Gloucester Saint

This is the point - the team were far more effective in the second half when they moved the ball quicker. It’s so fucking obvious too. When we go back into the slow shit, we’re ponderous and at constant risk of conceding without a strong Romeu/Victor/Morgan to protect the defence.

We just don’t work the opposition keeper enough, but sick of posting about varying our patterns of play.

VAR check for last man. Don’t think it will be.

Tragic that the club are repeating Lowe’s mistakes with PR people infiltrating supporter forums. They are getting so obvious now on their trolling as Rupert’s lot did. I except Notnowcato from this, has different views from 99.9% of the site but he and Lighthouse are actual fans who happen to be big fans of Martin’s - disagree but still respect them.

Just hit the inside of the post, nearly 3-0. As we know, the style of football their manager plays is effective for medium-smaller PL outfits, but then their owners are clued in like ours used to be.

Businesses got plenty of help through the pandemic and we’re all paying that back for generations. Getting NHS waiting lists down means that we can get more of the working age population active to help close the skills gaps which helps all types of businesses. A hard Brexit means a £40bn black hole annually until some of it can be undone. Agree on the Truss bit. Also, our economy is far more complex than public v private these days. GP practices, charities, FE and universities technically in the latter and will be impacted hugely by the NI increases but it does fund other infrastructure they need.

Best way is to laugh it off - the manager and board have set out their stall and Dragan will have to underwrite all of the losses which arise. SR regard us fans as plebs but it turns out we know rather more about what works as a mid-lower PL club.

Not unless the EFL has a second go at reviving the Anglo-Italian Cup so we can watch Saints v Venezia in front of 8000 fans.

Hardly surprising given the manager’s tactics….

Goff’s White Knight after work. Was in the local 15th century pub last weekend with the family after it being saved with a new buyer. Quite a traditional pale ale this one, no Cascade or US hops involved here. But sometimes that can be good, floral notes from UK and European hops, dry finish. This brewer’s favourite beer of mine is Cheltenham Gold though, never been able to source their Blackberry Stout in the winter.

Rodney took a heavy tackle just prior to the incident, can’t remember who it was but VAR would have had a field day with it. Marsh is an obnoxious prick so fair play to whichever Saints player it was. Good player but widely reckoned to have derailed City’s title push under Malcolm Allison in the early 70s.

Whitey Grandad was correct, first used in 1970 WC and were the idea of an English referee Ken Aston https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-23634720 You were also correct that 1976 was the English league introduction. George Best was sent off on the opening afternoon of their use at the Dell but a winger called Dave Wagstaffe received the first earlier that afternoon for Blackburn who were playing at Leyton Orient (scene of our promotion two years later).

For dissent - ITV covered it as part of The Big Match. I remember the red cards being aimed at Branfoot during the Port Vale FA Cup game right near the end of his time with us.

That’s still steep - it’s less than that here and this is quite an expensive part of the Cotswolds. Decent lager I grant you, but that’s the sort of price you pay at Deya in Cheltenham for top grade beer.

Hard to know if Biden thought he was helping her or getting revenge. I almost wonder if it was a bit of both….

Both sets of comments about Southport were a disgrace - the Speaker had to remind them to rein it in. Neither of them will make a PM as long as they have a hole in their arse. Keeping the seat lukewarm for a serious candidate like Andy Street if he wins a seat later in this Parliament.

The PA should play this as Saints come out onto pitch, to go with the Russball

Absolutely, politically what she’s chosen is more practical. Would have been a huge risk politically to rely on most employees realising that the NI cut was unfunded even with the dire and accurate IFS warnings. And to think the Tory right were demanding Hunt and Sunak did far more - they’ve learned nothing whatsoever from Truss.

I half agree in the sense that sacking Martin - which is so blatantly obvious to the point it no longer even needs to be said to anyone associated with English football as the club’s results must come first - will not be a panacea or anything like it. The person/people who appointed him, Nathan Jones and have had a mostly disastrous last 5 transfer windows are still there as co-owners of SR. Nor is SR’s structure working with the industry expertise and resources it has. Dragan basically needs to get a co-investor with a bit more industry know how, additional capital to spread the risk and the ability to see through Rasmus’s snake oil. Best way to do that is an expanded SR board where him and Kraft get outnumbered and outvoted. A good DoF - not someone in charge of an ECL club’s academy system but with real operational top leagues experience - would break the cycle you describe.

The NI employers increase is the biggest risk - not just to slightly bigger SMEs and larger firms, but also charities and universities. The extra cost for the latter will be £100m alone and will lead to further job losses in that sector. That said, Reeves was left an appalling situation, unacceptable, and indefensible, by a party that used to have a reputation for economic competence which was trashed by first Boris and then for generations by Liz Truss. Finally, as a Remainer, today’s situation wasn’t inevitable but Boris, Farage, Banks and Putin didn’t tell you this was the reality of losing several % of GDP through nearly the hardest possible Brexit. Worst of all, it has actually made taking back control of the UK’s borders harder, not easier.

Nathan Jones made the semi-finals and even beat Man City. Yet along with Pellegrino still widely considered our worst ever manager. Ian Branfoot couldn’t believe his luck.

Good job really as with amount of teenagers I knew in the pre-internet days who had copies of the Anarchists Cookbook there’d be a lot of anarchists around! That’d be considered prehistoric these days.

That’s what really struck me amongst a hilariously chaotic game which did keep me engaged (rare for Saints these days) - the level of fitness has sunk to the 2008 Dodd and Gorman days. Stoke reserves looked quicker and stronger even if the technical refinement wasn’t there after about 40 minutes. A few of the Saints players looked like they were really blowing out of their backsides. It’s a long way from the WGS side who scored late goals regularly, Poch double training and Ralph pressing. We did score a lot of late goals last season tbf, but the fitness seems to have dropped when we’ve gone up a division. Still, Kraft was too busy having a laugh with Russell to notice.

I think he meant we were lucky Bree saved his manager again, the one who won’t use him in the PL despite looking far more solid and focused than most of the other junk wearing red and white stripes.

I’m at the stage of laughing at it - some of the defensive errors, mis-controls, disorganisation and lack of fitness 😂