sandwichsaint

Not sure what game I was watching? PITCH absolutely no factor - checked with my fellow diners in the Indian in HPool and the pitch was dry and flat - absolutely - saw it with my own eyes! Saints very one dimensional, take Lambert out of it and we might have a plan B? So easy to play against.... Do we needLLanna and OX away from home? On tonights evidence maybe not? Neither of them very involved and combined together a waste of one player with our long ball HOoofff it tactics!

Very even first half. Half chances for both teams. Gully looks our danger man, Harding also playing well. Got 1-0 written all over it .. Who will get the one goal? (from H'pool!)

'Never let the facts ....' etc.

We saw Charlton v Exeter in the away end for a fiver. Slow first half but a very good second half, Exeter went 3 up but twas a very poor show from Charlton in front of a decent crowd (c25k?). BWP got totally slated by Exeter fans from start to finish (ex Plymuff and all that). Saints comfortably better than both of these sides, no real stand out players on either side, Docherty was good again for Charlton, Harley had a quiet game for Exeter but some nice touches. Ref very good, for those that say there are no decent refs at this level; unfussy, let the players tackle and kept the cards down to the minimum needed. Don't know who he was but looked like he could go further. Hopefully Charlton's bubble is now shot, I said last week we must expect to get 6 points of them (tho 4 would do) and nothing today to suggest we can't go there and win.

Nuisance but hopefully we will be at full strength, full fitness for Tuesday night. Postponement always looked likely on that weather forecast. Anybody at a loose end in the London area Charlton v Exeter is a fiver a pop all seats, cash on the turnstiles. We are going in the away end, come on you E's (or whatever they call themselves). Fair play to Rochdale/the ref for getting it off at 10-00 and not faffing about till 14-30.....

I'm going with older son, B+B in the town centre, two days biking, lots of beer before the game and a curry afterwards and a bit more beer too - sounds great. Might start in the Hillcarter 5.00-ish?

Great set of results, shows how important our scrappy 1-0 win on Saturday was tho half the posters on here seemed to think at the time that was a 'bad result'. There will be no more 'bad wins' between here and the season's end - only 'wins' (and hopefully plenty of them)!

Charlton were pants on Saturday for 80% of their game, if we can't take 6 (or 4) points off them we prob don't deserve to go up!

Not much there for us; we've got to concentrate on winning our own games; just like Saturday in fact! I'd take another dozen 1-0's right now.

We really need to get over this idea that Charlton are good or are our rivals for second spot! I saw them yesterday and they were really really ordinary, we have absolutely nothing to fear going there and going for the win! Powell won his first three (two with scruffy one-nils, never a bad thing) but yesterday they played P'boro at home, playing for a play-off place they had just 15k home fans and the 'atmosphere' was non-existent till they went 3-1 up. First half they were very slow to settle, looked nervous and Pboro took them to pieces; only some weak finishing and last ditch defending kept it to 1-0 at HT, truth was Pboro should have had 2,3,4 in the first half and been home and hosed by HT. Second half Charlton scored from their first decent attack of the game, obvious long cross from the right went right over the P defence and headed in by completely unmarked striker BWP; PBoro just stopped playing at this point and Charlton scored again inside a minute with the visitors defence again nowhere. Charlton then withstood a long period of Pboro pressure before scoring a breakaway goal that went straight through the P defence and clean through the keeper. CMS addded a tidy finish in overtime to make it 3-2 and one of the most unlikeliest of scorelines. Charlton keeper was a sort of Davis-lite, some tidy stops but tends to stay on his line and didn't really link well with his defence, plus some erratic distribution. Neither full back was very good, we have 4 better full backs than these two. Best two players were Christian Dailly and Docherty at CH, both had good games and kept Charlton in it first half (the only two Charlton players that might get in our first 16). Semeda played holding mid/anchor man but was very inconsistent, looked athletic and mobile but made lots of unforced errors, we have better. Very little joined up forward play or attacking pattern, BWP still very inconsistent, he worked hard for the team but little of it was very productive; several poor touches and often ran in the wrong places, basically did nothing but took his one chance a very straightfd free header. Pboro looked great in the first half but fell away badly in the second. Couldn't really judge GK Lewis as he had so little to do but he might have done more with the third. Boyd and CMS both looked decent (particularly Boyd who was the best player on the pitch), they also bought on a young Antonio-a-like as sub on the right wing and he was excellent, fast and direct, beating the fullback on both sides and putting over some peachy crosses (think this was Mendez-Laing?). We really do need to be targetting 6 points from Charlton, 4 will do; I would be pretty ****ed if we take less than 4 points from those two games!

