Gloucester Saint

Strikes me as the type of bloke to see some of the local culture and be interested, bit like Romeu was with us, walking the city walls and doing bits of the SW Coast trail.

They will be play offs minimum but for top two it depends what Ipswich, Saints do, Leicester deduction or now etc. If Ramsdale goes and Saints don’t replace him then that’s a huge boost to them, Ipswich, Leicester etc as clean sheets will be as scarce at SMS as a run down and seedy Soho hotel. Ipswich signed a couple of Still’s ex-Reims players today who are solid but nothing to beat the bush about either. Hutchinson to Brentford could be disruptive. Us, them and Leicester still have time to sort the squads out and get some quality in the door.

They’ve been dropping back a bit recently, not loads but 30% is their peak. Unless places like Tiverton, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Cornwall have become hotbeds of Corbynism, which of course they haven’t, I wouldn’t take that poll remotely seriously. Corbyn et al might win the odd seat in North London but they’ll be useless outside of the M25. Think Kim Rose on Southampton ballot papers in the 90s and 00s. Lib Dem’s just won 70 seats last year and the Greens are polling around 10% in most recent polls and hold as many seats as Reform remember. But they don’t have the likes of Paul Marshall and Murdoch bankrolling them. These non-doms and toffs who run these stations are lunatics. See Rupert Lowe for example.

Good wages if true, three years of sunshine and can see KWP being curious about his surroundings. Good luck to the lad, all the best.

Similar to what we should be doing with Stewart where they are both capable of scoring but also quite brittle - aim for 15 or so starts, and 15-18 off the bench. Ain’t going to be starting or featuring in 46 games in the league. Ings at peak obviously miles beyond what Stewart could ever have been with a spotless injury record but I’m taking into account that Ross is four years younger than Danny and surprised me pleasantly in the tail end of last season. I call it the David Connolly 2011/12 cameo impact role.

11/6 now, Starc has 5 wickets for 6 off 3 overs. NZ’s 1955 record of 26 all out could go here.

7-5 for now. They’ve gone for result pitches at home, which from an English perspective shreds the confidence of their top order ahead of the Ashes but unfortunately for the Windies with the quality of their world class quicks, even if long in the tooth, has been too much for their even more brittle top order.

No chance that’s accurate, offshoot of GB News for a start. Lib Dem’s at 9% and Corbyn new party at 15%? Nah. We were getting more than that even post-tuition fees and with Swinney’s disasterous reign. Reform farvtoo high at 34%, been dropping towards mid-20s recently in most polls. Tories look about right at 17% if slightly high.

Agree, but the agent will want their pound of flesh.

No offence to Boro but that tells you how far Danny is off the level he was at Saints. A year ago he’d have been signing for a parachute payment side.

Agree with Benji on tv/culture/music - BBC, Sky News, Channel 4, even ITV with the PO scandal doc, Beatles, Pink Floyd, Who, Punk, Britpop, our festivals. Also Lighthouse on freedoms of speech and our democracy, which is why Trumpism must be fought at all costs domestically. I’ll add a couple of new ones: Cask ale. Other nations are trying variations of it but it’s uniquely British. The American craft beer revolution happened because the microbreweries of the late 1970s and beyond came to the UK and tried our cask ale, proving a road to Damascus moment. Some of many of the styles - Mild, Bitter, Pale, IPA, Porter - are intertwined with our history. First ever trademark was Bass Red Triangle. Science and engineering - other nations have great scientists and engineers too but the sheer volume and ingenuity for islands our size - Brunel, Telford etc.

You love it though Alex. Like that cat who was taking a cheeky 💩 on your lawn.

There’s not that many PL appearances combined in your list though, let alone what I’d call known performers. We were signing far better players in the 1990s stuck in a 15000 capacity stadium (without Foley as an owner) than the last 7 years. Lallana was right at the tail end of playing and it’s only really Taylor where I’d genuinely agree. Fernandes worked out superbly but could’ve fitted into the Poch and Ronald teams as well. Similar sort of transfer to Mane is some ways (different positions and player types). Summer 2022 did all of the damage with the high volume of kids and oddballs when that spending should have gone on the core spine of 4-5 players Ralph deserved under Gao and didn’t get. He was a busted flush by that stage but the club didn’t help him. Get those players at 23-24 and they make a profit in 2 years if they shine.

