sandwichsaint

That's me! A last minute change of plan and memories of Tuesday wiped .......... MK 1 SFC 2 (would be nice).

Posties schitt Ticket office schitt Industrial action on mars (possibly) Get over yerselves innitt My two from the first day of linked sale came last Tuesday; David Luker can have my babies anytime he wants.... luving the posts 'bought one for the missus but she can't make it now'. LET'S BRING BACK A MEMBERSHIP SCHEME NEXT YEAR!

King of sole? Jacket's on and see you all(?) at MK tomorrow..... I (always) expect us to win! MK 1 SFC 2 .... possibly.

No ones taken me up on this in the match thread, but was anybody else impressed by Swindon's Ferry? He seemed to combine high energy with excellent technical ability - I haven't got a clue who he is or what his background is or if he's usually that good but I thought he stood out at this level.

TBF Lambert buried one against Huddersfield that Ron Davies would have been proud to call his own -and from an immaculate cross from Puncheon in the orthodox RW-on-the-byline position. Agree though that he hasn't done this as much as some people seem to think (two reasons - we haven't had that quality of delivery very often and secondly he has often been forced a long way from the danger area, as he was for most of Tuesday's match culminating in him crossing from wide left and Lallana(!) trying to head it in from about 8 yards and with the goal gaping - needless to say AL never looked like executing that one). We don't seem to have much method to develop play into the wide areas and then get RL and LB working in the box as a pair - IMHO the centre mids are too often paralell with each other and both of them 20m short of where one of them needs to be - the best midfield performances I saw this season were prob Southend away (Wotton played holding and MS played an awesome attacking free role in a 451) and Pompey where Lallana tucked in and ran himself into the ground in support of MS and DH who both had good games. Can't think of a game where MS and DH have really dominated offensively in a 442 (Hudds was obviously good but that was more about the front 4 with Punch, RL, LB and AL all on fire that night).

What a diff a couple of weeks makes - two weeks ago I drove down on a Tuesday night to see Saints absolutely smash play-off hopefuls Huddersfield by 5 goals to O; WE'VE GOT OUR CLUB BACK, IN AP WE TRUST, HOW HIGH UP THE CCC WILL THIS TEAM FINISH? It was that good I almost happy-clapped all the way home. Same scenario yesterday but what a difference; Saints were never really at it the whole game with no sign of the positive flowing football we saw a couple of weeks ago. Why were we hoofing long from the very start? If we are going to play MS and AL in the same team then we need to play football, with our feet, on the ground. If we are going to try to route-1, hoofball our way out of this league then we may as well get rid of the likes of MS, AL, Papa etc. and replace them with muck-and-bullets, identi-kit, lower league drones (how krap was their number 4 yesterday? The lumbering oaf in front of the back four, and they won the game!). Have to say our players (our manager?) bottled it big-time yesterday, we were clearly scared (!) of Swindon's pace and passing ability and decided to lump it from the start rather than play them at anything resembling football. Harding and MS both had solid first halves but most of the rest of it was scraps and dross - once again we failed to take our chances and this is becoming a familiar refrain - in a lot of the games I've seen this season we have created pleanty of chances but we seem to need 8 or 10 chances to score one goal! Strange as it may seem as we have scored plenty of goals and have a very positive GD, AP's number 1 summer priority would appear to be 'finishing' - there will be plenty more games like last night and if we are serious about automatic we will have to battle for scrappy 1-0s and the occaisional 1-1 when other teams 'park the bus'. I though MS had a reasonable game last night but he missed three totally presentable chances in the first 45 minutes if any of those had gone in and it would have been a different game and prob a different result (shades of Lallana who TBF does have a decent midfielders strike rate but who also often scuffs and mis-hits when he could do so much better). Have to say Swindon made much the better use of half time, as if to say, that's all they've got? we can get something here tonight boys. And that's exactly what they did, they got on the front foot, passed it and frustrated us, and waited for Saints to implode which they duly did - haven't seen it again but it was a comedy goal we gave away, Fonte unopposed in the centre circle following an attacking corner turned and passed back 40 yds to KD who made a right hash of it from which we never recovered. Saints huffed and puffed last 20 minutes but the subs seemed to be rather random, Connoly looked good straight from the off but Waigo and James had very limited impact. All-in-all same old, same old; KD's shot stopping is second to none (Brentford away anybody?) but his all round contribution on night's like yesterday is limited at best. WT is whole hearted but not very good, he was given the run around all through the first half and could have been booked twice. Fonte and Jaidi are rock solid against hoof ball teams - less comfortable when the opposition play football and try and play through them, Harding is solid and one of the players we missed mid-season (did AP really have a spare 6 games mid-season to look at Mills at LB while Harding sat on the bench?) What was Puncheon on? Hopefully that's a one off because he has been very good previously; AL has had an outstanding season but last night was prob the weakest game he's had this season. MS was our best player last night, Hammond much less so but he looked lively for the first 20 minutes, are there fitness and injury issues there? RL was very well policed and forced to do most of his work a long way from the danger area, and Barnard bustled and bristled but to no great effect. Best player on the pitch was their number 30 (Ferry? the guy that got sent off) - he never stopped working for his team in attack and defence, he did the dirty jobs well and then always had the composure to produce something with the ball, I lost count of the number of chipped and rolled balls he played in and around our back four, a sort of Division 3 Fabregas if I may be so bold. Swindon were a decent side down there (decent manager too) and I for one wasn't surprised by their performance last night, they were gutsy, determined, organised, - everything we weren't on the night. Let's hear no more of the pl--of-- word for the rest of this season, for me they went at Colchester and Millwall, with a final nail hammered in at Exeter (Wycombe was just an embarrasing footnote). On this showing AP still has it all to do to gain automatic next year, I'd guestimate somewhere between 4th and 8th looks more likely at the moment but will that be enough for NC?

