Pat from Poole

I don't think I'll be too bothered if we miss out on signing this bloke; he seems your typical mercenary money-grabbing arse. There's plenty of other decent English players who we could get on a Bosman whose wages would be a lot less then this guy, and who would probably show more loyalty to us.

Fighting Fit by Gene is a great song, as is For Whom the Bell Tolls by Metallica and Invaders Must Die by The Prodigy as others have said. My choice would be Cult of Personality by Living Colour.

To be honest, if he did go there, you'd have to say that a strike force of Rickie and Maynard would be a good bet to get them promotion to the Prem. The CCC is going to be a really weak league next season, wouldn't be at all surprised if Leeds finish in the top 2, and if the Skates do start on -17, I think they'd still stay up.

Agreed. It will be a huge game for them, but just another game for us, no more important than Yeovil or Brighton.

Leeds fans pretty much took over half of Dorset that Bank Holiday weekend. I was working at Tesco at Tower Park in Poole on the day of the Bournemouth v Leeds game and there were OB in force there that night, worried there would be trouble. All the B & B's in Bournemouth and Poole were full of Leeds. Leeds fans are such a bunch of idiots, they've ruined the concept of a decent Bank Holiday weekend away game beer-up for a weekend for ever. Apart from the play-offs I guess.

The goal difference is because when we're good, we're very good. The standard of performances against Huddersfield at home and Bristol Rovers away is unlikely to have been matched by any other team in the division. The problem is, you don't need to be "very good" to get in the top 2, you just need to be consistently good, and able to scrape spawny 1-0's and 2-1's in tight games. Yeovil away was one of the few times we've done that this season. Teams who get promoted do it regularly.

Yup, pretty much how I see it.

Inclined to agree. You just can't predict with certainty that we'll be in the top 2, as we need to develop a ruthless streak which will see us win a lot more away games on crummy pitches. Southampton FC have not had this for almost 30 years. We also don't know what players we will lose and who our manager will be. It's over 4 months until the end of the August transfer window; that's the sensible time to bet.

Most people realised that the game was up when Huddersfield beat Millwall on Friday night. I didn't go, but thought 18k was a decent crowd in the circumstances. Anybody expecting 30,000 tonight was daft.

Ultimately not quite good enough. Congratulations to the top 6 sides, who have all been very good all season and deserving of a play-off place. We have not been consistent enough over the season.

Not Saints related, but my favourite bit of action from the last few days was from Preston's game with Scunny at the weekend. Scunny's first goal was hilarious. The Preston centre-half St. Ledger played a backpass to his keeper, turned round to berate a colleague for something or other, not himself realising that his backpass to the keeper was woefully short and allowed a Scunny player to run on and score. One of those that you have to see to appreciate; very funny though.

Yeovil away is the sort of game we have ****ed up so many times this season. I will happily take the spawniest of 1-0 Saints wins on Saturday, that combined with a Millwall win on Friday would be massively uplifting.

Couldn't agree more. I'm totally gutted, have almost forgotten that we won.

Surely those odds were for 90 minutes only though?

When did Reid manage us???

Colin will keep QPR up sadly.

It's amazing what nerves can do when you're near the finishing line though. To be honest, I'm getting less worked up about us getting in the play-offs, even if we somehow were to get in them it is a complete and utter lottery as to who wins them. Teams who get to the play-offs but don't win them often find the start of the following season really tough.

If Plymouth and Watford stay up but Sheff Wed and Palace go down, and Leeds don't go up into the CCC, there'll be quite a few big clubs in Div 3 next season, and getting in the top 2 would be arguably harder than this season. I really do think we need Leeds to go up this season.

Yeah, whatever, uber-fan.

A commanding midfielder. Either McGovern from Swindon or Bailey from Charlton.

Married with two kids, my wife works Saturdays. Wembley was my 10th game of the season, of which 5 have been home games, so I don't think I've done too bad. I used to be an uber-fan once, I missed two away games in the Souness season, but then I was single then. I would suggest to you that a heck of a lot of Saints fans at Wembley last week have got families and cannot get to that many games, they're still Saints fans even if they don't go to every game. I'm guessing by your stance that you are not in that situation.

I think their midfielder McGovern is very good, he's all-action and played very well against us both home ans away this season. He's the sort of player we really lack, i.e. having a real presence in midfield. I'm utterly staggered by Swindon's success, good luck to them, I would have preferred Leeds to go up to make it easier for us next season though.

Ha ha, I eagerly await Turkish' s response.

It was me, yeah. He's fine thanks, saw his GP on Monday morning and had the all-clear. He's banned by my Mum from football now though!!!!!

But our fanbase has grown since that time. Probably more notably in terms of the away following. I can remember being one of only about 400 Saints on a Saturday at Maine Road when we drew 3-3 up there when Ekelund was on fire, and regularly one of about 500 - 600 at Elland Road in any season in the mid to late 90's. And yet we now take 900 to Hartlepool in midweek and 2,000 to Leeds.