I’m not sure I’d call BBD’s record quality last summer, but on paper it did appear better than what we had or no worse than Che Adams. Sadly that didn’t work out. Playing the bloke wide in a v-shape formation probably knackered his confidence and he looked a shell back at the Blades on loan under the same manager he did well for briefly. Let’s be clear that BBD of last summer is not Tadic from Twente, Pelle from Feyenoord, Mane from Salzburg or Ramsdale from Bournemouth. We needed 4 or 5 at that level and not the huge number of cheap gambles. Lavia turned out well but wasn’t fit for 50% of the games so was an impact player at best, whereas Romeu, from Stuttgart, was crucial for Ralph. I don’t care about the profit, Lavia in and Romeu out was a key contributor to be relegated by miles.

The opposition managers would’ve been saying, ‘give Dibling and Fernandes a whack early on, keep KWP occupied. The rest of them can’t play for shit at this level’.

But Gavin was prized by Martin for ability with his feet to be a sweeper keeper as a Pep copycat rather than his core goalkeeping skills which we know aren’t Championship standard, further reinforced by his time in Liege (no Standard pun intended). As a core keeper he will be even more exposed. He’d been ok as #2 this year but Martin did him in there with the McCarthy extension was which jaw droppingly stupid. But that’s what the club does these days, look at the controversial Stephens extension. It’s a shock when they actually make an obvious football decision.

More like KP Skips as they melt.

Ramsdale - unqualified yes Lallana - 36, great to watch but a 60 min player at his peak and squad player for Brighton, that’s stretching it Fraser - in the past but not for a few years in the PL, a good Champ player at beat last summer Cornet - yes, but had a serious injury BBD - no, half a seasons loan at the Blades, albeit did go quite well. Stewart played a dozen good games for Sunderland in the Championship but doesn’t make him an established Champ player either Archer - one season on loan at Sheff Utd finishing rock bottom Taylor - unquestionably. Don’t know what the hell went on at the club from his perspective. As with Saints in general these days it doesn’t make logical sense. Can only assume him and Martin/Juric fell out.

She was part of it at the time. Desperate for it to be trawled up now a decade later. It’s like Whelk or Dark Munster producing a clip of Dorries getting pissed and saying something stupid in 2015. It’s hardly applicable to Badenoch now or even as a minister when she was in power even.

Whilst I’m up for criticising Corbynite MPs for stupidity, dragging that up from 10 years is really desperate stuff. Plenty of fresh stuff to criticise rather than a from a hard left opposition who never won power (and were never going to).

Didn’t quite get to 2005 Edgbaston levels of nerves, but it’s been a classic series so far close to that summer in terms of quality. Test cricket needed it. ECB will be happy with the full houses and good weather.

Agree on Gunn, that was from some of the record VVD money - bar Stu and Bednarek boy did Les piss that up the wall - and just checked Wiki, you’re right that he left SFC summer 2022. Bazunu joined in 2022 also, I knew he came in after Forster but got the wrong summer https://www.vavel.com/en/football/2022/07/30/southampton/1118417-southampton-season-preview-202223.html

Whether it’s experienced or younger players, there’s simply been far too many of them overall and the context has been ignored in doing so. Edozie, Larios and Bazunu were clearly not the right signings for the summer 2023 situation, when the club had been hollowed out under Gao. We need an injection of quality not gambles. One transfer going well, Livramento, and the Lavia transfers making profit became a whole strategy under Semmens, then Shields and Rasmus which was ignorant of the club’s history. Under Lawrie and then Nicholl, the talented youngsters learned from Keegan, Channon, Case, Shilton, Burridge and were able to grow and then be withdrawn at their own pace (saw this with Shearer after his debut). Bazunu might or might not have done better as #2 to a Ramsdale, the level the club should have been aiming at as first choice in 2023. More quality, less quantity. That’s how during the last two PL wretched seasons we ended up with a squad that struggled to fit into the home and away dressing rooms at SMS combined yet mustered less than 40 points from 76 matches which is pathetic.

Agree with 99.9%, the only detail is that I’m fairly certain Forster was finally out of contract that summer. Even so, we waited five years for Reed’s folly of a mega unwarranted contract extension to go off the books and then replaced it for another 5 years with Shields and Rasmus’s who is 10% of the keeper Forster ever was. Bungling incompetents #decadeofdickheads

Feel of Edgbaston 2005 about it.