WORD! Look no further than Charlton in the second relegation season - reasonably attractive, local-ish opposition - a very real 6 pointer to stay in the CCC - Saints plunged into admin and crisis - the exit-of-shame for the most hated man in our history - a fire sale of tickets to get cash in (£15 a pop if I remember rightly) = we must surely have had 31k and a further 5k locked out for what was one of the most crucial games in our history? Er, no, actually we had around 27k that day - no sign at all of the missing 20k uber fans in our hour of need.... I'm not wanting to wee on anybody's parade; I love SMS but I'm not blind to the right new stadium in the right location (think Stadium of Light - awesome). I'm just in no rush to take on upwards of £80m new funding on the speculative gamble that we can get '50k for half our Premiership fixtures' (above) - I just don't think we can. I think we can be a solid top-half of the Prem at SMS and that is probably a realistic 6-7 year target. Whatever people's opinions please can we have no more 'we-sold-out-every-game-in-the -Prem' comments ... WE DIDN'T! And LOL at those who want to build a new stadium 'close to the pitch' - that ain't ever gonna happen - UEFA and FIFA regs and our own H and S considerations mean that the apron is there for a reason, tell me different but has any 'new' stadium ever been built 'close to the pitch'?

3 Lord Mandelson 6 Frank Lampard HTH

http://www.footballeconomy.com/archive/archive_2005_may_05.htm "One of four teams will escape relegation from the Premiership next Sunday, but the least likely candidates for survival are Southampton. Given that the other candidates have recent experience of the Championship, the Saints are the club least well equipped to cope with the £12m drop in income after parachute payments. Southampton have not been out of the top division since 1978. The club is bearing a debt of £22.7m because of the move to St.Mary's Stadium. The loan is secured against future season ticket sales and it is understood that the club has to pay a premium above base rate if they are relegated to compensate for the likely drop in sales. Even in the Premiership, Southampton have seen their average attendance figure slip from 31,704 to 29,862. Games against the likes of Crewe and Watford are unlikely to attract large crowds. Commercial income was already falling this season and operating costs are high. Getting out of the Championship is always tough, as West Ham have found, but the Saints may find it particularly difficult." Can we put to bed the myth that Saints sold out 'every game in the Prem'? The above clearly shows we 'lost' 1800 fans somewhere between mid-table in the Prem and the year we went down - no schitt Sherlock? - people will only watch a 'winning team' and where's the guarantee of that? I clearly remember a dire 0-0 v Charlton in the Prem in our second or third season at SMS which attracted a then record lowe crowd to SMS of 26k (or might even have been 24k?). Not sure our core support is anywhere near what some seem to imagine it is - you don't have to go back too far to Burley Tuesdays when we had barely 16k v the likes of Colchester in the CCC. Do people really want to swap what we've got now for ground-sharing with 25k nu-plastics, paying top-dollar for seats, and watching a bunch of ageing prima-donna playboys 'gelling' their way into mid-table Prem obscurity? 45,000 for Saints v Blackburn? Pull the other one.... Now if we were to look outwards and grow our brand a little; we could quite conceivably control the whole southern triangle / M3 corridor from our new super-stadium sited just south of Basingstoke (lovely road and rail access) - 20k from the now-defunct 'Saints', 10k from third division (at best) Pompey, 10k from those that no longer watch the EPL (sic) at Reading, 5k from the Surrey commuter belt - that makes 45k watching the franchised 'Southern Saints' battling it out for a top 6-8 prem league place. That's not for me ... The other obvious, and bigger, drawback - who's going to score the final goal at SMS? Lambert v Bolton doesn't quite have the same symetry as MLT v Arsenal and Saints will never win the Prem; last game of the season and needing one point to win it they would go to already-relegated Wolves on the back of a nine game winning streak and lose 0-2 - it's what Saints do!

