Neil

7/1 with Stan James if anyone fancies a punt on us. Maybe a small wager before tomorrow's game, bearing in mind we're still likely to have to beat Charlton, Norwich & Leeds to win this. (MK Dons are absolute pony, but are likely to be even more awkward and niggly if we have to play them again in this)

That's a bold move that will hopefully be justified by the fans. (the previous regimes at SMS would never have done that) Good to see that the new regime recognise the importance that vocal backing can have away from home, and are prepared to fight for tickets for our fans.

There's always the Rocket Club though...

Agree that we should take the full 2,700 to this, unless there's a really decent away day in the FAC the previous week. If we can take c.4k to Reading and c.4k to Leyton Orient no reason why not, especially if the form continues.

It's five wins and two draws. But wasn't really bothered about the Torquay game to be honest, just a bit of a bonus to get through on pens and start the Wembley march! There's no FA Cup 2nd Round tie that's not winnable, and if we can get past Charlton this week things will be getting interesting on the Cup front. Anything that builds the momentum and feel-good factor must be good.

Quality! Anyone else going out on the lash today and not coming back in till late, with their missus not knowing that there's no Saints game going on? Hats off!

Wonder if anyone completed it between the 50s and late-80s, when there were no new grounds built? Albeit a few new clubs must have come into the leagues, making it difficult. And Saints tended to stay put in a particular league for quite a while. You're right that now it must be almost impossible, but this season has certainly boosted the numbers nicely for many. Even if we got relegated to League 2, then went straight through to the Prem, new grounds would still make it tricky to achieve.

People had got a bit bored with Charlton to be honest, so many times there in recent years. And of course we weren't having good results. Now we've picked up result wise, it's a new ground for many of the younger fans, and a nostalgic ground for many. Not rocket science to work out why there's such demand for this one...

I'll be annoyed if we can't get the average crowd over 20,000 this season, so we need to start getting more in starting with Saturday!

I guess the feelgood factor is returning, plus a good ol' jolly in the smoke, and a ground that we're basically gonna take over for the day. Orient must be kicking themselves over the income they've missed out on from this game!

Of course he has, Mr Askham (along with Messrs Lowe, Richards etc) remains a big Southampton fan. So he will have joined the paying plebs, in fact I believe he's been sighted sipping Carlsbery in the Northam, and trying to have a sneaky cigarette at Half Time...

AFC Totton 3 Bridgwater Town 2. Totton one win from playing Saints...

Hills offer a stand-out 9/1 now on Saints, still worth a little punt I reckon despite the scare last night.

I'll be very happy to be out of the relegation zone by the time I'm enjoying my Christmas Eve beverages.

I gave Pardew and the team August and September as a honeymoon (recovery from takeover delays etc) period, and I've said that from October I'd expect a pretty decent team that's winning more often than not. The time has arrived. It's fairly clear that Pardew and the players have to up their games, starting from Saturday. There were good things to build on from Tuesday, as well as the usual gut-wrenchingly familiar weaknesses that we're all getting sick of seeing. I think Pardew will be here until Christmas at least, but at the moment Cortese must be thinking very carefully about who he wants to be spending Father Liebherr's Christmas money in the January sales...

Just had a look, there's 6 (SIX) lines affected that weekend! But the good news is that the Northern Line and Central Line aren't amongst them. So I guess it's Northern Line from Waterloo to Tottenham Court Road, then Central Line to Leyton, then it's less than half a mile walk to the ground. Not sure on pubs round the ground, but sounds like they're not too fancy! Will have to be a trip to Bethnal Green / Shoreditch etc after the game... http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/livetravelnews/realtime/tube/track-closures.pdf

It's a good point only if we beat Bristol R & Gillingham. We've now put real pressure on ourselves to win both of those two home games, and I'm far from convinced that our players have the ability to deal with the pressure / expectation to win games. That said at least we played until the 96th minute, and kept the unbeaten run going. We know that we're tougher to beat than we were at the start of the season, still cannot turn that into wins though - that must change quickly. My stance has been that after September (i.e. the Bristol R game) the excuse cupboard will have run pretty bare and we must be winning fairly regularly. The corners that hit the first defender are driving me mad! Although Fish hit a few decent ones. PS - The supporters were excellent. If only the Northam could get the Ricky Lambert song going - Tuesday would be a good time to start! :-)

The only thing that matters is that the Carlsberg-Tetley contract is binned at the first opportunity, and some decent locally-brewed beer is delivered for each game, according to approximate demand. Cost is always a factor, but I think you'd get more people drinking some decent beer anyway, especially before games when most people at the moment are in the boozer.

Pleased to hear this. Any hints as to what we might do for the 125th (promotion obviously!), return to the original kit as has been mentioned in passing by fans?

Southampton 1 Yeovil 0.

The problem with Carter and the Echo is that they use one text to Radio Solent on the final whistle, or a few message board posts as evidence of 'dissent', when those texts/posts could be made by anyone - Pompey fans on a wind-up etc. It's not exactly great journalism, they're not interviewing people leaving the exits at St Mary's or the Valley are they?! Fans should continue to be patient but they must also have expectations, and the players / manager / coaches should have some pressure / expectation on their shoulders, as they're being paid quite a lot of money (presumably more than most in the division). They should thrive on that pressure, rather than their current approach of being scared on the pitch, and scared to shoot etc. As I've said before I'd expect to see continuous improvement throughout September with the new squad in place and trained for a few weeks. The excuses will have run dry by October, that said I'd really like a win against Yeovil!

After the final whistle I'm straight off to get some decent ale as soon as possible, after another agonising 95 minutes of failing to beat [insert non-entity football club you never thought we'd play in the league]. I won't be heading to the Kingsland to drink Carlsberg/Tetley's. Keep those ideas coming guys, must do better than this one though, get some decent bottled beer in...

Having seen Charlton today (in theory one of the best teams in the JPT), I'm thinking that 12/1 is a reasonable value punt for Saints to win the JPT.

Having gone to Huddersfield and Swindon we've definitely improved from those games, we're not allowing teams to intimidate us physically now - Charlton tried to rough us up a bit in the 2nd half, without success. The problem was that at times Charlton were at their most dangerous when we were attacking, the goal for instance! As already mentioned, AL's corners are ****e. We're generally looking more solid, but the creativity issues remain in stark focus, and the lack of confidence in front of goal and fear of shooting is still apparent. Fish has no right foot or else he probably would have scored that early chance. A lot of expectation on Papa. Happy with a point, especially with one of their disallowed goals probably being onside. Need an early goal v Yeovil though, or 0-0 will be looming...

Twitter - *EXCLUSIVE* The Italians have finally worked out how 2 use a fax machine&sent through Papa's clearance papers