sandwichsaint

So, keep the front 6 narrow, and fire long diagonals from FB to the opposite wing? Route one-and-a-half football? And are we now saying that we have a PL captain who is forbidden by his national FA to do any domestic interviews/media work? a) scarey or b) bullcr8p ?

I'd be interested in two tickets if you do have them.

1.Manchester Utd 2.Manchester City 3.Chelsea 4. Spurs 5. Liverpool 6. Arsenal 7. Everton 8. Leicester 9. Stoke 10. West Ham 11. Bournemouth 12. Southampton 13. Crystal Palace 14.Middlesboro 15. Sunderland 16. West Brom 17. Watford 18. Swansea 19.Burnley 20.Hull

Same, we've got flights and hotel booked for three people, self and adult son are ST's, we've got no aways from last season (we've got shed loads from Lge1 and the Championship if they're any good!), mrssandwich isn't a member but does have the old style membership number ... we will just have to wait and see if there really are 5000 people who will commit and go away mid-week (and if the tickets do make it to any sort of general sale/free for all then I will have to drive down 150 miles to SMS and camp outside the box office overnight (which we did for the Derby play-off game!) and miss more work next day. Really don't understand why we haven't had a bigger allocation, they might say the away end holds 5k and that's it but it really can't be beyond the wit of man to create a segregated area of 10k seats in an 80,000 seater stadium when you are expecting circa 30k home fans max! Will a lot of people travel without tickets? The hardest hard-core down to the relatively soft-core will be catered for in the 5000 allocation which will just leave those (idiots!) like me who have booked and paid on the presumption that we will get tickets who now don't have any. I have no problem buying on the day or better still the day before but it looks like it might get very bureaucratic and potentially messy if we have to start registering locally for membership schemes etc. and we then have reasonable numbers of Saints fans spread throughout the 'neutral' areas.

Spurs give caps now? Who knew, I stopped reading there.

What's that in terms of km distance/vertical metres? I'm not familiar with two of those climbs but fair play if you are doing three big climbs in a day. We've never done more than one climb in a day, but we don't have rest days, guess joining two or three climbs together in one day is the next level! Guess you might need a rest day after that!

Amazing what a quick shuffle of UEFA's balls can do for a chap. I was all a bit meh about this game and couldn't see past a 0-0 or even a 0-1. I've booked for Milan and I'm buzzing! I will now approach SMS not with a world-weary trudge but with a veritable spring in my step. Hopefully the players will feel the same: Saints-with-the-blue-touch-paper-lit 3 v Boring old Sun'land with lots of injuries 0. COYRs.

Don't go showing those locals up. What should we mere mortals be wearing? If the weather's half decent I'm thinking a nice white shirt, a very nice linen blazer, proper jeans, brown brogues, would that be acceptable? PS I'm a lover,not a fighter, so looking is much more important than doing.

No probs, I realise the two posts are several weeks apart and you have made other arrangements. Didn't realise the tunnel on the Lauteret was closed, agree that the detour doesn't look very attractive! Put Isoard on the bucket list, you won't be disappointed.

Zero to hero, what a Saintsday! I have tended to stay off the thread, I don't have the aways from last year but I saw both the home games (first away game was the nipper's wedding in Brazil, the second away game no chance due to absence of first game). Really couldn't get excited about it as zero% chance of getting any away tickets. UEFA draw-Gods do their magic and we are drawn away to a proper massive club in a proper massive stadium. I couldn't get on till 18-00 but we are sorted now, BA scheduled flights (get me, but we wanted sensible times) from LHW, out on Weds at 15-00, back on Fri at 18-30 local time, decent hotel (forgotten the name!) it's walking distance from Saints Siro stadium/station/city centre .... £830 for the three of us. It's more than some paid, but @ £280 for a three-day city break beats the club's rumoured price of £600+ for a day trip. I know it's more than some paid, but I have no chance of tkts for the other two so I'm totally made-up! This will be the mother of all away-days. Delhurst/Derby/Orient (I did the first two) have all just moved down a notch or two on the all time list! Edit, forget 'most' people would add Steau to the all-time away list. I had sprogs of 13+15 at the time and v keen to take them, I looked into going, but circumstances and common-sense prevailed (and I didn't go :()

Have you looked at basing yourself in Samoens? Just about the shortest drive from the UK. Ideal territory for a mixed group, beautiful, unspolit small town (it's really a village) ideal for rest days/downtime and there would be lots of out-of-season skiing accomodation/chalets that wouldn't be dear. Fantastic mixed terrain for the groupetto. For the hard core Joux Plan starts in the village, out and back to Flaine is a decent ride, Samoens 1600 is a total daddy of a climb (goes up from the doorstep 1000m in 10km = 10% for 10k, you won't find much to beat that anywhere), access across to the Colombier (HC) and beyond. 20k to the Ramez which was new on this year's tour and is an absolute beast (Cat1 I think but real Where Eagles Dare stuff, bleak and unforbidding, high cliffs all round, big drop offs and a tunnel, we did it in the car and it was scarey!) Day rides to Lac Geneva and you can access the whole Abondance valley via Les Gets/Morzine which is achievable for the groupetto. Have a look. Another great area we visited is Vars (south of Briancon) longer drive but opens up a lovely area. Isoard (which is a must-do, for me it's prob my 'favourite' of all of them), Col d Angelo (huge, links over into Italy, it was the roof of the Tour the year they had it and I think that's the highest the tour has been in modern times. You can also access Vars which is a tour finish, also from Briancon climb into Italy , can't remember the name of the ski resort there, begins with M, driveable (ridable!) to Galibier/Telegrapg from there. Groupetto can go South towards Gap, agai na beautiful part of the world. Bourg/Alpe D'Huez is great but there are other alternatives!

