Neil

The difference now being that we have someone that may be able to pay off the whole lot in one chunk, and not even notice the missing change from his pockets...

"the unfeasibly venomous south-coast rivalry..." Nice article, and like this quote, Guardian has been one of the few papers to understand this rivalry, and did so before, I remember a similar description from the '96 FAC tie.

Well we've missed a real opportunity to close the gap, and it sounded pretty disappointing on Solent, seems that many of the fans who went back that up. Subconsciously are the players/coaches/manager already giving up on the league? I really hope not, as we still need a few points to be safe from relegation, and 18 games is a lot to drift through on cruise control. Still, two wins in the next two games and all will be forgiven, a big week for sure. Would be nice to see more progress in this team, as much to give some confidence for next season as anything else.

I'm not too bothered about the silverware, except that I've never seen Saints win anything, so wouldn't mind putting that stat right. OK, I admit I wouldn't be boasting about winning the JPT for very long. But £100k for JP winners, so once we've got there we may as well win it. Every £££ counts when you're funding promotion pushes, and that pays a decent player's wages for quite a few weeks.

Think there is £100k for winning the JPT, so worth a trip to Wembley to bank more cup prize money. Not to mention a good taster for a play-off final, should we make one. And a great day out for the fans...

Possibly we could get those players now, whereas in the summer if they were cheaper/free there may be more competition to sign them, from clubs already in the Championship? If we signed them in the summer there'd be another period with a new team at the start of next season, something that hopefully we can avoid this summer.

Looks pretty good to me, and should still be good next season even if a couple of the bigger names (Lambert/Lallana) have left. Hopefully we can keep them though. Anyone care to work out the approx. cost of each player and total squad cost?

Block 3!

I think the Familly Stand is now the entire Chapel, so they won't have to move, unless they want to avoid the young 'uns getting shouted at by away fans. Good news on the beer front, and I agree Saints should make much more revenue from fans eating/drinking on match days. With the current offerings, they won't make too much! Anyone go to Walsall where the Saddlers must have raked it in from the Saints hordes in their vast Social Club? Shame there is no such facility at SMS, although may be room somewhere?!

Yes I heard it on the 7.20 bulletin. Was simply a "Solent understands that..." type of story.

Definitely a good idea to boost the Stockport crowd, that's a pretty important match as well.

Looks like this game will be moved then! And we won't be going to Liverpool or Everton for a Quarter Final...

Would prefer one of these at St Mary's: Cardiff Derby Reading Notts County/Wigan Wolves/Palace Spurs/Leeds

Fantastic game to watch, an absorbing contest and a great atmosphere in the ground. (shame the ref was so fussy and whistle-happy) Ipswich looked real quality in the 1st half, and not surprisingly swamped our centre mid and got down the flanks with incredible ease, they put some good balls into the box and I though Jaidi in particular (my MOM) set the tone with his clearance headers. But I thought we stuck at it well despite the pressure we were under, and came back at them well, one particular spell in the 2nd half (c.65m) which was very good when we had a couple of near misses, and that really got the crowd to fever pitch and kept the team going. All in all an excellent afternoon out, and another £90k banked from the prize kitty. Just need to keep juggling the squad well, and definitely need the 3 points at Brentford.

I wonder if the Monday Echo go back to having a genuine report on the match, rather than Adam Leitch filling paragraphs with a fairly dull 'angle' on Saints that doesn't really provide anything useful for fans, regardless of whether they were at the game or not. Football fans will certainly never be happy with their local papers if they print any more stuff like the Lambert nonsense! That wasn't just lazy journalism (as is the Echo norm), it was pure ****-stirring.

1st day of Cheltenham Festival, so may need an afternoon off to get 'warmed up' for the Swindon game!

The Echo is full of crap and misinformation on a daily basis, but that Lambert stuff really ****ed me off no end. In no possible way could they argue that 'story' was in the interests of any local readers, it was such a load of guff and ****-stirring. Can any Echo reps on here please tell the people on their Sports Desk that this stuff isn't needed.

As a ST holder, if I buy two tickets now for the home leg, one for me and one for a mate (who is not a ST holder), is that mate gonna get preferential treatment (after ST holders) for a possible Final ticket? Or should he wait for the General Sale, in which case he may be sitting somewhere else in the ground not next to me?

I think the home attendances are pretty good, but we should still be trying to improve them whilst there are empty seats. The ST prices have to be right next season, this season they were a bit too high which has meant more empty seats than necessary. We could do with increasing our support from within the city of Southampton, getting fans back in the habit of Saturday afternoon football, a few beers with their mates etc. The away attendances have also generally been good (Orient/H'pool/Carlisle), but we need to take more to the likes of Millwall/Brentford. Would be nice if a few of the ST holders got to a few more away games now and then, I think they'd actually enjoy it.

Fonte should have a few games under his belt by the time we play Huddersfield, postponement may have worked out quite nicely as their front players are pretty decent. Haven't seen any new date for Swindon yet.

When we were drawing in 'shocking' crowds last season, I must have missed that?

I've always hated Keane in his ManUre days, for his intimidation of refs, general thuggery and specifically the incident already mentioned (Alf-Inge Haaland). Anything that can get the St Mary's crowd going is a good thing in my view, as it can be a bit too quiet sometimes.

Excellent draw, home again and a very good chance of progression. The draws have certainly been favourable for us so far this season. Keane's presence (assuming he's still there) should stoke up the crowd a bit as well! Would hope for 25k+ given an attractive pricing structure.

I'd be happy to wait to play Pompey next season in the Championship and beat them twice, if they even make it to next season. Would take Notts County / Forest Green at St Mary's, then perhaps a pay day in R5?

Correct. The pipes for drainage can double up as under-soil heating, but it was not deemed necessary to put the heaters in due to the location of Southampton, and the fact that SMS is pretty much at sea level and next to a river. Looking at the 9-odd years of SMS so far, that decision looks correct. And can't recall many games being frozen off at the Dell in the latter years, other than that Crewe FA Cup match, and that was because the pipes weren't lagged!