Teamsaint1

IMO the club needs to make a serious statement about future governance and the way the football side operates. A senior, hands on role for Southgate would be such a statement, and despite a lot of people’s reservations about his football management, he would be a very valuable person to have on board. He might even see it as a decent challenge .

Just wondering what sorts of litigation and FA / EFL action we might still be open to. I imagine that anybody and everybody who thinks they might have a claim is looking at the possibilities.

If he is up for it I would think that BBD would be a very useful player for us next season, esp given that we will have to sell and may be short of options. i think that we will be in a competitive market for Larin. Other Championship sides might well bid more than the option price we had. You’d have to hope that there will be enough goodwill all round for Stewart to sign a new deal. And I would think Smallbone ( assuming his fitness is ok) is worth a modest contract offer. Not ambitious I know, but we are going to be economising.

If his relationship with the players was the key element on staying or going ( a big IF) the players might usefully reflect on things like their own failures and lack of effort under WS, and the likelihood that we might have missed out on the playoffs if TE hadn’t given them more details on opposition than we had a right to, and his ( presumably) excellent coaching and preparation. None of which is to defend what he did in the slightest.

Football governance is full of rules that potentially bring big punishments for small errors. It is inexcusable , especially at this level, to have sanctioned this or not checked the legality. Tonda and others will pay the price, as will the fans.

The only way I can see forward for the club at this point is for the owner to appoint asap somebody high profile, at a very high position, who is thought to be of the very highest integrity, to oversee a process to put things right in terms of reputation, how we operate and so on. should be a doddle finding somebody !! Suggestions on a postcard. I wonder what Franny Benali thinks of all this ?

How do you “ cancel a request “ for tickets ? you either buy them or you don’t ?

Question : with reference to the “ Utmost good faith ” rule, would it be the case that standing outside an open training ground and watching your opponents , and possibly filming them , would be in contravention of that rule ?

And the mainstream media have failed to mention the situation that a day previously the alleged actions would have been within the rules. As they would have been more than 72 hours before any other game . OK, so our schedule has been about a game every 36 hours, but even so….. You might also think that knowingly sending somebody who is on the books ,to check in to Gibson’s hotel a few days before such a huge game might have been something that our management contemplated pretty carefully.

Apologies if this has been covered , but if Boro really found a “ spy “ with footage why would they force him to delete the actual evidence ?

Train it in from Caerphilly, worked a treat for us in 2003.

Support was decent tonight.

Some sort of explanation for the smaller allocations would be nice. In general the 36k allocations don't seem always to have sold out,so maybe there is some logic in the decision. Leeds in particular have had a real scramble for tickets it would seem.

Driving to Woking station might be a good option, as there will presumably be some trains starting from there .

I still have my " Road to Cardiff " yellow T shirt from 2003, so I'm saving there Hope you and the boys have a fantastic day. I was lucky enough to take my two boys to Cardiff, ( £80 each with no child discounts even then ) a very memorable day despite the result. If only Beatts late effort had gone in.....

i went in with about 4500 in the queue . I'm surprised that we even have that many members this season, assuming it will be mostly members today

I wasn’t a member but I got one with just one or two homes , but I think it sold out in the next couple of hours. I’d be quite surprised if this sold out. I don’t think Palace or Villa did, could be wrong though. Can anybody remember the last time they queued at the Stadium for a cup ticket ? Wolves in 2003 was the last AFAIK.Sure I did for that one. the semi and final were all online though .

They have very tricky looking fixtures for the next few games.

I had until a few months ago, if it is any consolation. I also can’t remember if I was at the 2-1 home win over Blackburn in Sept 1975. I think I was though…..

You would assume that everybody had planned for tonights outcome. Adam Blackmore seems to think you are right about Blackburn.

This striker might just about make sense if we are trying to balance the books for a serious shot at promotion next season, and he is being brought in as a back up for Stewart , if they are very confident in his fitness holding up. Or if the are really confident that he is an undiscovered genius. None of those apply though.

To be at the top end of the Championship you really don’t need a team of international superstars. But you do need a bit of class somewhere in the team, some team spirit, some players desperate for a shot at the big time ( money) , good organisation, a proper plan, some experience etc etc. No reason at all that JS can’t be part of the mix. He was last time when we got a hell of a lot more points, albeit with a better squad.

I lived and worked in Southsea for a couple of years, back in the mid 80's, and I worked with quite a number of p*****y ST holders and fans. In fact I played for Star and Crescent FC, ( 2nd team, the first team were very good !!) run by Steve Tovey who was ( is?) a prominent fan of theirs. In the main, the real fans were fine. Ok they gave me a lot of stick ( esp as I was there when we lost 2-0 at the Dell , deep joy) but it was proper football banter. In fact when I left the job they bought me some Saints stuff. The ones who annoyed me were the ones who dished it out when we lost, who themselves never went to watch. Weird. That said, they do seem to have much bigger problem with us than we do with them. I put it down to the incredibly long time that they went without a win against us from the early 60s till ( I think) that 2-0 at the Dell. Anyway, lets hope we batter them. We need to get off to good start in the game. Imagine Leo taking them apart !

jo Tess was saying that he thinks fitness is an issue, given second half performances.

We won the playoffs with JS playing all three games. You might say despite, but plenty of teams achieve promotion with some mediocre players. Part of the problem ( and there are many) is rank amateurish defending, EG Downes at Boro where he completely failed on some simple marking when under no other pressure. If we could defend anything at anything like the decent standard that this group of defenders ought to be able to achieve, we would be picking up a hell of a lot more points than we are.