I think they have already done this in a meaningless Champs Lge dead rubber involving one of the Italian teams (and if they didn't actually do it then they certainly got very near to doing it, eg max 1 or 2 pounds for tickets).

I have very mixed feelings about 'multi-ball' (nothing else really doctor, just multi-ball). It's great if you can play it, the ref can play it, the ball boys are sorted, and the crowd do their part - it's pretty pants when any one of these components falls down. I did have a small moment during the Pompey game when I remarked that the game was so much better without using multi-play. Obviously other factors were in play as well (derby, Prem oppo, big atmos etc. etc.) but I did think it was a much better to game to watch with the natural rhythm and flow and more shape and structure, and the occaisional pause for breath and for both teams to re-adjust and start a new phase of play. I'm not against it per-se (hence my 'mixed feelings') but I do think sometimes multi-ball just adds to the hurly-burly at this level and as alluded to above, to the crowd's (and the ref's!) frustration. In an Alan Partridge headmaster stylee, that clot who threw the ball on the pitch on Saturday placed the referee in a very invidious position!

Great night and what a side AP is building - plain to see last night that the additions of Puncheon (first time I've seen him live) and Barnard have taken us to another level. We look far better balanced last night with both Morgan and Hammond in good order in centre mid and an awesome front four, Lambert really looks to have upped his game and fitness levels since the Pompey game, he looks like he now believes he can play at a higher level - let's hope it's with Saints! KD 7 - that's about the number of times he touched it. JO 7 - limited defensively and might find both Leeds and Swindon looking to give him a bit of a torrid time. RJ 8 - awesome, again. Fonts 8 - quality player, looks like he's got another two gears from the level he is playing now. DH 8.5 - we really missed him, it's no coincidence he was one of the players missing during our mini-slump. Fantastic show last night, if he could improve his final ball he would be even better! JP 10! - first sight of him and v. impressed! He seems the 'complete player' as an attacking midfielder and is potentially the best in that position we have had for any number of seasons. DH 8 - that's more like the DH I remember from his first 6 or 8 games, excellent tonight and a really good relationship with Fonte, seemed Fonte had licence to step out the back 4 when we had the ball and for Hammo to sit and hold. Worked really well, great defensive work and also found time to chip in with a goal. MS 10 - different class last night, his best game in a Saints shirt? AL 9 - another totally committed performance, can not believe how quickly he has matured physical-wise. if he keeps this up and he will end up as a genuine centre-mid, work on his goal scoring and he could become our very own Frank Lampard! RL 9 - another top performance, he looked fresh and sharp and with a real appetite. Trade mark finish with a header big Ron would have been proud to put his name on. LB 9 - a performance to put any doubters firmly in their place. Determined, strong, intelligent, aware, aggressive; he gave it the full monty tonight and looked the perfect foil for Ricky. I posted after the Brentford game, 'something has got to happen to turn this side into a Leeds or a Norwich'; I think that something could just be Jason Puncheon. No more hoofball in away games! Keep Morgan, Lambert, Lallana and AP in the summer and we can start to think of being next year's Champs - no more AP out noises from NC - the fans gave their verdict last night and NC would be mad to change now. AP has spent their money phenomenally well and we are building real momentum on and off the pitch - way to go AP!

