Matthew Le God

Today's game counts as part of the ban, his fitness situation is irrelevant to any suspension.

He is already back, his loan was until the beginning of January. http://www.getreading.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/billy-sharp-left-limbo-reading-6462208

More likely Rodriguez, Lallana, Ramirez as the front three when Lambert and Osvaldo are unavailable.

If it were a Championship game today would you not be happy with a centre back pairing of Hooiveld and Yoshida? Hooiveld has already proven himself to be a good Championship centre back even if he struggles in the Premier League.

Both are childhood supporters of Saints and Ings was released by our academy aged about 14.

I think as Clyne is returning from injury and Chambers did well in his absence so they were happy to bring Clyne back gradually. Clyne starting today is getting him ready for next week. I think Chambers is still our 3rd choice fullback, behind Shaw and Clyne but ahead of Fox.

I don't, why do you?

Shaw and Clyne play pretty much as wingers, they'll be providing the width today.

Well Window_Cleaner was very wrong!

Seems to be random people claiming on Twitter that Andy Carroll failed an internal drugs test and West Ham "covered it up" and face a points deduction.

Can you give an example of some of these "attacks"?

As a Europa League spot through the league is only guaranteed with a 5th place finish, if you are good enough for that you won't be far away from a Champions League spot.

Adkins didn't win 50% of his Premier League games.

From the ticket section of the Southampton Football Club website... http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/news/article/tickets-saints-vs-burnley-1234583.aspx

Osvaldo was training today...

For all those teams to get those points totals it would take a huge upturn in form for the entire bottom half of the league. Not just one or two bottom half teams, but ALL of them! In order for that to happen, considering they'd be taking points off each other; in order to get these extra points the top half of the league Man CIty, Chelsea, Man United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Newcastle, Everton, Spurs, would have to all be dropping a lot more points to those in the bottom half than they have in the first half of the season.

Why not? Why so quick to rule it out? In the last decade, Wigan and Pompey have won it and Stoke, Pompey, Everton, Cardiff, West Ham and Millwall have all been finalists. Go back another year and Saints were in the final. Saints have the 8th or 9th best team in the country, it would be foolish to write them off potentially winning or progressing far into this competition if they put out a strong line-up.

You think in the remaining 18 games... Hull 17 points Villa 17 points Stoke 18 points Swansea 21 points West Brom 19 points Norwich 20 points Fulham 21 points Cardiff 22 points Palace 23 points or West Ham 25 points or Sunderland 26 points Not one or two of those things need to happen for Saints to go down on 40 points, but ALL of those things. When most of those teams have failed to get that many points in the opening 20 games, what makes you think they suddenly will in the 2nd half of the season? The reality is Saints are 3 wins and 1 or 2 draws in the remaining 18 league games away from saftey. Not that it should be a concern for any of us. I'm confident Saints will come 9th at worst and possibly beat Newcastle for 8th. Saints should be going all out to progress as far as possible in the FA Cup.

Last season 36 points (plus a better goal difference) or 37 points would be enough to stay up. This season the team in 18th has 17 points with over 50% of the season gone. Last seasons points target will likely be similar (if not less) this season. Saints will likely need only win 3 or 4 of the remaining 18 games to stay up (if they have no draws). Not "6 or 7" like you said. 6 or 7 would mean a points total of 45+ and if we have 45 or 48 points we'll be comfortably in mid table. I hope for you own sake you are on the wind up and don't really believe your nonsense.

- 6 wins, 0 draws and 12 defeats from the remaining games would put us on 45 points - 7 wins, 0 draws and 11 defeats from the remaining games would put us on 48 points

Care to elaborate...?

Yes, its not a Saturday. Its a Wednesday Bank Holiday so they can show 3pm games live on British TV. https://home.bt.com/news/btlife/bt-sports-football-tv-picks-at-a-glance-11363828408656

It is, its live on BT Sport 1.

Ivanovic went off injured in today's game and was replaced by Cole.

Saints aren't in the Football League so it doesn't matter to us.