Gloucester Saint

Atomic Badger are good. Played at our wedding many years ago but still active going by social media. They were very good on the night and when we watched them play originally. and quite versatile https://www.heroeswaterlooville.co.uk/whats-on/atomic-badger

Yes, would like to see this one go through. Otherwise we could be left with tears on our Bijlow.

I agree with most of that, shitty behaviour from them. No criticism of Saints at all. Not fair on ABK either, even if he has allegedly behaved like an arse at times. The last paragraph is a bit OTT, no fans of any club would be happy about conceding a goal like that and wasting a decent performance at a tough away game. Whether it’s the player or the manager. The transfer business has widely been recognised as sensible and good this summer which it hasn’t been since Ronald, GK is the one exception. Some of the fanbase are frustrated that they see - rightly or wrongly - Gavin prioritised as a vanity project by SR when eventually fit again which is suspected to be behind Alex’s unexpected new contract and the difficulties in moving on with a #1 keeper clearly needed (along with PSR/££). Alternatively the club use Alex but accept that he needs to put his foot through the ball to the wings, not trying pretty triangles on the edge of his own area. Because he was solid on everything else Saturday. No-one at the club can reasonably gripe about the above.

I think it’s the rumour that the club are reluctant to make a longer term signing in the GK space as they believe Gavin will be the next Gordon Banks given more time (Tongue in cheek). People then put 2+2 when McCarthy was retained rightly or wrongly, Martin bit back somewhat at supporter questions at last summer’s forum about whether Bazanu would ever be good enough (which he probably regrets now with hindsight after some of the sub-standard performances Gavin gave a lower level, finishing 24th in every keeper data table going). But to be fair, he could hardly push him under the bus either? Steele from Brighton is probably a compromise and Lallana will know him well. Gavin needs a loan once fit to League 1 to get his confidence back as Saints put him in the deep end 22/23 and it didn’t do him any favours which someone with more high level football awareness than Shields (also see current Chelsea farce) or Rasmus wouldn’t have done. Another Champ spell littered with bloopers will finish him. Bart is a good model for Gavin - rebuilt his confidence at places like Notts County and ended up a Champ regular later in his career at Ipswich and Millwall.

If this is true, Russell Martin needs to shit on Bitcon and Rasmus in the media here as this stinks of Rasmus and get control. Another fucking stats based signing in a position if this is true that we don’t need. Just like Bazanu and Edozie. SR stabbed Ralph in the back over failing to get a striker and cost him his job. Would be the same here, I’d say if signed that he’s a kid for the Saints academy they’ll loan to Goztepe but the owner has promised him the funds for a first XI winger and #10. That would stop this in its tracks but Russell is going to have to play the multi club politics here to get Saints what we need and pull rank as the biggest club. The only way that signing would makes sense is if Smallbone or Aribo are on the verge of being sold and even then it’s a huge risk. Hopefully it’s agent bollocks but I get the sense it isn’t. Hypo - couldn’t agree more. This is Rasmus via Bitcon as his puppet. Hopper - he might go to be brilliant but what’s the point of Russell Martin investing time and energy on Smallbone and selling him next week? Because he won’t be playing at all if this guy joins, or it’s probably the end for Aribo. This guy would need either a 1 in 3 goal ratio or high assist rate to give Saints what they need, and he doesn’t. He’s box to box.

Yep, pretty much it, although I’d say it’s Keeper/Winger and then striker if KWP moves on (not that I want it to be). The Bazanu obsession has to be ended today - he is a League 1 keeper at best, and he may have to re-start lower still post-injury. The idea that Alex was keeping the seat warm is nonsense as today shows yet again. If Ramsdale loan is too costly, then Johnston. Let’s stop the fannying about, my impression was at the fans forum that Martin does want to upgrade so he needs to push it with Dragan. New keeper starting v Forest a bare minimum. Speaking of ex-City youngsters the club dream about being £50m players not grounded in reality, Edozie is another. He’s far better than Gavin, and looked decent at times in the Champ. A few top 10-12 outfits there still wanting wide players, Samuel needs to play week in week out and be encouraged to attack the full back and work on his deliveries. At least he could be an asset next term. There should be the winger option in the loan market (Fraser saga has gone on too long now) as I’m not Ramsdale will happen.

