sandwichsaint

We did buy half a new team in that first year (Lambert/Barnard/Fonte/Jaidi?/Harding/Puncheon?/Waigo etc), more than we spent in the current year certainly. Shows how far away we are from breaking even though - lots of games that season and good cup runs, good crowds, and on telly quite a few times, but that income nowhere near covers our costs. Clearly match-day funding on it's own will not sustain us at the level we want to be at, doesn't look like loadsa money for transfers either - guess the core of the current team will be our CCC side too?

Big society?

For those with too much time on their hands how quickly could we get to auto promotion if the other results keep going our way? Guessing about 4 games could do it? Balls to this 'a draw would be good on Saturday' stuff ... let's keep this bus rolling and get the job done asap.

Excellent, can't remember much about him, which prob means we were playing well and he didn't get anything majorly wrong. Win Win.

Really solid professional performance and really good to see. You can only beat what's in front of you and Saints played without fear or pressure to take three well-earned points. Having watched quite a few hesitant or lack lustre performances this season it was great to see Saints come powering out for the first 15 minutes and really get a grip on the game. I thought our energy levels and all round team work were a joy to see and we played some great stuff in the first half. I'm not understanding the comments that dismissed it as a routine (or even inept!) performance - we would have given anyone a game last night and that performance was comfortably up to Championship level, particularly the first 60 mins when AL was on fire, and discarding the last 10 when understandably both full backs tired. A great atmosphere around the ground last night and a real sense of togetherness with team and fans that we haven't had for a long time - top stuff! KD 7 naff all to do, one good save, one dodgy kick FR 7 dodgy first 10 but fine after that RJ 8 great effort (again!) JF 7 massive player for us next season RD 8 did enough to stay in for next game Guly 8 top player, top goal DH 7 did all he needed to AL 7 can't wait to see him in the Championship DS 6 neat and tidy, just what we need, also got a bit of 'leadership' about him LB 8 well deserved goal, another dynamic performance RL 9 outstanding tonight, best I've seen him play this season. Starting to look fitter again and on this form he could be a massive player next season (can he keep it up and get a decent pre-season in next year?) RC 6 worked hard but what's happened to his passing! OG 6 much improved over the last 12 months DC 5 great to see him back and a useful option on the bench NA 10! Team 10! Crowd 10! That's more like it Saints, why oh why oh why can't we START a season like this!

****ed on the iPhone I can see dave Watson , jimmy Gabriel, big Ron ( pics are awful small though!)

What a stupid post! When was a ball ever punched out of our box? (inserts smiley, but not on the iPhone)

Don't be a t-w-a-t, this is exactly the 'free market' economic and social argot that you espouse!

This!

It could be nearly al over by then, beat MK and Charlton and we are half-way(ish) there.... Can we beat MK and Charlton ?..... hhhmmmmm (tune in at 17-00 tomorrow for another exciting episode of Adkins-Adventures-of-Ricky...!!! )

get in, hasn't Lewis been **** poor second half of the season, would take Murphy or Smithers or Bart over him at the mo!

First thoughts: are Southampton F C really in the same league as these two? What's the crowd? 7,000? (arrogant fan alert, just back from the pub and just put it on for the last 10 mins, 4 mins to gom c'mon u bompsters!))

Let's not overlook that other results have been incredibly kind over the last two weeks, when we went to Charlton we probably had to win 7 out of 11, we didn't win that one but with other results going for us we are probably now down to winning 6 out of 10 (and scraping 2 points from the other four games). Nothing will be decided on Saturday but the sooner we get those six wins the better! We have two difficult games coming up - Dons are in good form and we very rarely beat Charlton. By my reckoning: 6 points = MAGIC, that would give us one toe in the auto spots (maybe) 4 points = TAKE IT, that would keep us on track and clear two potential banana skins out of the way 3 points = not great 2 points = very meh! less than 2 points? Yikes - All to do from there! No pressure boys! You know what you have to do!!

Was this the same Brum game (?) where Kelvin and Baird came close to fisticuffs and had to be dragged apart?

Derby away for me, the 'best' Saints atmosphere I've ever been in (possibly bar the millennium final) and a blinding game of football with it.

Teams that have played finals at all three? Chelsea, arsenal, millwall, man Utd, saints, brum(?) .... Any more?

