sandwichsaint

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.

Crazy stuff in that programme, the kid with 6 clubs in 6 years. The cage football stuff was new to me and interesting. Good to see that West Ham lad finding some peace in the US and looking at going into coaching, the programme really rammed home (if we didn't know it already) that those that make it are the tiny, tiny tip of a vast pyramid and there are '000's chewed up along the way.

My nipper was at Chelsea a few years ago now, and they had an excellent way of managing parental expectations. The younger age groups were overseen by a real old school hardened ex-pro, asked one day by a parent how long his 11 year old was likely to remain with them he replied, 'Until I find someone better!'. Probably a message that ought to go out to all parents on day one.

Not really, taking one for the team usually consists of holding/pushing/smothering/checking the breaking player, not nice, not sporting, but 'everybody' does it; Schneiderlin was a master of it. Totally different to deliberately kicking a player with no intention of playing the ball. I wouldn't be averse to a 5 minute sin bin for 'unsporting' fouls, somewhere between a yellow and a red card.

I thought it was a red. Not sure it would have been given if Wolves hadn't already been down to ten men though. We only saw highlights, if there had been a series of tit for tat niggly deliberate fouls following the first red the ref is entitled to upgrade to try and gain control and prevent injury to players.

Not so much in modern times, apparently we were 17 from 18 before today's game so guess we have now beaten lower league opposition in the FA cup 18 of the last 19 times we've been asked to. That's a pretty decent record.