pap

Paywall. F**k Murdoch, etc.

There's a little piece at the end of this article which indicates that Liverpool have let three of their scouts go. http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/nov/05/liverpool-john-w-henry-dubai-naming-rights Must have been one hell of an expense claim from Cherwell Valley services! (or they didn't buy well)

Freedom of movement facilitates freedom of trade. An EU citizen driving a lorry can take a load point-to-point anywhere within the Union. Back in the day, that would have involved travel permits, border controls and checkpoints - these days it mostly doesn't.

Is this just a giant plan to defeat the freemasons over the road?

To whatever tune the old Cornetto advert was. Oh Graziano, Score one for me, And lead the Saints to victory, They sing it in Italy Oh Graziano, Score one for me!

Yep. No-one disagrees with the wording on the plaque. Markus Liebherr saved the club. We're good.

You were saying that even though Markus is the best owner for the club, he didn't technically save it, because if he didn't actually save it, then someone else could have technically saved it. Actually. Point well made. A popular opinion, too.

Charlie, is there any modern sci-fi you like? I heartily recommend District 9.

As we've seen throughout the leagues. there are different kinds of owners. You want bad? Check out the poor bastards up in Coventry who've spent a season having to watch "home" games in Northampton, without any hope of things getting better in the near future. What about Mike Ashley, taking his fans for granted, utterly uninterested in doing anything other than tread the Premier League waters while he masterminds his plan to get Rangers into the English leagues. Say what you like about the recent whar's-me-stripes Saints kits, but that's nowt compared to what Vincent Tan did to Cardiff and their traditions. Given the extremely small timeframe that Pinnacle's píss-poor punt at purchasing a football club during exclusivity left, we were extremely lucky to get the owner we did. Investment every year, buying proven players and developing the academy. I can't remember any of the other suitors at the time. Perhaps those who dispute the verbiage on the plaque would indulge us with an alternate history. Paul Allen moored in Shamrock Quay standing by and ready to fire cannonballs of cash into St Mary's, was he?

Playing devil's advocate, the flipside of that article (immigrants pay more into the tax system than they take out) involves wage pressure and fewer opportunities for those already resident. Those are issues that UKIP is already capitalising on. As I'm sure I've said before, it's a bloody shame that UKIP seem to be the only committed anti-EU party capable of making a difference to the political landscape. Despite Nigel's highly successful posturing, I don't really buy him as a revolutionary in the sense that he's any different from the Tories he sprang from. In another sense though, what he's suggesting is quite revolutionary. An exit from the EU is effectively a change of sovereignty. I know that technically, we still implement the laws through our own statute books, but much of that comes via EU directives and is implemented by statutory instrument, probably because Parliament neither has the time to debate it nor the power to overturn it without violating our treaty agreements. Ultimately, it's a choice about who gets to govern and the limits of sovereignty. The shame of it is that it's a toss up between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Current wisdom over here is presently about wage bill; clubs with the highest wage bills are seen as most likely to succeed. Of course, you've got your clown clubs like Pompey or QPR that mess that up because they pay over the odds (or have no intention of paying at all), so although it's crude, it's usually an effective way of predicting likely achievement. However, most of the media is fairly useless when it comes to assessing how well players or managers are going to do in any given setup if they're not playing for huge teams, hence clubs like us can get a leg up by out-scouting the opposition. We've proven to be very adept at that, both in youth and senior recruitment. I know that we'll have the permanent naysayers thinking we'll never win the League or get top four or whatever, but I have to ask, if it isn't us, who else is better placed to start cementing a permanent berth at the top end of table? Spurs don't have the stability, Liverpool will be on another rebuilding job if the edifice keeps crumbling without Suarez to hold it all together. West Ham are doing well and are going to benefit from their eventual move to the free money stadium, but that's a way off and I reckon we're a better team. So yep, current wisdom is crap - and would probably have denounced our current position as impossible had it been asked to give a view on Southampton hypothetically being second after twelve games. Our defenders are not the most expensive in the League, and Clyne excepted, I don't think anyone would say that any were the best in their position. Collectively, they're the best defence in all four divisions - which would back up your boundless American optimism. Doesn't happen often, but shocks have happened recently in both France and Spain. Ok, Atletico are not a small club, but few figured them capable of breaking the duopoly until they did.

I think people have forgotten those long long weeks in Summer of 2009. Pinnacle. Tony Lynam coming on here, pulling everyone's plonkers, but ultimately wasting everyone's time. I thought it was sussed at the time, but many were hanging onto that Pinnacle bid like it was our last hope. The 500K that Crouchie spent on securing exclusivity would have been utterly counterproductive if Liebherr hadn't have swooped in at the last minute. It really is no exaggeration to say he saved the club.

Eggs box won.

Thanks, Gemmel. I was actually inspired by a school trip to Fort Spitbank. They had precisely two shítters on that fort, one for the commander and another for everyone else. As such, its application here is one of the highest honours one can pay to the man, and I can see no way in which it might be perceived as disrespectful.

He runs our club for years and you pay him no respect. This is what he would have wanted

Excellent post, bletch - and I don't want to re-tread the ground you've so eloquently covered, but the effects of this policy were predicted and felt from the start. First, I think the problem that this is intended to solve, that of the feckless unemployed, is hugely overstated and perhaps incorrectly framed. A far bigger problem is being trapped in unemployment, something which is a far larger problem, especially among the lone parent community. It's effectively the choice between looking after your kids full time or going out to work, and making all the arrangements for their care and transport, often for no greater financial renumeration than what they would have got anyway. Now I'm all for the world of work. I've hated being unemployed on the few occasions it happened, and I've seen ms pap transform in the last few years due to her re-entry in full-time employment. The chap in the article wants to work, but he's rightfully miffed at having to do it for free, especially as it'll nix his already limited job opportunities. That's the real problem, btw - globalisation has seen us use Russia as our heater, China as our factory, India as our call centre operatives and our unskilled job market is open to the whole of the EU. All of these factors limit opportunities for the British jobseeker. Punishing someone for being unemployed in Britain of 2014 seems tantamount to punishing someone for starving during a famine.

But not as Clough is remembered by Liverpool fans, eh?

Yes, a nice sellout for this one. To paraphrase Field of Dreams, "if you win them, they will come". Please dispose of your big club shirt responsibly

Would this be before or after the linseed oil application? The pride of walking out with a permanently stained blood talksport presenter cricket bat would be immense, but would the blood eventually corrode the wood? Large questions on SaintsWeb tonight...

Great face for radio though.

She says she had a "sh!t day that was cheered up by flowers , and was not going to be f××ked up by Liverpool f××king Football Club". Gotta love that scouse sense of humour.

I've just asked ms pap, a staunch and occasionally quite frightening LFC fan, if she wants to watch Real Madrid vs Liverpool? She asked in return, "Do I have to?"

Bear, you're not going to hurt mo' Leicester lurkers with outlandish predictions like double figures. They are already there, mate. Have been for days. http://www.foxestalk.co.uk/forums/topic/97773-southampton-away/