sandwichsaint

I'm not generally a ref-basher but I thought it was poor. Minimum of 4 mins presumably goes up to 4.50, if he had wanted to add Bellamy's celebration (and it's not clear why he did. Did he add 0.55 seconds for the other 3 goals in the second half? No.) why did they not adjust the board to 5.00 mins? When United were awarded their last free kick it was pretty much time up, why is he compelled to wait for them to load the box and take aeons placing the ball. What in the rules allows that free kicks at the end of time should be treated as 'time outs' and the clock stopped till the attacking team is organised? If there are 10 seconds left surely the attacking team needs to launch it asap? Once the ref had allowed the kick in what was virtually nil seconds remaining he had nowhere to go, as above he can't stop the game in an attacking area, though he probably could have stopped it once City repelled the initial free kick some 45 yds back towards the half way line? All very unsatisfactory IMHO and more questions than answers! Should we not have standard times for substitutions/goals and then add any stoppage time for injuries, bookings, timewasting? (I though that's what we did have!). Is the 'minimum of 4 minutes' board more trouble than it's worth? United also muddied the waters with a substitution on 92 mins ... their choice but why they should they (or anybody else!) get an extra 30 seconds for disrupting the natural finish to the game? Answer is fairly simple in this hi-tech, super-money age; an independent timekeeper sat in the stand; either controlled by the ref signalling when the clock is to be stopped/re-started, or by the timekeeper's independent judgement of when the ball is in play or otherwise. Either would be preferable to the farce we saw yesterday. And .... ban substitutions after 85 minutes (though AP might struggle with that one!)... is there anything more tedious than watching both sides eeking out 3 or 4 substitutions in the last couple of minutes? Great game! GGRRRR finish!

Glenn ****erill had a glass jaw (allegedly).

If u ain't tried it, don't knock it! I'm 47 and I've played hockey, football, rugby and cricket (and golf and skiing and sailing and cycling) and if I could have my time over again it's not even close .... I would be re-incarnated as a hockey player! Grant it's not a great game to watch, but it's second to none to play (and the social side ****es over any of those others too). Take my word for it: Rupes and ML were onto something there. I'm playing 5 a-side football tomorrow after work, and recuperating for the rest of the weekend, damn knees! COYR's!

**Something's gotta give then**! Picking up a stat from the Charlton forum last week Pardew is on about 5 wins in 30! Saints' league game wins can't be much better than 3 in 20-ish? It's got 1-1 written all over it .... but I was encouraged by quite a bit of what I saw at Charlton; I'll go 2-0, Lambert and Papa.

Tho of course Perry would be playing against his old club; is this a 'good thing' or a 'bad thing'?

Not sure why we didn't close the whole of the Chapel end this season and concentrate our crowds of say 18k-22k on the remaining three sides? We would surely run the ground much more economically if we concentrated the stewards/police/caterers/turnstile people in the bottom 3/4 of the ground and effectively mothballed the whole of the top end; at the moment we still have to staff and police all 4 sides of the ground and the concourses, the corners are closed and the fans are in some areas spread thinly. Let's re-open the two Northam corners, get the atmosphere going, and have a 3/4 full, prem-stylee 'full house'. I hope if we are in this league next season serious consideration will be given to this (apologies to those that do sit in the Chapel, but for the greater good I really do think this model would give the team better support and create a better match day for everyone).

Ipswich away last season (midweek) was pretty much non-stop and just like 'the old days'. My last 2 aways have been Sheff Weds last season and Swindon this; both utterly dire from top to bottom. I'm going on Saturday and everything crossed for a decent turn out from the fans and the team!

CMFG? Paul Williams was good value. Of the current crop Harding on a 'free' is looking like a good signing.

LOL!

Danny Wallace?

LOL, where's 'the stadium' playing next week? Quick quiz question: On average, and compared to other sides in our league, how many points-per-season is playing at SMS worth? On average since we've been there; a) approx -10 b) approx -20 c) approx -30 I can see some signs of green shoots but I'm not sure it's got much to do with our stadium.

Are you sure AP said that? Sounds suspiciously like the ghost of Burley past to me. We would appear to have refreshed 8-9 positions in the starting X1, and have probably got the best bench in the league, though we do still look a bit short up front. C'mon Al, let's have a bit of ambition, how 'bout we win our next three games? Not knocking, I'm quite happy to judge AP over two seasons (subject of course to us staying up this season, though that looks a bit more likely now if these work permits are sorted and one or two are back from injury).

How far we've fallen... are we now to be the Notts County of the South? PS. I heard KK and WGS are going to be joint DoF's, they're starting next week.

BenWatson (ex-Palace) .... Wigan to QPR on loan.... wouldn't have minded some of that..... are their billionaires richer than our billionaire? I'm quite happy to see AP given two seasons to get us out of L1; I just hope that we haven't cut it so fine come Xmas time that we are too far adrift to attract the further players we need (either to push on for next year, or to stay up this year!) When did you ever see the words 'false economy' and 'Saints' in the same sentence?

