sandwichsaint

I assume we are going to be first on MOTD2?

Chin up, sure the nipper will do you proud.

Come on, when their Ultras start giving it I'm really looking forward to us snapping back with 'Johnstone's Paint Trophy, you'll never win that'.

Route to the San Siro? Uncle Mick's Hillman Imp from Tichfield Common to the Dell in the back seat with my brother and a packet of spangles and my late great dad and the afore-mentined uncle up front. A ridiculously sunny autumn day in October '66 as an impressionable 5 year old made his way to a long-held place of family pilgrimage, a journey we were to repeat countless times over the years. Up hill and down dale we trudged, the good times and the bad, the highs and the lows, as dad dragged us (willingly!) all around the West Midlands in search of our seasonal Saints fixes. Fast forward to now and the flame still burns as brightly, dad's long gone but uncle Mick still has a ST in the Itchen and at a spritely 70 years of age you can still see a glimpse of the fine looking young man with the sideburns and the whiff of the Hillman Imp about him. Just realised writing this down that this season is my fiftieth Saints-going season and I'm going to see little old Southampton run out at the San Siro, bring it on, I'll be the one with a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye, happy days.

Same ... we're the left side, we're the left side, we're the left side over here.

Low bar; embrace the new Kloppism, it's all about the anti-possession football .. it's all about the goals scored! Play: Tadic/Redmond/Boufal/Austin/Long/SomebodyElse all at the same time .... Watford/Palace/WBA/Stoke/Exerton won't know what's hit them.

Hopefully that was taken on a windy day? I'm available to model the training kit for very reasonable rates.... #whoateallthepies

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Surely we've seen the ultimate failure of the 'golden ticket' with the San Siro business? I'm sure The9 can come along and add the numbers but the basic scenario is that we draw arguably our biggest game since the Cardiff cup final, with what in the first instance looked like being a much too small allocation. The club set a reasonably high bar for the first round(s) of sales, eg and I don't know the numbers, but for example something like STs plus eg 15 aways and announced there were eg 2000 supporters eligible to purchase in that window, in reality only a quarter or a third(?) of those tickets were sold. While clearly not 'everybody' can make it to Milan on a Thursday evening you would have to think that of our bestest hard core 15-aways-a-season type of supporters that most would move heaven and earth to be there. In actual fact a third bought their own ticket, a third couldn't go, and a third of those tickets are used on rotation by a number of different users and the actual ticket holder didn't take up their own ticket. All very speculative and you can add your own numbers anywhere you like but that's how I think it pans out. Not offering any solutions or judgements, this is the situation as it is and I'm not sure how it can be improved. That Arsenal business sounds absolutely nauseating - buy two tickets, sell the seat next to you at an inflated price either to a regular fan who can't access tickets at face value, or rip off a tourist or a generic plastic PL fan (and then sit by them for the whole game!). I think a little bit more of football has just died right there.

More of an inside forward? The old-fashioned number 8 if you will. Didn't score loads of goals themselves but a sort of all-action hybrid attacking midfielder, defend from the front, run about between the lines, link up with the winger, create in and around the box, bit of a work-horse cum terrier but with good all round ability, not the biggest but could hold their own physically. I think that's him, more of a Beardsley than an Henry for me (if he gets to Beardsley's level, one goal in just over every three games he will be a hell of a player, for someone else of course).

What a difference a few weeks makes! From the rather pedestrian and lumbering performances against Watford and Sunderland to smashing WHU away and playing the champions off the park in their own gaff. Players who looked like square fish out of water now look beautifully dove-tailed into the new system, Romeu a definite upgrade on VW, Hojsberg settling nicely, I don't get the hate for SD, he fits the system well, Tadic if he could add a few goals to his game he wouldn't be playing for us, and Redmond has been generally excellent. Boufall to come too! If Austin can stay fit, and if JRod can play some games, and if Long can find last year's form we would be back as genuine top 6 contenders. Unfortunately too many ifs there and the lack of a top line striker will cost us. But loving our football, just fantastic some of the stuff I saw on the stream yesterday, Leicester were chasing shadows as we mixed it up short and long, with one touch and triangles everywhere. Really looking fd to the Burnley game now.

Said this morning Puel would take draw/draw from these two games, be interesting to see how we go Sunday after this.

Strangely soporific, somewhere between a pre-season friendly and a world cup group game.

Getting going now, is this the second-half surge?

Is Martina ****ed?

let off there, we're making lots of sloppy errors, don't seem compact at all, they are penetrating at will,

I don't buy this 'prioritising Leicester' stuff - we are doing simple squad-rotation/player fitness management. If Puel produces draw/draw from these two games he's done his job, and I've every confidence he will get that based on the way he managed the squad recently over 4 games in 12 (?) days - he got 4 straight wins there so I think we can cut him some slack on his selections for HBS and Leicester (at least until we've seen the results of both games ... and preferably the results of the Christmas games too!)

Same, not great timing, hopefully things get sorted.

KUMB - 'When Karen Brady promised us an atmosphere I didn't realise it was going to be provided by 3000 Southampton fans'.

Good to see that even John Hartson's given up on the club formerly known as WHU.

Creative tension caused by Boufal looking over their collective shoulders? Bring it on, I'm loving the rotation and competition for places. We are probably one good CB, one good DM and one decent striker away from being a top 4-6 side (will never happen, by the time we buy three more starters another three-plus will have left).

West Ham struggling again, 5L say they look shot on confidence and ideas and struggling in the new stadium .... you just know hat's going to happen at the weekend ...... West Ham 0 Saints 2.... go us.

1.5/10

Is there anyone on the forum NOT going? It looks like this will be the largest collection of internet trolls/soccer experts/finanacial whizz kids/forum geniuses/bed-wetters/PR plants and general malcontents ever assembled in one place. Shades of the round-up in Blazing Saddles. Has anyone got on to Batman yet to see if we can charter his submarine?

Can my wife be your wife for the day? I have two tickets for self and (disabled) son, Mrs Sandwich is making the trip with us, no way I would be able to take him abroad on my own, and she has no chance of a ticket (no ST or membership, just the old style membership number, tho she does a few games a year). Considering it's taken a couple of weeks to sell 4000 to theoretically our 'bestest' supporters would it be out of order for me to give it some special pleading and ask the tkt office for one of the remaining 1000 odd tkts?