basingstoke so a bit of a head start, I have a bad habit of not hanging around on the open road Junction 1 on the M5 (a regular destination) in 2 hours is a bit of a result.

When Morgan is in the side our tempo is better overall (unless he is having one of his off days). Looking forward this one as I drive past the Bescot quite often on the M6, best of all I am working up in those parts for a few days so I will not be having to drive all the way home after the game.

I think when we are playing and passing well, most of the fans get into a zone of watching the football and ignore everything around them. The amount of times my Missus or mates have been talking to me and for want of a better term, I am away with the fairies, in my own little world watching the game. Arsenal use to be called the Library and I think that was for the same reasons folks totally engrossed in the football.

That was a bit harsh, John Terry would have got away with that all day.

That said I think it looks the worst it has at this stage of the season for a long time. The ruts that appear in the penalty box at the Chapel end during the game don't look too clever at times. The Swindon goalie was looking for a solid patch for his standing foot at goal kicks quite a few times today.

That post match interview looks word for word what was said just after the match, I think it showed a few cracks appearing, as NA knows he is in a plum job, knows what the minimum requirements is, and knows what the consequences are. It sounded like a frustrated managers interview.

The Hartlepool defence only failed to follow their managers instruction of not letting the ball go through them just the once.

I think the big difference is expectation, Brighton are perennial inhabitants of this league and rock up to their games against teams who just see them as Brighton. We are seen as Billy Big Bo//ocks, lots of money, big shiney stadium, good players, we are the Manchester United (for want of a better analogy) of this league: the team to beat. When you look at the Bournemouth fans celebrations at Burton Albion when they were promoted last season all they could sing about was coming to SMS. Look at the Notts County fans after the 0-0 the other week, at the final whistle you would have thought that they had won. Every game we play in is viewed by the opposition as a cup tie against a premiership side, if not the final. As for NA he is not a bad coach by any stretch of the imagination, when you look at what he did at Scunny on more than one occasion without the means both in finance and playing staff as he has here He just has to work out how to get the players to unlock these pumped up teams early on in a game.

2 Things I remember about Dennis: a big dust up with Souness after a game. The other was before the infamous Norwich game relegation season, the players had done their warm up and were sat on the pitch in a circle around Dennis who was obviously giving them a pep talk, smashing his fist into his hand as he talked: we all know what happened in that game. For the fateful Manure game Bond was giving the chat and it lacked the passion of Dennis

Things went awry it appears when I made an 02 Dongle go to C not D in August the last entry on C is a ghost (you know faint icon) file called Connectoid xmls. just went to have a look at it and an active X warning comes up on internet explorer which opened automatically when clicked.

Running Windows XP

I have a Sony Vaio laptop with C & D drives. Nothing can be downloaded onto, or touched in the C drive and as a result the D drive free space is creaking at the seams. Can anyone think of why this could be happening.

That was a fantastic goal. Always made me smile when some young fellow called Beckham did similar v Wimbledon, the commentators were ejaculating wildly over it then and since: to my mind Nick Holmes strike was better. In the game that opened this thread that goal was sublime, Liverpool were chasing the ball around like kids in the playground at lunchtime and not getting a sniff, you would have thought that we were the kings of football at the time. Strangely though one of my favourite goals for sheer ferocity in recent times was Chris Baird lighting an absolute smoker from outside the box just as it looked like we had made a right pickle of a free kick, the whole stadium was groaning as Bale looked to be playing in Surman, who seemed to fluff it only for Baird to come onto it like a steam train and BANG!

Danny for me, I remember watching us one Saturday v Liverpool. Danny was cutting into the box 2 Liverpool defenders were closing him down, quick as a flash he popped the ball through the smallest of closing gaps between them, then like Indiana Jones reaching back for his hat as the jaws of death were about to snap shut, he followed the ball through the non existent gap. As you can probably tell, that left a lasting impression. Just as an aside Bobby Robson once said that his ultimate player would have the skill of Le Tiss, the strength of Shearer, and the speed of Rod Wallace.

I think that you might find that a road trip for Rochdale and Hartlepool was on the cards before Saturdays postponement. Finding 15 ish rooms on Saturday for 2 nights would not have been left to someone Googling on their iPhone at 9am Saturday Morning sat at the back of the bus. No great hardship being away on "business" for 5 days, probably a bit of a giggle as there seems to be a good team spirit in general. It's not unheard of for teams on their travels to use other teams training facilities, quite a few have used Staplewood down through the years.

Cheeky Wotsits on the pools panel had us down for a loss or "Rochdale v Southampton, match postponed: pools panel result - home win"!!!!!!

Cheers for that, (and a relief for the grey matter) I was close just got my early matches of a season skewed. What sticks out for me from that particular game was we were going well and Liverpool being the giants they were in those days were building up a head of steam for the equaliser. You knew when the 90 were up at The Dell from the clock. But despite no one being assassinated in the second half the ref just kept the game going and going as Liverpool kept knocking and knocking. After what felt like 5 or 6 minutes, someone from under the west stand could take it no more and ran onto the pitch to remind the ref to look at his watch and blow for time. Sorry to deviate from the original thread.

See my edit........................ sands of time have blurred events!

When it went to 3-3 there was a bloke down in front of us who stood up then started waving everyone around to their feet which then spread as others caught on so the noise level went up. When that goal went in, Wow what a rush of emotions coupled with an immense noise. I recall threads at the time saying that the roar could be heard from Above bar and other places away from the ground. Someone said that one of the reporters or researchers on Radio 5 had never been to game live before and she was blown away by the whole game and the noise, leaving her totally hooked. edit: Just realised that the score was already stationary at 3-3 when the chap stood up it was probably the fact that we were into that dangerous final 10 minute capitulation time that drove him to whip things up................................ funny how time can blur the edges of memory. (I remember us beating Liverpool at home 3-2 in the early days of our return to the top flight I thought it was 78-79 but it appears not!?).

Quick everyone chip in for a couple of tickets for this man, so that the deviant powers of Football karma are fooled into believing that he will be present and grace us with a win!.......................................................... of course no one can factor for that chap in block 18's lucky underpants finally falling apart in the washing machine yesterday afternoon at about half past 1!!!

It ain't much better in there. What you have is older people moaning, and talking complete and utter cobblers. You also get folks blathering on about nothing to do with the game, Berts Bunion and the like. Then get Their Chaplows and Chamberlains mixed up.