Good performance until that absolute shitshow from McCarthy. This game has gone now but tomorrow and Monday has to be about getting a first choice keeper in. It’s not difficult, practically anybody with a pulse woyld be an upgrade on Alex and Baz, and if Martin doesn’t trust the scouts (understandable) then give Mendes or one of other agents a ring, I’m sure they’ve got a keeper looking for a PL opportunity in their books who are at least passable. I don’t know if the hesitancy to get a first choice keeper is the manager or board. If it’s the former, the club might need to do what Cortese did over Nigel’s head by getting Boruc in.

The issues are as much about staffing levels and timetables. I use Cross Country regularly to travel Midlands/SW/Wales and even when the strikes aren’t on, the holidays or sickness absence soon force trains to be cancelled, stuffing up travel plans for work or leisure because the drivers aren’t sufficient and the whole system is far too reliant on overtime. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj9le7vdw91o The previous government did initiate a positive change - lowering the minimum age for drivers to qualify. The unions were calling for it as were the ATOCs. It’ll take 2-3 years to filter through, but it should alleviate shortages and need for constant overtone which is a major source of the industrial tensions, and it’s a good career option for younger people. The training centres and exams will still be hard to pass. So a pay deal is a bridging measure to that.

The club decided against signing him as heard he is a bit of a wanker and quite flash(ing). Mara potentially going is great news, fingers crossed on ABK, should see some activity. Not sure about Archer, too similar to what we already have.

I’ll name a few more that were either paid off, given away or contracts run down - Boufal, Djenepo, Ely, Vestergaard, Hoedt (£17m - the club’s drinking culture really had got out of control at that point or someone was on the fiddle. He wasn’t worth £1.7m), Bazanu, Gunn, Alcaraz is borderline. Stewart was literally burning £11m away (with the play off win payment to Sunderland) and jury out on Charles, one of the most expensive Champ players ever at £15m. My second list comes in at around a total of £150m just in fees, your first list I make £90m. So £240m just in fees and how many genuinely PL players have you got there? Lemina when he could be bothered and sorted his head out at Wolves. And I’m struggling after that…Charly on a good day. Jury out on Charles but the manager doesn’t seem to think that much. Bazanu and Gunn - that’s one first choice international keeper with a decent nation (not RoI or Scotland) for £30m instead. Simple. Just one that claims crosses and saves mostly where they should. Instead, the club spent the same sum on two of the worst Championship keepers in recent memory boosting the wealthiest club in the world. The club was in the PL when it signed both. You don’t have to be Paul Mitchell to know that’s moronic. And that’s without Alex’s and Fraser’s mental contract extensions. Between us we’ve listed 16 players. Too much volume, no quality and a total absence of strategy eg key attributes for certain positions and in relation to systems/playing style, almost all of which the above list of shame lack. At least the club are signing some decent pros this summer even if the past mistakes of a Lidl transfer approach are weighing us down.

I respect everybody mate, whether they empty the bins, cancer scientist or cabinet minister. Whatever their education is or none. Respect whoever they vote for. But him and GM don’t respect anyone and they don’t debate or discuss their views. They’re abusive trolls. Hence they vanish when they get a bit back. PS - if it’s not a cult, why are Trump’s followers wearing nappies and patches over their ears? Tory members didn’t all shave their heads when Hague was their leader, Corbyn got a bit too close to being one, but nowhere near as dangerous.

Let’s see - graduated at a top research intensive when few working class secondary school pupils from Southampton achieved that, went onto to be postgraduate qualified. Senior figure of my profession since. So if I’m thick, you must either be the bloke Whitey Grandad has as his avatar, or you’ve got an IQ of 3 and look like one of the boneheads getting sentenced in the riots. Hmmm, I wonder? Frankly, calling anyone thick with the appalling lack of literacy you post with is someone who lives in the Crystal Palace throwing metorites at my windows. Grammar to you is the old person you clumsily finger at Hilsea Lido (Rallyboy, the PTS thread 2014 or so). You support a racist, facist, and multiple convicted felon who tried to overturn a democractic election in 2020. My grandfathers successfully fought the dictators of the 1930s in France, Italy, Africa and the Far East. Just so you can support Trump, Farage, Musk and others enabling Putin, today’s equivalent. Pity that you weren’t set a better example by your own family or you might have educated yourself better so you don’t support facism.

I don’t have any political hero’s as I don’t follow cults like you with the Orange MAGA moron. There are some politicians I admire or admired e.g. Ashdown, Kennedy, Heseltine, Clarke, Mowlam, Cook, Davey, Streeting - but well aware they all have flaws. Mine are sporting e.g. Botham, Danny Wallace, Steve Moran, Eric Bristow, Freddie Flintoff, Ben Stokes, Michael Vaughan, Graham Thorpe (RIP), James Anderson, Shane Warne, and Lambert and MLT, even with their nutty views.

