sandwichsaint

Did we establish if we have ever won at home on the opening day of a PL season? If not I'm part of a relatively small Venn that saw us win 1-0 away at Coventry (Ostenstadt) in '99 if that's any good. MP's first team; FF Picks itself OR SD REDMOND JWP TADIC GABBI All seems a bit samey but we do have that box to boxer to come in, reckon we will let in too many and not score enough, which will leave us in a relatively underwhelming 10th-12th finish. Tomorrow? 0-0 or 1-1 for me.

Love Barney Ronay, he never takes the game 'too' seriously, he comes over as a dispassionate and somewhat cynical observer but deep down you know he is just as invested as all the rest of us. If you want an easy-reading, fun, holiday book his 'Manager' is a great read.

On current personnel: ............. Forster .......... .... back 3 VVD/Yoshi/Stephens .... Cedric ... Romeu ... PEH (JWP) .... RB ....... Gabbi ....... Redmond ........ .............. Austin ................ Solid back three, our best two holding-mids, two of the best wide options in the league; starting with a combination of goals/mobility/pace/height in the front three. JWP prob should be in there somewhere but he's not really a holding/centre mid type player. Harsh on Tadic and Boufal but neither had particularly good seasons last season and shoving them both into the same line-up never seems to work. Keeper looks the glaring weakness in that line-up.

Not sure why we're not looking at a 3 at the back system in that with Cedric and Bertrand (at the moment!) we have some of the best wide options in the league, also means Stephens can continue to play and develop and he's earned that opportunity. ...........3 at the back............ CEDRIC ROMEU PEH (or JWP) BERTRAND ........... GABBI .... REDMOND ........ ................AUSTIN ................... Rotations and bench available: JWP / TADIC / BOUFAL / DAVIS / (LONG, love him to bits but I can't see him getting a lot of pitch time this year if GABBI + AUSTIN keep fit and we want to keep Tadic and Boufal sweet too). Basically keep all our players and we are a solid mid-table side, we don't have the extra games this year, we should be better prepared for league games and hopefully have fewer injuries. To break into the top 6/7 we would IMO need to add 2 or 3 'starters' and upgrade the keeper too. If the window closed yesterday I reckon we would finish 7-8-9 and get to one of the cup finals, plus ca change? Hopefully we will see a few more goals this season, particularly at home!

Club trolling the fans now, and still they lap it up.

Simms?

Reel 'em in, 25 bites and counting.....

Totally agree, add this to the reasons not to renew the ST.

Saints are solidly M&S with the occasional S&M for high-days and holidays: West Ham will always be fur coat and no knickers.

Jumpin' Jack Flash, it's The Gas.

I'll swap you my Alan Shearer for your Speedie and Dixon.

Probably because we need a one-year impact manager. It's the same as the player model, if they do well they will move on PDQ. The next time we see a four-season Saints manger we will be comfortably and anonymously mid-table in the championship.

Fake news? Or the end of The Southampton Way? I was always led to believe we had our next three managers mapped out. Might just be me but I've always believed in Santa Claus too.

Stand up, if you love the Tories, stand up, if you love the Tories.

My bad, the original planning conditions for Wembley were 50k capacity for extra events (they must have a calendar/a fixed number of days-a-year for 'full capacity' events). In March the local planners gave them permission to use the full 90k capacity for all their PL games, so it looks like we could get a fairly hefty allocation on Boxing Day. http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11675/10811931/tottenham-secure-approval-to-play-wembley-matches-at-90000-capacity

I 'thought' (not sure I got it where from) that Spurs' Wembley gates were capped at 55k or 60k?

Burnt Tories + UKIP + cave-dwelling small-off-shore-island troglodytes 46% ish. Everybody else 54% ish. When's the next election?

Darren Fletcher from WBA to Stoke, if it was a bike race that's the sort of move we should be marking.

Looks like Tories + UKip c47% Lab/LD/SNP/Plaid/Green c52%, NI + Independents and others 1% (my figures from a couple of hours ago but won't be far off final totals). Despite people still dribbling on this morning about Corbyn being unelectable it looks like the coalition of chaos has got the momentum to win a re-run in October and has got huge numbers of young people registered and voting. The Tories not looking quite so born-to-rule this morning.

Looks like TM will be handed the pearL-handled revolver before breakfast time this morning. Well-earned TBF. Davis for caretaker?

May's toast, hero to zero, she's now the white Dianne Abbott.

Hand brake turn!

Can someone look up 'hubris' on Wiki?

TBF Brexit has been a shambles for the last 12 months, May has been a shambles for about the last 7 years.