sandwichsaint

Watford's Igahalo offerred big money move to China but would rather stay and is apparently in discussions for a loan move with un-named Prem club. (Guardian). 1 in 19 chance it's us ! Do we need a striker (as some on here think we only have one more game to play this season). Good last season but a bit meh this season.

You do know that resales don't count for Wembley?

cant happen - lots of weeks are 'reserved' for UEFA football.

Apologies if this is old but I'd never heard it before, what do Liverpool fans call Gareth Barry? Barry island, made I chuckle.

JPT we were right up in the Gods behind the goal - the view was surprisingly good - there are lifts and escalators up and big concourses, plenty of loos etc. You prob be alright anywhere not on that lower terrace which is where the singers and standers will be camped out - me included hopefully.

The home walk-up/regular cash-payer interface probably isn't as big as you think it is; we got our Cardiff tickets in the last window offered, I think we got two tickets on membership-plus-8-home-games and then they opened the final window on membership plus 7 homes games and we got a third one then. (We also had half a dozen aways each too but they didn't count back then either). This was all after the ST holders/corporates/players etc. We prob got more ST holders now but it's quite a big allocation, reckon it could get to membership plus 5 home games, but waters are somewhat muddied by continuing to sell memberships now - bit of a low blow to existing members really. Obviously a different allocation and different circumstances this time but it is an indication that (at least at that time) there weren't '000s of people in the membership-plus-X-games categories. Club will always be damned if it does and damned if it doesn't - one of the reasons I have an ST is to guarantee cup final tickets, I couldn't stand to see Saints at a big final and have to miss out. I've had a ST for 5 years and this year it's paid back; in an ideal world I would prefer to do ten homes and ten aways, but with the cost and time commitment of the home games the aways have somewhat fizzled out to a couple a year.

It was clear handball, second one was never a pen though. Who cares?

Puel says don't bother, if we get through to the final then the bed-wetters can jog on,we're much better off without them.

If you want a quiet afternoon pint http://www.theshipandmitre.com/ straight out the front of the station and about 200m across the other side of the road system. Cracking place, gutted I'm not going tonight!

Lovely coastline if you get to Sunderland early, head out to Roker and walk northwards, I've also had a beer and a bag of chips on the seafront at Redcar (sure beats going into Middlesboro itself). Cardiff Bay is worth a look, Norwich town centre is very real-ale friendly, with Ipswich a sort of runner-up cum little brother but there's really not much to see in Swindon or Reading. You'll always get a friendly welcome and a decent cheap pint oop north, at least if you stay out of t'big cities @ Hudderdfield/Halifax/Blackburn/Burnley etc. Did the huge indoor/covered market in Leeds, never seen anything like it (people or architecture) before, a sort of UK/Bangalore melting-pot cross-over, could have been another country from where I live. I found a mini water-front last season in Leicester that I didn't know was there (still not sure if it was a canal or a river), I also had a swim at S****horpe municipal baths on match day (don't ask) which must put me in a Saints Venn of exactly 'one'. There's usually something to see in most away towns but I really can't recommend spending more time than you absolutely need to in Gillingham.

Nah, prices wouldn't fall that far in Championship (the price cut would be the extra games, similar prices, four games more). Much bigger prob would be the telly money but isn't there now even bigger parachute payments so prob ok on that score for two seasons. Not going to happen anyway, this year or for the foreseeable future.. we'd have to do some really silly over-selling combined with some serious under-recruiting on replacements to be relegated..... (amazing what a 3-0 home win can do for a chap's confidence).

Not quite 10000..... Eight seasons of PL football at SMS have averaged 30,755 Eight seasons of non-PL football have averaged 22,200 (which includes 17,849 when we went down from the champ to lge one, and 20,982 in our first season in Lge 1 For our single most recent season in the Championship we averaged 26,420. If it's priced right and we are competitive in the Championship looks like we have a base of c24,OOO. http://www.european-football-statistics.co.uk/attnclub/soto.htm

I might have got that wrong then, I should have just written 'people didn't want to see JWP....in the side again' .

Fickle things football fans! Three goals against a really weak side and everything's good again. Thought people never wanted to see JWP and Hojberg in the same side again, now they're our number one pairing, based on one decent game. Plenty of positives though, Yoshida, Cedric, Romeu all had good games and the front three of Tadic/Redmond/Jay Rod looks well balanced and threatening when they are all on their game (which they were yesterday). Did MOTD2 clear up the phantom/non-offside goal? And not seen it anywhere else, why wasn't the foul on long for the penalty a straight red? Onwards and upwards, never get too high when we win or too low when we lose (unless we win on Weds then we can get as high as we like for the rest of the season).

Totally off-topic, has anybody ever done an FA Cup and Lge cup double? Can't think they have, that would be one in the eye for the knockers who said we were finshed.

Having only seen it once live. Ref is standing facing goal 25 yds out Ball is struck into goal (via defender) Lino doesn't flag (correct decision) Ref thinks fds are in, or close to,GK's sight lines ..... Ref asks lino if (fd*s) were offside when shot was struck, Lino says 'yes' so ref disallows goal.... correct if that was it. but apparently no fds were offside. Having seen it once, live, i call 'goal# and ref c'''up, MOTD2 will show us.

A lot of truth in this, if Klopp throws in an alarm clock I'd say 'done deal'. Liverpool mate, ST holder, says he is a beast; the media have him down as a bit of a lady's part. It's a long time (over-long some might say) since we had a beast-cum-lady's-part around the place, he might be just what's needed to get JWP, Redmond and Hojberg to the mythical 'next level'.

Have you got one that cross references price of STs v distance traveled? Given that we have STs close to £London prices/£top6 prices and the widest/most far-flung ST fan base in the PL (based on some dodgy RL metric from way back when). I for one am not rushing to put £50 of fuel in the car on Sunday, leave home at 08-00 and arrive back home at 17-30 .. to watch (probably) one goal (and it's a toss up which side scores it) .... damn my sense of entitlement ... I much preferred going to Swindon/Wycombe/Ipswich/Norwich/ Walsall/Peterborough midweek (!) knowing we would be entertained and we had something to play for too!

Traffic and parking should be pretty light on Sunday ...

3-0 13,200

Matt Oakley was playing for Exeter last season (33 games at the age of 37), not sure if he's still playing this season?

Saints ease past Norwich with a much-changed team, it's not pretty, it's freezing cold, but we get the job done. 75% of the post-match thread slags the: team/selection/players/manager/rotation/the board/other posters, plus ca change? C'est la Saints Web vie!

Everton won't be happy........'first centre half to go to China'.

2+2 with Allardyce's comments this morning, you would have to think we are playing hard ball with Palace over the price .... good on us!

Solid explanation of the bleeding obvious. (x - y ) + vz + va = Where x is the original squad, take away y (the best players), and add v multiplied by z, where v is the number of new players added and z represents a cheaper, younger, emerging player, you end up with something less than the original x. Repeat for a few years and add 'a' (academy players) to the equation and we will end up with three teams where the second and third teams are better than most people's but the first team is never quite as good as it might have been. The (sustainable) Southampton Way in a nutshell.