OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint

Good point. So yellow cards aren't competition specific? Downes should be an integral player to our team this year.

Arguably season starts even earlier. EFL is in 15 days, but Colchester in only 8 days away! Hope we also take this game seriously, a) because I'm convinced our winning cup run and that reinforcement of the winning mentality helped us in the league last season and b) I'm going! Of all the rumours, a touchline ban makes the most sense. A fine and we just up his wages to cover it.

Literally every friend I have who are season ticket holders at other clubs think we've been hard done by. Everyone. They all say the whole thing is a nonsense and we've been sh*t on. It wasn't cheating. It was scouting. On another tack. When I said to my son, what employer would keep an employee that has lost the club potentially £200 million, his argument is we were nowhere near the play offs when he became manager. I've never thought of it like this.

That's the thing. UEFA needs to get together with South America and force FIFA's hand. While it's hard to argue against inclusivity and making the world cup open to everyone, Infantino has gone too far selling the WC to the nearest bidder/friends. And as for feeling a migrant worker, feeling Arab, feeling gay, I say nothing. It's a shame Italy weren't at the World Cup. They are one of the best 32 teams in the world. As a kid, the World Cup was for me the pinnacle of football until we didn't qualify in '74 & '78, and now I just watch it. For me, us not qualifying was when I turned to be more interested in my club team than country. Another mistake!

Yeah, yeah, yeah......problem is, we lose a couple of matches early in the season and a lot of people will be making these type of comments. So there's a way around this 😉 There again, in matches last season, the team had a bad ten munutes and there's all sorts of doom and gloom messages. The biggest concern from this match was that Baz was spotted with a Saints shirt on again - though he didn't play. Phew!

But are Blackburn making these signings? MLG says there's no link with Stewart (and he's often right) and I can't see anything on their website to say they are taking big names or Stewart or Scienza for that matter. In fact, Scienza has only said he's 'open to possibilities' = so he's possibly staying with us. Ramsdale to Brighton? Just a guess given they're selling Rushworth.

What I don't understand is that for those holding Saints Membership, you could always get away tickets for premier league games (when we were in the premier league the time before last). Now, away tickets hardly ever go on sale to Saints Members. Even this Watford game didn't reach Saints membership whereas five years ago for the same fixture and allocation, there was a huge choice of seats for Saints members. Something has happened to our fanbase. There is no altruism happening here. SFC have only gone to the Eticket system to make their life easier. I can't see touts making a killing on a Saints/Watford game, so why not make tickets transferable among registered Saints fans?

Possibly, but you look at the unbeaten run we went on this year and he was captain for most of the games. I also think THB and Stephens are our best centre back pairing this year and want both of them playing for us.

Bit disappointed with this digital ticket app which says the tickets aren't transferable. Appreciate you don't want touts scooping up loads of tickets, but is that really a problem for Southampton FC? Every year, I go to about a dozen away games. When we were in the premier league the time before last, as a Saints member not season ticket holder, I could usually get tickets for away games including London games like Watford & Chelsea. Then away tickets got harder to get so some mates who are season tickets holders got away tickets for me. With this App, tickets can't be transferred among mates (you could pass each other's login details but technically that's not allowed). Appreciate some away games coming up will be paper tickets, but this will probably become rarer as time goes on. There must be a way SFC will allow tickets to be passed among fans. Either they allow tickets to be transferred among friends or they link every ticket with a dedicated phone number to stop people passing around each other's details illegally.

Realistically, we can't keep both Ramsdale and Peretz so naturally hope Rambo goes to a big club like Man U. Then you think where do players like Shea Charles and THB go. Shea looks like he could be off to Fulham, but I'm hoping THB will fit in nowhere. Can see West Ham with all their millions making a bid but otherwise, not too sure where he'd fit in.