I hop you are right

Your hero doesn’t tend to answer questions very truthfully and isn’t big on accuracy https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0jpn2q76n1o

That’s not the reason it’s a problem. UK higher education educational provision and R&D is one of our few remaining globally successful and recognised industries. Or it was until the last set of plastic MAGA politicians in the previous government dragged it into the culture wars. The issue is two-fold: 1) Soft power around the world. It’s a key leverage in trade negotiations, and politically having access to train future world leaders means that we are less likely to have Putins and Trumps, and they have a relationship with us. Secondly, it means governance can improve in their nations of origin which reduces illegal migration which we don‘t need or want. As America has found out the hard way, isolationism doesn’t mean you can close the curtains on what’s outside or be immune from its impacts. Better to engaged and shaping things. 2) Domestic, regional and civic economics. Just on the raw figures from the HoL, you are talking 768k FT jobs, £71bn gross value added and £116bn overall economic output. So the latter is all of the SMEs who rely on long-term service contracts with their local university, hundreds and thousands of them. With home fees stagnant for a decade, most of the sector is bankrupt without overseas students. They should never have been in net migration figures in the first place and their accommodation is not an issue capacity-wise, and again landlords are reliant on that income in a lot of towns and cities. Housing capacity plus all of the new halls of residences built during the years of low interest rates means that’s not an issue and most don’t stay beyond their period of study so it’s not a constantly escalating figure either. We just need to be better at using CPOs as an ‘shit or get of off the potty’ and saying to owners ‘use it, renovate it or put it as an auction log within 18 months of notice for truly derelict properties’. The longer they are derelict the more expensive to return to use https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4ngzq91323o If you want less overseas students, fine, but that will cost you circa £10bn extra taxes to close the gap because no government is going to make a fee hike for a while. Universities thought they had the ability to act as a true market but the Tories post-Cameron and Osborne didn’t understand what that was. And that’s with mergers and probably some closures in a slimmed down sector. Expensive business Brexit. Given we don’t make cars in the same numbers post-Brexit, and manufacturing isn’t recovering at scale, probably a sound idea not to destroy one of the new global industries we have left.

Barry Bannan is a good little player, but mid-30s now, and operates in certain midfield space. Even Martin managed to flood the midfield twice last season and stop that. Rooney names him as a threat but then plays a two man CM. I wish him well because I like Plymouth as a club but that performance today was as bad as anything Saints produced in Ralph’s later 2021/22, Pellegrino, Nathan Jones. Sturrock opening day at Villa was probably the easiest comparison in terms of how wide open midfield was and the low energy levels. The lack of organisation on the pitch was frightening.

He is, but Plymouth are not set up right here at all. Wide open in midfield, getting caught in possession in their own half, and the front players are not in the game. Whittaker, a player Saints are rumoured to be tracking has had 5 touches of the ball tops. Wendies already singing ‘sacked in the morning’ to Rooney. Its so bad, Weds could and should have scored three more and Adam Forshaw has ‘Foreshaw’ on the back of his shirt.

Lewis Payne has made both Cheltenham goals and best player on the pitch so far. Good start for Michael Flynn v Newport, his long-time club. Away end full, they’ve travelled over the border in good numbers. Then I posted the above and jinxed it. Lewis gave the ball away and further into the Newport move brought down his opposite number quite needlessly conceding a penalty. 2-2 at HT

This is a tannoy announcement Saintswebbers. Calling Soggy to the Lounge. The batshit crazy GM has started a new thread entitled ‘Tommy Robinson Appreciation Thread’ and it wouldn’t be the same without your contributions and the characters of Maidstone. 😂😂😂

This is true but SR still allowed a child with Excel to spunk all of that money with only Lavia really being the part. They’ve got to own it. Last season was mildly better and getting the Tella fee worked well for all parties. Decent business so far tbf, but they’ve dug themselves a hole with Bazanu and McCarthy, SR just need to suck up the wages on a decent keeper loan and loan Gavin out in L1/L2 when he’s fit for a couple of seasons. Even if it’s £100k p/w. Prior to them, Les pissed all of the VVD £85m away bar Stu and Jan. He must have dyscalculia as Lazio probably thought they were getting £1.7m for Hoedt (about right for a Serie A reserve player). £17m for Moi and more for Vesty….not keen on players with any pace then…but Carrillo topped it off. It will take a few years of up/down with the parachute payments to sort out the incompetence. Feel a bit sorry for Russell Martin in a way, as I did with Ralph. Not sure Ipswich have invested wisely either in the spine of their team as we did in 2012 but we will see.

