sandwichsaint

Decent for a second/third striker: Carillo ought to be good for 20 a season. Long, Austin, Carillo and Gallagher we would be well equipped at that level.

I've only been to one game this season - Palace away - and I posted then that rumours of our demise had been greatly exaggerated! Lemina looked like the missing piece in the jigsaw, decent enough debut from Hoedt, Forster kept a rare clean sheet, Tadic was OK, Davis scored (!), unfortunately Redmond was full-Redmond that day but you can't have it all; it looked then like we had something to build on. And the rest is history! Extraordinary that we can start a must-win game with our 4 biggest signings on the bench and playing a non-scoring striker and non-scoring midfield. Utter shambles, he should have gone after Brighton away.

E - I - E - I - E -I- O Down the net spend we do go And when we get to relly This is what we'll sing We are Southampton, We are Southampton We are the Net Spend kings.

October just called, he wants his quote back.

Yep, the very worst part of this season. Fans have called for this kit for years. Wear it? I wouldn't let this lot wash it.

Probably best get Boufal and Carillo on now for Long and Davis as we only have 60 mins to score 2 goals, the last 15 minutes will be waay too late!

Agree (I had to draw a picture in excel to work it out though!). For a bonus point I think I was right in saying that there are 240 possible outcomes (possible ties including H and A) and only 12 of those involve BvB; your 2,000,000 number is the number of different permutations the teams could have come out of the hat. Have you got the odds on us staying up;)

I only did Big v Big, Small v Small, Big v Small, Small v Big ... rather than basing it on 16 individual teams. Big v Big is (4*4)-4, SvS is (12*12)-12, BvS (4*12)-4, SvB (12*4)-12 ... if my way is right then it gives BvB 12 times out of 240 ... I have no idea how to work out how likely BvB will come out in 16 ties.... one in twenty looks unfeasibly low but I have no idea why!

To pour some cold water on the hot balls theory it looks like the draw isn't rigged at all. If you take 4 big teams and 12 other teams and let their be a random draw including H and A I make it there are 240 possible combinations of which only 12 consist of the top 4 playing each other. Last night they drew 16 ties and none of them featured any combination of big v big. That's as far as my maths goes if anyone wants to take it on from there but I'm not seeing any evidence there for the more hysterical claims that TV pay to heat up the balls (and loads and loads of old pro's/pundits are in on the scam too!).

1-0 up and bossing it, bring on extra CB after 60 minutes and proceed fairly comfortably to next round.

A delay of pretty much a whole tie, in my favour, between 5L digital radio in my kitchen (me) and satellite TV in the lounge (Mrs Sandwich). Whoever said technology will be the death of the nuclear family needs to tune into RT 'now' if they want to see Robbie and Ruud releasing their big balls in (fake) real time.

Wot no bell?

Yes every club should keep three starting level LBs in case they are drawn at HOME to flipping WATFORD in a fourth round FA Cup tie..... .

Argentinian Shane Long? I jest (I hope)

Bertrand/Bridge, both super-consistent, one of the first names on the team sheet, rarely go below a 7, can regularly give you an 8 or 9. Big fish = small pond. Loadsa money but (both) ultimately unfulfilled (if marrying a lingerie model can be said to be unfilled).

Apparently last away team to win at WHL too.

OK. Looks like 'everybody' is now entitled to have one free kick at an opponent, you don't have to be within playing distance of the ball, you don't have to even pretend to be playing for the ball, just boot the opponent when you have no intention or possibility of playing the ball, penalty.... yellow card. Really?

The revolution will be televised! ........ (bladders permitting).

I think we're all saying the same thing! 7 points from those 4 games was a challenging target but prob what we need to get us back on track. We got 1 from Watford, we now need another 6, if we get 1 from Spurs we would still need to win the other two to meet our target, in fact we would exceed it by one. Anything we get from Spurs is a bonus but ONLY IF we win the other two games. Hence my slightly tongue in cheek comment suggesting that we rotate this week and then go full on in the other two games.

And there's the rub, all of the sides posted up have more weaknesses than strengths, MP has been dealt a pretty average hand (and certainly hasn't helped himself with his selections/tactics/substitutions). I don't care who the manager is, Guardiola would struggle to give an in-form Spurs a game with what we've got. If we are serious about giving Spurs a game then we are short of a: GK/at least one CB/ a proper attacking mid/a striker and a wide player. Thankfully we don't play Spurs every week and on 'paper' we should be competing with the pretty mediocre sides in the bottom half of the league.

For some of us Kevin Keegan will forever be our record signing. For all the doom and gloom never forget the good times, following Saints will forever be a roller coaster, probably one with more downs than ups, but by jolly, we've had some ups along the way.

Doesn't compute, if we get a point on Sun we would still need to win both the other games in your scenario. Agree we need to target the winnable games, perhaps there will be some rotation this week with a view to putting out our best X1s in the following two games?

Desperately embaressing ... 'some big boys took our ball'.

Has it finished already?

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2018/jan/12/premier-league-10-things-to-look-out-for-this-weekend The Guardian has MP in the last chance saloon, 5 of the bottom 6 have changed managers this season. Looks like we genuinely can use the two most over-used words in football for this one, it's (another) 'must' 'win' game.