sandwichsaint

Anyone still got that picture of Mario Licka's missus?

This was screamingly obvious after the Palace game.

Palace team with Gabbi for Redmond. Redmond offered nothing at Palace and needs to be benched and needs to start to show what he can do when given opportunities before being handed unlimited starts with very little return. Tadic was much better last week hopefully he can push on. Tough game and unfortunately comes with Utd on a roll and us still rebuilding. A respectable 0-2 with us forcing De Gea into a couple of meaningful saves would be a step in the right direction. Having been at Palace last week, my first game since WBA away last year, I am happy to say that reports of our demise have been greatly exaggerated. In Hoedt/Lemina/(+Gabbi) we look to have added some real PL quality, definite green shoots, we just need to find a way to integrate two of Long/Gabbi/Austin into the starting 11 and get a tune out of Tadic and we will be fine.

Think you'll find internet porn, social media,, recreational drugs and Zero Hours Contracts have eaten quite heavily into that demographic. Back in the day these people had Saturday afternoons off, a few quid in their pockets, and not much else to do. Nowadays the yoof are likely to be either working, sleeping or ****ing about on their mobile phones. Believe it or not the things we found attractive in the 70's don't quite hold the same appeal nowadays.

Cunning plan.

If only football was played on paper eh?

Away goals count double ... and you're at home.

Chelsea, with a quite good but relatively unknown/unplayed midfielder coming our way. Really, really, really don't care either way now, we should have sold 2 months ago and bought two starting level players with the money.

Gao, and we still don't sing, It's Gao, and we still don't sing It's Gao. and we still don't sing It's Gao, and we still don't sing. Gao = Chinese for 0-0, who knew?

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