I don't buy in to this at all. He's been excused as a confidence player and lacking it, or that Poch thinks he's good so he must be, but not once have I seen him play and thought there's a player in there somewhere. He's weak, his touch is poor, his postioning sense is non-existent, he can't head the ball. There's nothing. Whereas with Archer at least his sometimes shows flashes of footballing nous. I'd much prefer to see one of the U21s given a chance and that includes the pre-season friendlies.

These wages received by Saints players are similar on different websites which suggests they're either from one source and other sites copy or maybe there's some truth in them. It could also be that THB's agent is particularly smart and THB receives other benefits in kind in addition to cash in the bank. And Gloucester Saint, you're so right about these sodding agents. Admittedly a few years ago now, but at my local club Woking, players on £20k pa would come in with their agent to negotiate their new pays deals. You can just imagine the agent promising all kinds of stuff while taking their 10% cut which the players could hardly afford.

Read somewhere else THB was on £500k per year. Something we need to sort if we want to keep him but opinion on here seems to suggest he will be off this summer.

Dobbin looks a swap for Archer so would be not at all surprised to see Archer go back to the Midlands. And different websites say different numbers, but most seem to say Cameron Archer is one of the higher paid players in the squad at around £2m per year so that can come off our books too.

Wouldn't bring that up when plea bargaining! Presumably, when looking at his conduct, they will consider his conduct towards the interns, so I see SFC quickly covered that avenue by offering Will Salt full time employment.

Which is exactly why our PR department needs to be working overtime making sure that Tonda is not made a scapegoat. He sent people out on scouting missions, not spying, which was a minor transgression. There's a danger this will snowball again - like when the original story was deliberately leaked out, it went from a jokey story to crime of the century - we need to take control. There's a lot of competition but does anyone else dislike Boro more than any other club? Their management orchestrated the whole story.

Just read that article too. They must be one of the chief contenders for automatic promotion so anything that throws their pre-season preparations in to chaos is welcomed.

I haven't been there before but on the website it said expected getting out waiting times (max was 30 minutes) and the earlier you get there the closer you can park to the exit - which sounded much better than the park n'ride option or on someone's driveway through the Yourparkingspace website which is what I normally do.

You can accept you've done wrong but still ridicule the rules. It's breaking no rules to scout in the premier league but somehow it's a heinous crime in the EFL. Then you can scout in the EFL four days before a game but not three. Bielsa gets fined £200k - for us, they add four more zeros. It's all wrong.

For those driving there, I found booking a place at the carpark by the stadium (the Jobserve Community carpark) for £7.50 really easy. Never been there before but it seems a large car park though they recommend booking early.

This time, they need to do more than acknowledge receipt of the charges. SFC needs to go on the offensive. The company needs to make it clear that it is still considering legal action for the potential loss of £200 million in revenue and for the damage to the name of the club and owner. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I think we have been royally f**ked and are not doing anything about it.

To think that Saints bought this person as our main 'striker' last year is really really irritating. Every time he stepped on the pitch, anyone could tell he is clueless, useless and a waste of space. And stop wasting a place in this season's friendlies. He is not getting any better. As for BBD. Again, get rid of him. I'd bring Ross back. He's got good awareness, has a reasonable shot and even the way he bundled that goal in against Boro in the play offs shows he has the height and presence to be a nuisance in the penalty area. With Dobbin secured, our front men look reasonable.

It does seem like there could be a bidding war could be going on with Fulham, Leeds & C.Palace all being linked to Shea Charles. Hopefully our boys can keep drumming the interest up because ultimately he's third in the queue behind Downes and Jander and if we can get £30/35m for such a player sounds like a pretty good deal.

I don't understand how the fair play rules work, but are we in such a dire situation that we have to sell players? Yes, we have two top goalkeepers and Ramsdale will probably be the one who is sold (Leeds?) or loaned out, but do we really need to sell THB? Having him in the team next season would be a massive boost.

And that goal celebration against Pompey at Fratton Park - absolute star.