sandwichsaint

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.

top finish... game over you would like to think...

Is Alpine a CIA controlled sock puppet? TBF it's pretty shiite so far! COYRs!!!

Happy birfday Danny, you are a legend! LOL

In the spirit of Dune's new tyres- I am out Mtb- ing on a beautiful spring afternoon in East Kent. Couple of pub stops and home to watch Saints on the box followed by beers out and sit-down dinner with mates. Luverly - Saints don't ruin my day! Scrappy first half 1-0 or 1-1 at HT, saints to come good in second half 4-1 (4-0). COYRs everybody SING UP Tuesday !!!!!

Glad it's not another online betting outfit, nor financial services, nor junk food. Hopefully if the shirt comes up OK and they pay their wedge then good luck to them. Glad it's a local firm over some faceless multi-national money churner. Hope them and us go on together to bigger and better things. LOL at those crying that it's not a 'big name' - how many other teams' sponsors can you name in this league? Bet for most people it's not more than 2-3 teams tops - the exposure is just not there in our league, and to a certain extent in the CCC too (see what I did there?) Did people really think we were going to get Barclays, or Ford, or Samsung in division 3?

Bobby is right with the maths thing - the absolute points total tell you nothing about the overall 'strength' of the teams in the league or how they compare year to year - all they tell you is the relative distribution of the results and from that the relative stregth of the different teams compared with the other teams in the same league in the same season. (and we still have a quarter of the season to play so they don't even tell us that much at the moment). My gut feeling is that there was more quality in the league last year (Norwich and Leeds would prob have beaten this year's top 2 whoever they turn out to be), the four play off sides this year aren't really going to be any stronger than Swindon/Charlton/Saints/Hudds were last year. Getting in the top 6 is always going to be hard when you have a competetitve league and this season there are enough good sides outside the top 6 who are capable of getting a result against a top 6 side to keep things interesting; eg at the moment Orient, Charlton, Exeter, Hartlepool, Notts County and others are all capable of picking up a result against a top 6 team. This is the weakness of using 'current form' and posting up bed-wetting league tables showing the last 8 games played - these take no account of who you have played - OR who you are going to play in your next 8 games. Personally I think Saints were stronger last season, the other imponderable comparing over seasons is that the same players play differently - one word Lambert. Last season RL was on fire and that just hasn't happened this year, throw Ant and Dec into the mix and we scored in most games; I think we have already hit more zeroes in the league this season than the whole of last season (is that correct?). What you can't factor in is the confidence of having a player who can score for fun - I'm sure all P'boro's players are thriving on the CMS effect. Rambling conclusion - this league is v tight - it will go to the last game - Saints have as good a chance as anybody - we will have to win tons of games - we can drop some points and still go up - the team that goes up will certainly deserve it ..... let's not give up on the play-offs before they have even happened ... if we can't beat (Bompey) over two legs and then win a cup final against (MK Dons) will we really deserve to go up?

Isn't there a window on? Can't see P'boro loaning him out (!) but would be nice for us!

Charlton have W0 D1 L5 and really aren't very good, we can not go there expecting anything other than a win!

If you go on tapatalk this is the second (or third?) biggest football forum on there. Only bested by either one (or possibly both) of Celtic and Man City; not a lot of people know that.

Didn't realise they still did this (that's how often I go onto the concourse during a game); Saints surely missing a major revenue stream here? Fiver for a ticket to come on the concourse, eat expensive fast food and drink expensive ****y beer; and if you've got time between eating, drinking, weeing and generally hanging-out you can watch a little bit of football on the telly. Leave the terraces free for us uber fans who have to suffer all of the 90 minutes, win, lose or draw.

Did he go down early to get a pie or a beer? Did he boo Forte? Did he know all the words of the 'Adam Lallana' chant? Did he boo the Pompey half time score?