trousers

I think we should give Pardew a bit more time to be honest. Oh, you meant a new player...?

The decision was largely made for him. The fact we are in a period where we have no league game for 11 days made it a no brainer for him to pick his '1st team'. Had there been a league game in 3 days time I'm sure a few 1st choice players would have been rested, and rightly so.

Sign a few new players next week please Mr Pardew and Mr Cortese

Easy

Can I log back on yet?

Why do Saints always score the moment after I logon? Most annoying....

Lambert!

Bad sauce?

Looking at my tea leaves this morning there are indeed signs that Mr Lowe is in tha background stirring things up. It will emerge that he was pulling some strings which helped reveal some of PFC's darker secrets and ultimately lead to their demise. He will then be welcomed back to St Mary's as a hero and take over from Mr Leibherr once our Swiss saviour's mission of returning the club back to Premiership football has been accomplished. Damn tea leaves - I'm sticking to beer in future.....

True, but if Saints are still going to mount a serious push for the playoffs, and Pardew believes that we need to strengthen in certain areas to give us the best chance of that, then we need to sign those players before the next league game rather than towards the end of Jan. If we don't make any significant signings next week I'll be starting to ponder.

I agree with playing a stong team today on the basis that anyone rested would not be playing a first team game for 11 days otherwise. I suspect that's Pardew's stance too - i.e. he's not playing a strong team on principle (per se) just that he doesn't have a lot of choice in order to keep up player's match fitness. If we had an important league game on Tuesday I'd venture that Pardew would be resting several '1st choice' players today.

I'm coming to the same conclusion

Logically, the 'qualifying' games for a given tournament are not actually part of the tournament they are qualifying for. The clue is in the word 'qualify'. That said, I am assuming the FA don't bother themselves with trivialities such as logic so I guess in the eyes of the FA it will be classed as the same competition. But if it's the same competition then why call the early rounds 'qualifiers' rather than...ahem....round 1, round 2, round 3 ... (you get my drift...perhaps...)

cheers! Now where did I put my chocolate teapot... :-)

Saga is an international and champions league player - Leeds should be offering us beckford + cash, surely? On second thoughts.... ;-)

Question: is having an 'open chequebook' going to have the effect of making our bids for players long drawn out affairs as the incumbant clubs try to squeeze as much money out of us as possible OR will it speed things up as we're able to slap a higher 'take it or leave it' offer on the table? Long drawn out transfer window or short sharp purchases early on?

when?

Btw...if you're looking for WARM sunny weather I don't think Malta is guaranteed to be warm in jan/feb. I seem to recall my grandparents going in the winter one year and it was 10 degrees centigrade most of the week!

Having been to malta c.10 times on holiday and business I can heartily recommend it too, although I preferred it in the old days before it became part of the EU. It lost a lot of it's idiosynchrasies when it joined the EU IMO. I usually stay near the centre of mellieha rather than down in mellieha bay as it's a fair old trek up the hill to where the many of the bars and restaurans are. The calzone pizza in the restaurant/cafe La Rampa are to die for!

ah no, Close...I was thinking of ABSA

Aren't they part of the Barclays Banking Group?

I'll be first to let you know if that happens... ;-)

50 minutes into the transfer window and still no signings. Starting to get impatient....

Thanks for the candid insight Duncan. Probably not a good moment to admit that trousers towers is a daily mail customer... :-)