Agree with those that say it's down to blending (gelling!) a teamtogether. We have certainly got some good players at this time but not sure how many would survive a promotion? If we went up we would presumably be aiming for the top six from the off rather than mid-table consolidation? Is the current side a top 6 Ccc side? It's barely a top six side in this league ( for a number of reasons). IFwe went up and AP was offerred 4-5 new players who would be sure of keeping their place? Davis FOnte Morgan Llalana Puncheon LAmbert IMHO are well up to it, I Rate WAigo, and maybe squad players BArt HAmmond BArnard?

That view finder is well trippy; I ended up with the sky spinning wildly and my head wedged under a seat: Stu Romsey eat your heart out!

For THE game, tomoz v Huddersfield, I am in Block 36 BB For that other game ... I'm in with all this morning's other desperadoes and reprobates ... 528 - 531 ... I shall be bringing my attitude and my volume, make sure you all bring your's too. COYRs

After Saturday's shenanigans does anybody still think it's a good idea to put the away fans at the other end of the stadium? Not sure about expansion, can't see it being necessary until we are established in the top half of the Prem (it will be a minimum 6-7 years till we can say that?) Not sure even then there is the guaranteed demand over a consistent period of time to ever make it economically viable - stand by for big ticket price increases if we ever did do it! Nothing worse than seeing crowds of 15k rattling round in a half-full SMS, I'd hate to see a situation where we ever went back to having crowds of 15k but rattling around in a 40000 seater stadium.

3 from snowy Sandwich and my youngest is down from Loughborough. We will have done getting on for nearly 2000 Saints miles (that's like airmiles but without the freebies) since just before Xmas. Leeds A, Col U A, Exeter H, Millwall A, Brentford A, MK H, P'mouth H.... it's costing me a small fortune!

OP:If we win the JPT ..... WILL WE HAVE AN OPEN-TOP BUS PARADE?

I said something similar further back up this post. Lets get the away fans from the first angled block in the Northam (45?46?) round that corner and on into block 1 (and at the moment we'd only have to sell block 1 three or four times a year). Saints fans can then spread right across the Northam end and double up on the oppo from the Block 2 side. I think people are making far too much of the arguments about: the size and shape of the concourses / the entry points / the corporate box thing; if this is a proper '5 year plan' to get us back in the Prem then surely these things can at least in part be re-engineered at a relatively modest cost if that provides a long-term re-structuring of the arrangements? I can't see that anyone has made the case for moving them to the Chapel end? Do we know as any sort of a 'fact' that the police will even allow away fans at that end of the stadium? What we can almost certainly surmise is that if the away fans do go to the Chapel end then a significant number of the current Blocks 40-42 and 1-3 will follow them down there, with a contra movement of a range of others including ‘families’ going the other way; plus ca change? We will just reverse the existing layout, with potentially more problems outside on the concourse as the away fans will potentially use both sides of the stadium for entry and exit (remembering that this change ought to be future proof and hopefully in the not too distant future we will be accommodating Premier-size away allocations). What we do know from last night is that we emphatically DO have 6000 fans (of a very mixed demographic) who will stand and sing their hearts out if the team on the pitch give them reason to, let’s get the ground adapted asap, poke the away fans into a corner, and bring it on! Last night, the birth of the Southampton Kop; Wem-ber-ley, Wem-ber-ley!