On the games I've seen (4 home, 5 away) and 3 on the telly! Kd 7.5 Butt 7.5 FR 6 JF 8 RJ 8 DH 6.5 RD 6 AOC 7 MS 8.5 DH 8, my player of the season if he keeps this up till the end of the season RC 6.5 started with 8's but now on 5's + 6's AL 8 Gully 8 RL 7 started low but has improved since Xmas LB 7.5 Also seen: Bart 7, OG 6.5, JP 7, N'g 5.5. As I said, just the games I've seen so fire away!

Germans seem to have got this safe standing thing down to a tee. My nipper told me last night (so can't verify the HP) that the Bundisliga is averaging over 40k per game this season - an awesome stat. And the two connected reasons are surely 'safe standing areas' and lower ticket prices. Looking on a club website a couple of months back (coincidently to the picture above I think it was Dortmund I was looking at) and match tickets range from about 70 E's to 7 E's - you can stand in areas of that terrace in the picture above for £7 for a Prem league game! Makes £23 to watch 3rd division football in a half empty stadium look a bit steep in comparison, but we come nowhere near their differentials in the range of tickets and prices available. Dortmund's top ticket is worth 10 times its cheapest and they fill their stadium - at Saints the top ticket costs less than twice the price of the cheapest (or alternatively the minimum price to watch Saints is more than half the price of the top ticket). I know a lot of people want to preserve the value of their ST etc but I really don't see why Saints can't market their spare 8k-10k seats per game more aggressively?

On the basis of 6 points from every three games we would (roughly) need to win two of each of these mini sets: MK h Charlton h Orient a Gas h Rochdale a BHA a 'Pool h Brentford a Plymouth a and then beat Walsall h to clinch it. I prefer to think that before yesterday we had 4 mulligans (a lose or a draw) to spread over 11 games; last night I think we completely wasted one and now have just three remaining. Therefore if we now use our 3 remaining lives on BHA and Orient and MK or Rochdale, then that leaves the remaining 7 as 'must win' games .... which will include four straight wins to finish it off .... squeaky bum time!

I thought their goal was excellent, good build up, first forward came short, sharp ball into his feet, first time cute chip that took out our CBs and GK, BWP showed great awareness to read it and run through on to the ball, solid first time finish. No blame to KD from me ... I'd like to see Saints score more goals like that!

Was Gully fit? I think I would have had him on over N'G first half if he was. Forte for Barnard was the right call in terms of LB having given his absolute all for 80 mins - that RL would be some player if he put in half the effort of LB!

Poor performance and poor result, I couldn't understand the build up thread - Posh lose (like we've all been hoping they would for weeks) and 50% of posters think that means we then don't have to win our next game - 'a draw will be a good result'. Before yesterday we prob had to win 7 of our last 11 games (4 slip-ups), we now have to win 7 of our last 10 (3 slip-ups) - we have just blown 25% of our wriggle-room. Why was Charlton away bigged up into such a difficult game 'A point will be a good result', 'hard place to go' etc? They have lost 7 of their previous 8, their best player (Jackson) was out, confidence and support at a very low ebb (13k home fans for a meaningless end of season mid-table kick about), they prob didn't have a player on the pitch who would get into our starting 11, yet people seem happy/ok with a point? Potentially Rochdale, Brentford, Plymouth, Orient, and MK are all 'harder' games than Charlton. Badly missed Morgan last night (Chaplow again struggled to retain the ball), and again we underplayed AOC (good when he had it in the first half but he saw very little of the ball). Barnard was busy and effective but RL was a bit meh for most of the game. Injury to AL was obviously disruptive but we should have had enough about us to compensate from other areas - attacking corners in the first half looked dangerous and Fonte has become a real scoring threat over the last few games. Second half we huffed and puffed without forcing any clear cut openings and Dailly and Llera were never really under sustained pressure. Set pieces always looked our best chance and Jaidi took his goal really well, we looked very tired last 15 minutes and their equaliser always looked likely (great goal too, it looked good last night and seen it on the telly now, good measured build up and real quality from their front two to link up there). Gutted we didn't win (I don't expect us to win every game but this was definitely 'winnable'); I suppose if we go up 'drawing ugly' all will be forgiven and forgotten but I expected more last night (a triumph of hope over years of experience I guess?)

Think D'Urso would have had something to say about that...

Still think we shouldn't be targeting anything less than a win tomorrow. For my money after watching tonight MK home is a much tougher game, they really seem to have come on this season..... Thoughts BeN?

PSML from someone who always 'gives it the big one'; on here.