Shy7e player! The player we could do with now (but who most on here never seemed to rate) is Nathan Dyer. Anyone for a Lambert / BWP combo? While we are at it what's with the Holmes / Mills situation .... both injured or what?

Clear penalty for me (that pic foreshortens the distance between the players). If the Defender jumps to block the ball with his arms away from his body and the arm blocks the fds lob towards goal then it should be given a pen every time (we would have wanted it down the other end!)

Thomas has played there but to no great effect if I remember correctly. Would certainly bring a physical presence but unfortunately he has a foot like a shovel so his distribution would be a major no-no. Perry? No chance, no pace and no ability to get up and down the line. Wotton? Absolutely zip chance of converting that lumbering ox to a RB. Gillett? Would give 100% but has he ever played there and isn't he needed to start (or bench) in midfield? If we don't sign A.N.Other (Ifil would be brill) then I can't see further than James to play RB (maybe till Xmas when presumably we will have a second dip into the transfer window to look to strengthen for our promotion season in 2010-11). PS, can some on here lay off the 'hatred of Lloyd James' stuff, granted he's not the best but he is a young nipper learning his job out of position; last year he really came on and grew in confidence through the season. I've just, yesterday, seen the goal v Brentford and can't believe the sh8t he got on here for it ..... any one of 4 players should have done better and WTF was Thompson doing (watch it again on beeb player)? A back four of James - Perry(Jaidi!) - Trottman - Harding should be plenty capable of playing in this league.

War and Peace? Bitter and Twisted? inCiderdealing with Rosie?

Bowie's 'Changes' wouldn't have gone amiss at half time yesterday either.

KD 8 for his shot-stopping heroics: Zip for organisation and communication with his defence. I lost count of the times the ball bounced across our 6 yd box in the second half and they could have scored a scrappy tap-in half a dozen times, he must take some responsibilty for this. LJ 3: poor game, repeatedly done for pace and nil impact going forward; a squad/cover player at best on this showing. OL 1: you had to be there to see it, beyond woeful. WT 4: sooo slow on the ground but at least he is prepared to mix it in the air. Shocking distribution, either a hoof, a giant header (to no one), or pings it knee high to somebody 10m away. Harding 5: really poor first half, improved in the second. Apparently he delivers a mean cross but I couldn't possibly comment on that as he didn't cross the halfway line all game. Patterson 1: played totally out of position and made himself look a bit of a fool on the night. Not entirely his fault and I quite rate him in the middle but a pro footballer should surely be able to trap, pass, and move in the right positions to receive the ball wherever they are asked to play? Wotton 4: far from our worse player on the day (hopefully Col boy will be replacing him soonest and we can get away from the pathetic scape-goating, anybody who gives him a 0 or a 1 tonight needs to give that mark to half a dozen others too). Morgan 2: FFS! This guy is supposed to be an international captain! Can anybody imagine a 20 year old Cesc Fabregas, or a 20 year old Alan Ball being bullied out a game by 3rd Division S-W-I-N-D-O-N T-O-W-N? He contributed the sq root of nothing tonight (again!). One that needs to shape up or ship out very quickly. Chelsea boy 3: looked good but zero impact. Llalana 2: never a wide player and always narrows our options when he plays there. All the touches but zero impact, in fact, same old, same old. Lambert 4: huffed and puffed and clearly not suited to the lone striker role. Of the current squad, for me, he needs to play with either Llalana or Rasiak (or ideally with a new pocket striker in the Cottee/Dickov mould). Pardew? Funny selection/formation and 'interesting' subs. Fortunately (for him!) he will be judged on where we are after 92 games, so any attempt to do so after 3 is probably a tad premature.

Good news for Gillingham who play away at 'managerless-Colchester' tonight then. A Gills mate saw Swindon on the opening day (Gills won 5-0) and apparently Swindon were rank, worse than most sides they played last season in Div 4. Really hope we win tonight, the big crowd should lift the players surely?

Ticket office phoned me too, excellent service! If you can't collect your ticket before tomorrow then they will send it enveloped up to Swindon and be available for collection at the Swindon ticket office (I was told they'd be there an hour before the game but that's optimistic, at Norwich last season it was 5 mins before the kick off, but hopefully 45 mins before this time). First game of the season and looking forward to it.

Of course they are! I heard from a steward they were going to turn all the seats in the Kingsland to face away from the pitch (he's a very reliable source and he's been right before)

Have to say again here (and whatever we think of the 'personalities' involved) we all owe LC a massive vote of thanks; his money apparently got us through to the end of last season, and again in the summer it looks like he stumped up a cool 500k to keep us going.... thanks Leon!