What a funny thing to say: Murty has played what, 6-7 games this season? I think I'm right in saying Jaidi and Fonte haven't yet played together? Harding has been our best left back by some distance. This is where too many fans get it soooo wrong, it's not all about lobbing names on a piece of paper and expecting the 'team' to go out and perform, it's not a computer game! A proper back 4 works together as a unit (and prob ought to be extended to include the GK and call it a back 5). On the basis of who's played together and who combines well our 'best' back 5 this season has probably been: Bart / James / Perry / Jaidi / Harding. (and if you play Fonte, which is understandable, then you are effectively starting again in terms of a back 4 and a back 5) PS The Jury should have no problem in deciding between Otsemobor and Murty ... neither (for different reasons) are what is required and neither offer anything more than a short-term fix. I fully expect us to start next season with a new 'proper' right back. If LJ is to play every game then I would prefer it to be at RB rather than CM.

I've just bought this morning one for my lad who is coming down from L'boro uni for the game .... they were down to singles behind the goal in the Chapel and bits and pieces in the Itchen/Chapel corner. From what I could make out there is zip available in Northam/Kingsland/Itchen ... Looks like it could sell out today / this evening?

... Jaidi we all knew would not be up to two games a week ..... Is this statement: urban myth, recieved wisdom, or 'fact'? Has it ever been 'officially' said that he can't play two games a week? FYI, Jaidi actually played Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday on three seperate occaisions earlier in the season.

Thanks to whoever posted this up! I've been re-dialing solidy on 0800 from 8.25 to 11.00, not a peep. Second time the 01271 rung ... just hold it (I held for 6 mins...) then ... straight in (I doubled up on Swindon). GET IN!!!

Is the box office likely to be open on Saturday this weekend? Am I right in assuming we won't sell out by Saturday lunchtime? I have to drop two peeps at Twickers on Saturday lunchtime and it would be as easy to whip down the M3 on Sat early afternoon as to spend most of Thu and Fri queuing on the phones. ( I can't use the online facility, my account has never worked on there, it conflicts with an old email address I once used for mega store online shopping, sad but true). Loving this from the official site: box office hours, Mon-Fri 9.00 till 5.00, Saturdays - currently closed until match and season tickets are on sale. (checked the posted date - posted on Sun 31st May 2009) Why, oh why, oh why is the OS such a pile of tripe when it comes to ticket info and sales? http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/page/TicketNews/0,,10280~1677654,00.html

I'm not convinced the away fans can't move into Blocks 1-2-3, and then from their backwards into blocks 45-44 (or whatever they are numbered, effectively where they are now) for cup games. Taken that the away fans at the moment are in the most 'logical' place: Pro's to this location: it's the second best logistical position in terms of ticket office/away coaches/ segregation after the game (especially if they re-made the access so away fans continued to enter from the right hand side of the ticket office) we will gain a whole width for our own 'kop end' home fans won't be split following the away fans to a different part of the ground away fans will be effectively much less 'vocal' sideways (corner-ways?)on than end-on the away team won't ever 'attack' their own fans end ... they won't have an end as such Anti's away fans would be nearer to the corporates (so what?), either net out the back four rows by those first couple of boxes or permanently change the layout to keep them out of reach (with some clever walling they could prob keep them out of sight too if that's what they want) current Block 1-2-3 stalwarts ejoy the pincer effect against the away fans - then move down to the new front line at Block 4 or 5 or wherever it ends up - and carry on from there can't see any more downsides ...... Memo to the club moving the away fans to the Kingsland/Northam corner would be great in the ground but would be a a logistical nightmare outside, doubt the police would approve it anyway moving the away fans to the 'other end' would attract a significant proportion of our more vocal Northam and Itchen North supporters down their end (and leave us with a watered down Northam/Chapel as our Kop) In the absence of the above as an option I would vote to leave them where they are.