trousers

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Tick

I know I'll have to incur the wrath of Fitzhugh Fella when I say this but..... Its an abstension from me.... I genuinely have no idea what's best at this stage. #arsefullofsplinters

Sounds like Pellegrino was wide of the mark a couple of weeks ago when he said Austin was back in training. Or maybe he's had a relapse?

Where is this rumour on the rumour scale? ("Heard it from the horses mouth" at one end of the scale, and "saw a tweet on Twitter" at the other) Cheers

I guess there's a difference between being 'ultra cautious in attack' and 'defensive' but they often get translated as the same thing. Pellegrino is more the former than the latter IMO.

Bugger

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/saints/news/15987281.amp/ "SAINTS’ majority shareholder Gao Jisheng invited the club’s chairman Ralph Krueger and fellow owner Katharina Liebherr to China to celebrate Chinese New Year – and watch the team’s 2-0 defeat to Liverpool."

Any chance of Austin being back for the next league game in two weeks? I suspect him coming back for the last 10 games and staying fit is now our main hope of avoiding the drop...

If we stay up he gets the premier league cash to offset his investment. If we go down we sell our best players, which will offset his investment. I don't foresee his investment being "crippled" either way.

On way home from the game. After some half decent performances in recent weeks, that was back to square one. Back to players being devoid of any fight or passion. What's so difficult about giving 100% every game?

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Would have thought that was worthy of more than 2 bites (make that 3 now if we're counting this one )

My hunch is that Pellegrino will be reluctant to 'drop' him as he'll be worried about the flak he'll get from the tactical geniuses in the stands....

^This Can we do rocket science next? p.s. the more observant amongst you will recall that I had Guido, not Long, starting in my preferred line-up earlier in the thread. That'll be the raving hypocrite in me.... On reflection, I agree that Long is the better fit, tactically, for this game.

Guido is a different type of striker to Long. The tactics of opponents differ from game-to-game, ergo you play the type of striker that works best against those tactics. Yes, I know that such 'logic' has to be balanced against the goalscoring form of said strikers, but surely applying tactical logic to striker selection is more sensible than playing the same type of striker game in, game out for the sake of it, just because they happen to cost more than the other available strikers?

Lovren and VvD?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/amp/football/42996628?__twitter_impression=true "Jay Rodriguez: West Brom striker charged over racist abuse allegation"

I wonder how many hours/days/weeks there were between us agreeing a deal with Arsenal/Walcott and Everton coming in with their salary offer. If it was hours then I can understand us being gazumped, but if it was days or weeks between the two events then could that indicate we weren't quick enough to tie him down?

As an aside, this screenshot from 7th February 2015 popped up on my 'on this day' facebook feed this morning.... made me feel a little wistful....

# trivia klaxon # So, how many ex-Saints managers is that now who have managed a national side (either before or after managing Saints)? Off the top of my head I can think of.... Laurie Mac (Northern Ireland), Burley (Scotland), Hoddle (England), Redknapp (Jordan), Strachan (Scotland), Koeman (Netherlands) Any others?

Fixed it for you....