Dell McDellFace

Listening to Graham Souness after the Arsenal v Everton game last night, I agree with him. Premiere League football has become very one-dimensional, predictable and stagnant. It's not just the lack of crowds that is making it sterile and as a marketable product (I hate that word ever since Rupert Lowe used it to describe football) that is sold around the world, the value is rapidly diminishing. As Souness said - you might as well watch French football. I think there is an opportunity for a club to be brave and break the predictability - e.g. (1) plan to make 3 substitutions at half time so that 6 of the squad know that they only have to keep going for 45 minutes and can run themselves ragged; (2) pull everyone back for a corner then as it's about to be taken have 3 sprint out in the hope of making a break and catching the opposition out (3) offer players bonuses on the ratio of forward passes to backward passes they make and for staying on their feet when fouled (if possible) Innovate, take a gamble. They won't always come off, but what they might do is negate the effect of opposing teams studying hours of footage of how you set out in order to stifle creativity - which is what's at the heart of sterile modern football.

If 'plan A' is the high press, then it worked well for us and to some extent still does - like in the first half against Tottenham. It's not so much that teams have worked out how to play against us, but with games coming thick and fast it's not sustainable. We managed it for a half and then started to look really tired and they took control. Danny Ings may be a bit injury prone, but he would probably not be so much if he didn't do so much chasing down off the ball, in both attack and defence. With a small squad, players are having to play through minor injuries or out of their favoured position. It may not be a popular opinion, but my view is that the same squad and manager would be competitive again, playing in the same way after a pre-season break. But the same thing would no doubt happen, we'd have a good run, get exhausted, pick up a few injuries and have a bad run. I also quite like the plan B that we've seen over the last couple of games of sticking Vestergaard up front and slinging high balls to him. It's something that Chris Nicholl used to do to good effect. Although doing it so late in the game can be perceived as desperation.

I will raise you Carlton Palmer, Jim Magilton, and Peter Wells

7th April 1969 Southampton 5 Burnley 1 Bobby Stokes debut. He scored twice Pain, Davies Judd

Would be an ideal candidate for Bristol City and would probably do well there.

Met a few in my time: Did bob-a-job for Gerry Gurr once (cleaned his front porch) Met Dennis Hollywood walking back to his car after a game at Chelsea. Happy to chat as we walked with him and his car was chock full of football magazines. Same game, the rest of the players were on the train back to Southampton and I was surprised how many were drinking and smoking. Talked to John McGrath and Docker (Dave Walker), both lovely guys. Met Dennis Wise on holiday somewhere and he swore at my son when he asked him for a photo with him. As someone else said Ken Monkou lived in Lightwater and was always happy to stop for a chat when walking his dog. Very intelligent guy. My colleague lived next door to Colin Clark and I met him a couple of times. He was a lovely and slightly sensitive guy. He was very upset that he was getting chants about his weight - he thought that Saints fans were even doing it. I won a holiday to Yugoslavia through a competition in the program (Yugotours were a sponsor) and was presented it on the pitch by Jimmy Case, another great guy who was happy to chat but struggled a bit because he was quite deaf and wasn't wearing his hearing aid.