You’ve won nothing, the only winner from your crass post earlier today about ‘socialist’ governments spending other people’s money was CB Fry who rubbed your nose in it by pointing out the unarguable figures that the national debt to GDP nearly doubled from 2010 to 2019 let alone since then. And it was far fucking lower than even 2010 before the global credit crunch. Tony Blair a socialist 😂- stay off the morning drinkies John Labour has managed the economy better since 1997. No amount of cut and pasted from the DT is going to change that. We’ll see what Starmer and Reeves do but right now I’d quit whilst you’re behind because you already come across like a pissed old fart. And this from a Lib Dem voter (in a seat overturning a 20k plus Tory majority so I know what winning looks like) who has little care for Labour. Your inability to grasp basic economics goes alongside all of the other topics you’ve been 😆 wrong about: Brexit and Deutsche Bank UK GE last month being a 1992 like Tory surprise victory Source of Grenfell Tower fire The riots 2020 US election and about to be wrong on 2024 Supporting Rupert Lowe as SFC owner (probably too left wing for you in the end although supported your beloved Brexit) Just the ones I could think of 😂😂😂 We don’t need to resort to abuse, you just run from thread to thread humiliated. And two of them YOU started! Please predict a Newcastle 5-0 win and it’s a certainty we’ll cause an upset.

Despite all the talk of trouble in Southampton, the night’s most notable disturbances, and they’re mild compared with the last few days, were down the eastern end of the M27, where around 200 idiots (BBC) blocked the M275 (you could argue that stopping people going into Portsmouth is a social good…) https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/crime/anti-immigration-protestors-block-m275-portsmouth-4733688 A bit of counter chanting and police separating the two sides in Aldershot, and briefly 100 lads in Blackpool which quickly fizzled out but doesn’t sound like the Aldershot situation will escalate. The only area of concern remaining is Chatham https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy4e9r8qjwo

Actually I think the reverse will happen, the EFL getting underway will draw away anyone who was thinking about getting involved as they’ll want to see their team, meet up with friends, usual pub pre-match. Plus the sentences coming through now are a deterrent to the more casual troublemaker. I’ve not seen the weather forecast but a bit of rain might help too.

It’s simple, the GMP is still seeking further evidence so it can confirm and press the charges in relation to what actually happened on 24 July in three distinct phases as a far more complex case https://www.gmp.police.uk/news/greater-manchester/news/news/2024/july/gmp-opens-public-portal-in-appeal-for-further-information-about-events-leading-up-to-footage-filmed-in-manchester-airport-terminal-two/ If the Southport ‘protestor’ can get 3 years for assaulting a copper, with the sheer violence of what was captured on camera at the airport against particularly a female copper and any potentially racially aggravated elements in those prior phases either on the plane, luggage terminal or cafe (the police have to be certain what happened when and where in the chain of events at the trial), the sentences if guilty in the Manchester case could exceed that threshold and more, contingent on any prior track-record as well. They will almost certainly be incarcerated for the violence against the coppers, I know from experience of working with them many years ago that the cops will want/expect that and the judge won’t accept any grandstanding from their new lawyer. No doubt he will make the most of the stamp in an attempt to reduce the sentence. The job of confirming the charges has just become more difficult with the original plank of a brief (under investigation for malpractice himself) who posted the stamp video without the rest of the context in the first place being replaced with Aamer Anwar. Not a pleasant character either but in legal terms this is Bashley’s manager being replaced with someone in the Premier League, so the case has to be watertight. The cases are totally different in their complexity, especially as we don’t really know yet when the motive was behind the Manchester Airport events, hence trying to get witnesses going back to the flight. Whereas the Southport offence’s motivations aren’t hard to figure. Those lads are looking at a jail term though, Anwar will make the most of the stamp and try to claim media coverage compromises a fair trial, all the usual tricks of the criminal law trade in high profile cases. Reality is that the first lawyer, Yakoob, was a huge part of the reason for that. He’s had his 5 more minutes of fame. You asked a reasonable question, but spoiled it with the pathetic hashtag.