Like for like replacement then. Forgot to add, mate got back to work yesterday after a 4 week tour of France and Spain including a trip round the Nou Camp, kudos to the two Saints fans who turned up for the Barcelona stadium tour wearing full replica shirts and shorts and socks, pictures please!

When a picture paints a 1000 words! You haven't got one of an overweight man in a replica football shirt, or a geeky teenager on a football game, pulling the same sort of moves have you?

Agree that we have to consider coaching/training/medical costs but they are still not excessive if you consider the ratio of number of players to number of 'staff' and the fact that 'players' earn disproportionally (far) more than 'staff'. Your argument that the 'headline' figure we see for players' wages doesn't include NI/pensions/bonuses etc distorts the wages more in the favour of the players, more against the club. I've given you a speculative (and completely made up) figure for players' wages (90% of wage costs); you're happy to pontificate on this sort of thing, what do you think they are? (I 'know' you don't 'know', just give me your best-guess).

And therein lies the rub, what is the split between 'players' wages and those of all 'all staff'? Top players earn stupid money, pretty mediocre players earn fairly silly money. Do SFC pay their cooks, launderers, receptionists and car park attendants 20k/40k/60k a week? Unlikely, they probably earn much the same as those professions in the real world. How many 'staff' do SFC actually, directly employ? Presumably catering/stewarding etc is contracted out. How many non-players at the club take a decent/big wedge, probably under 10, probably fewer than five. I would hazard as an educated guess that player wages equal over 90% of the SFC wage bill. I would suggest that over 90% of our wage bill goes on players.

Hope it's an automatic Redmond's driving cos he'll struggle if he has to use his left foot for anything more than standing on.

They can have JF for 24m ....

If we were serious about being in CL in 3 seasons time we would have been better off paying RK what he wanted and keeping Mane another 12 months ..... just saying. Who is the mystery manager in waiting who is only available for another three years? I'll say Eddie Howe. Good penalty analysis too, agree with all of that.

Clever move, and a win/win for Virgin, they get the publicity/PR for sponsoring cheap away tickets but more importantly they ensure that their team/their brand is regularly seen playing in front of a 'full-house' with a decent (and hopefully, for them, noisy and colourful away support). No more empty-seat misery on match of the day, hate that when you go to a game, there's 30k plus in the ground and a decent atmosphere and you go home and watch MOTD and there's a gaping empty block right in line with the cameras. Great move for Virgin, not so sure about for us, hopefully there is more upside of having 3000 away fans at every one of our home games then there is downside.

Definite work in progress, not sure why some are saying it was a good or enjoyable game, a lot of it was pretty poor fare and pretty dull too. An interesting watch rather than an exciting one. We seemed to have lots of bits n pieces players and very little cohesion first half (what have we been doing for the past 6 weeks?), the second half was better, particularly with the introduction of Hojbjerg. When we can field these six: Forster (...) VVD, Fonte, Bertrand, PEH, (..............), Tadic, then we have the basis of a very good side. If we could add some genuine attacking quality (hopefully the hinted-at big signing, a actually materialises, and b is genuinely a cut above what we already have and is ready to go straight in to the side) then the future could be pretty good. The Long/Redmond attacking combo looked very lightweight, particularly without much midfield ooomph behind it. Not sure we learnt much at all yesterday, Cedric still hopelessly inconsistent, Yoshi is a willing and athletic defender but will always give one big chance away, VVD total class, Targett is a work in progress (and better suited to wing back than LB in a back 4), Romeu is a solid competitior (who was hung out to dry yesterday in this formation and personnel), JWP doesn't contribute enough either as an attacker or a defender, SD is a solid continuity player but he is not a creative number 10, Tadic is quality on the ball but won't score too many goals (will create loads of assists though), Long isn't at his best constantly rotating position or playing out wide, Redmond is a young developing player and is in the right place to improve. Hojbjerg absolute class, Pied was pleasing (we haven't seen his defending yet but if he is fit I would probably play him on Friday night), Austin is a lumbering oaf, he needs to get in the box and have some service. Overall, after what was supposed to have been a decent pre-season it was all a bit of an anti climax, Watford were honest but limited (I can't see them going down, they were hard-working, organised, played with good spirit and have got a goal in them, they will be very pleased with an away point at a top 6-8 side!). Saints have a lot to do to maintain last year's levels, but we knew that already. Top 6-8 not impossible if we bought in at least one attacking upgrade, 10th-13th more likely based on yesterday's showing.

We've won on the opening day in all of our PL seasons just twice from 17 attempts, comfortably the worst stats %ge-wise in the whole of the league (yesterday's Sunday Mirror if someone can find it/link it). A betting man might say one of two things: pile on Watford, Saints rarely win in the first game, or, in a contest with three reasonably equal outcomes there is a good chance of a sequence of 2/17 becoming 3/18....... 0-0 looks a good bet, 1-0 if we can nick one, 1-1 if we score and cock-up! Haven't really seen much of pre-season other than some of the comments on here, the comments on the defense are reassuring, the comments on the lack of goals/creativity are concerning. Guess we will see on Saturday, a solid 2-0 would be just the ticket!

If anybody needs a new dog-food related put down then you can have 'whine-a-lot' absolutely free of charge.

For most people yes, unfortunately you are going to have to pay in dodgy sterling so suck it up, Morecambe and Margate are likely to be cheaper (and safer) than Marmaris for the foreseeable.

Send for Boris?

Superb, he has been an absolute legend as 'club captain' and hopefully he can still do his bit to keep the together-as-one flame burning brightly.