Matthew Le God

Gabbiadini is the alternative (technically so is Carrillo ) How have you determined that? The following clubs have not scored more Premier League goals this season than Southampton... Burnley Newcastle Watford Brighton Huddersfield Swansea West Brom Stoke City Perhaps they haven't 'forgotten it'... because it is blatantly obvious.

Why do you have an issue with that? Would you prefer Saints to only sign players Arsenal, Man Utd, Liverpool and Tottenham will never want to sign? Because that is the only way Saints won't sell their best players to them. It is better to have the likes of van Dijk, Wanyama, Mane etc for 2 years than not at all.

That is a line that is often used by football fans, but I don't see how it works in practice. How does relegation help that more than staying up? It is easier to revitalise the squad when you have the Premier League money to aid a rebuild.

Exactly!

Of course, but it is generally better to have money than not have it. Going from 2005 to 2012 without Premier League income runs into many hundreds of millions of missed revenue. Plus... we didn't exactly do well from 2005 to 2009 with a lack of money either!

What have I said in this thread that could meet the definition of pompous?

Says the man that stalks me on an internet forum! Are you denying the club would have benefitted had it not been relegated in 2005?

The club would be in a better place now if those lower league years were spent in the Premier League, benefitting from the hundreds of millions of missed TV money.

You think I don't offer opinions on Saints? I have made more publicly available opinions on Southampton FC than any other person on the planet. The 2007 to 2018 editions of the FM database have hundreds of thousands of data entry fields which are my opinions on the club and its players.

It does highlight how out of touch you are with football, Bony last played a game for Swansea over 3 months ago on 3rd February!

We currently are not in the relegation zone and if we still aren't after 38 games then we deserve to stay up. It is a disaster to get relegated, it isn't good for the club in any way to go down. The gap between 6th and 7th is currently only 6 points. As recently as 2016 Saints were 6th, yes we ****ed up this season but the gap is not insurmountable.

Swansea to Cardiff = 42 miles Southampton to Bournemouth = 33 miles

If we draw vs Swansea then it isn't impossible to see Stoke getting a draw or victory vs Swansea. In which case we wouldn't need to beat Man City, we could lose or get a draw like Huddersfield just got and still stay up.

That would by a large distance be the biggest number of players sold by a relegated Premier League club for many, many years (if ever). Departures of contracted players in that number hasn't really happened before.

A draw keeps us above Swansea and out of the relegation zone. How is that "no good"? I know we have a more difficult final game than them... but it still isn't a season ending disaster to draw.

I can, it is quite easy to imagine such a situation and doesn't require a far fetched set of results... Saints beat Swansea Chelsea beat Huddersfield Arsenal beat Huddersfield Swansea beat Stoke Saints lose to Man City ...then Saints & Swansea are safe and Huddersfield go down if the GD situation remains similar

For us to go down like that it would also require Huddersfield getting another point from Chelsea and/or Arsenal.

Why? It doesn't need Saints getting a point or more vs Man City for Huddersfield to go down. If the following happens and it isn't a far fetched set of results... Saints beat Swansea Chelsea beat Huddersfield Arsenal beat Huddersfield Swansea beat Stoke Saints lose to Man City ...then Saints & Swansea are safe and Huddersfield go down if the GD situation remains similar

I think it is very unlikely Arsene Wenger will do anything other than pick his best team in his last ever game at Arsenal and try to go out with a win. Why do you think in his last game he'd play a 'vastly understrength team at Huddersfield'?

Romeu is not suspended. There is an amnesty for yellow cards suspensions in the final weeks of the season and that has past... http://www.thefa.com/football-rules-governance/discipline/suspensions

It is a minimum figure, the game does not have to end at that the 4 minute mark.

They do if they want a decent chance of it being in their own hands. A draw would leave them vulnerable due to us and our significantly better GD. A victory admittedly against Man City at St Mary's for us and there is very little Swansea could do about it in their own game.

If we beat Swansea the goal difference swing needed for them to overtake us would at minimum be 9 on the final day.

A terrible performance and losing to Bournemouth today is not a huge lift for Swansea. Our result isn't much of a confidence boost for them, we are playing better than they are.

A point takes us out of the relegation zone. It is not **** or bust time.