Why people so scared of the play-offs? How many teams have beaten us over a two-leg aggregate situation this season? Tranmere for one ... are there any more? Obviously we all want to go up in auto but I would fancy us to beat anybody over two legs, and we didn't do too badly in last year's cup final did we? If we couldn't beat Bompey in a one off game in front of 40k Saints fans at Old Trafford would we 'deserve' to go up?

3-1 charlton.... 3 shots 3 goals! Extraordinary game , 5-1 to P'boro would be a fairer score!

I'm at Charlton, all P'boro so far. Boro excellent, charlton really poor .... 6 points for us if they play like this!

The first recorded use of the word 'pedant' on these forums (fori?) ? Discussing palindromic dates .... on SFE ..... big excitement when the dates went to --/--/200x. Mass excitement in the media naming --/--/---- 'as the first palindromic date since xx/xx/xxxx 'and it wouldn't recur for 'xx years' - I basically rode a coach-and-horses through their logic ... I claim the first recorded use of the word 'pedant' on SFE / Saints Web. Always havea chuckle when I see the word 'pedant' in a post (EJ Thribb was first tho).

I'm hoping February is so good that MARCH is even BIGGER.

Don't think this is actually going to damage our season, I'm sure 99% of fans are happy to 'pull together'. What more do we want either party to say? - It appears fairly obvious that NI was outside the tent ****ing in, to which the normal response is often to invite the ****er inside to **** out; in this instance NC pulled the flaps tighter and told the ****er to **** off and go and **** somewhere else. Unusualy (for me) I can see both sides of the arguement; NI has done his time on the naughty step, let the club give him back his ST with 'lessons learned' on both sides. The rebirth and revivasl of Saints is one of the best feelgood football stories of recent times, why do we keep getting the PR so hopelessly wrong?

Agree, agree, agree! A great few days to be a Saints fan, let's see it through now! First, second or play-offs ..... what could possibly go wrong tomorrow? (possibly a scrappy 1-1 draw)

I was in Block 37 and the atmosphere in the whole Northam/Kingsland corner was excellent - it went a bit flat after their second goal but up until then it was great. Have to say it's very hard to get the whole ground singing when the Northam sing everything at 200mph - there was a couple of rounds of 'Ricky Lambert' on Saturday that were sung so fast there was no room or no time for any words, as Alan Partridge would say 'it was just a noise'.

I still don't get it (sorry!) I have bought 4 Utd tickets on my family's four database numbers, and 4 Carlisle tickets.... can I buy a single Man Utd ticket this afternoon ...?????

Cup tied? (presumably?)

This! I'm thoroughly looking forward to it - have seen an average of 8-10 games a season for the last 40-something years and have only ever seen Saints play Man Utd. once previously (at the Dell when we were both in the second division 1975?, Grand National day, Buchan/Macari?/Pearson? type era). No 6-3 or grey shirts or rolling-over-and-having-our-tummies-tickled for me. I've done the hard yards and the Lowe years - why not enjoy a game like this? The FA Cup been's brilliant to me this year, Dover away at Gillingham, home to Aldershot, then away to Huddersfield has been an absolutely footie-tantastic cup run - great atmospheres at all three games, some genuinely exciting football, and a real chance to 'live the dream'. No good crying about the spilled league points now - they're gone - let's embrace this game with the strongest team we can, put up a dare-to-dream performance, and show the country that Saints are really back on the football map. COYRS!

How very very sad. FWIW I shall be wearing a very natty Bruce Springsteen/Smiths cross-over scarf that I bought in my local market.

Number 62? Surely shome mishtake?

I've seen Kleba Chala play! (away at Derby, sub for about 10 mins, was that his only Saints appearance?)

I'll get slaughtered for this one but I thought Jason Euell DAJFU. Williams and Telfer were both excellent. People forget how good Dean Richards was for us. Guthrie was good. I used to love Tommy Jenkins. Lloyd James was never going to be a Prem player but he improved massively over his two seasons and always gave '100%' for the team.