sandwichsaint

The-speculative-thread-to-end-all-speculative-threads. My money is on us playing Liverpool away and Spuds at home sometime between August and May.

Yep, it's now showing against the new week, hence why I couldn't see it yesterday, I didn't realise they automatically rolled fd week to week. I'm loving the Strava fly-bys, does anybody else use them?

How do i set a weekly goal in Strava? Did it last week (150k and achieved it), can't find it all this week!

Watch carefully next time you see a game with extra time (which in theory is 15 minutes each way), you will invariably see between 2-4 minutes added to each half - equivalent to 6-12 minutes for a normal 45 minutes. I've noticed this consistently over a period of time, I once saw a first half ET (can't remember what game) with no substitutes, no goals, no injuries, no cards, and the ref played an added 3 minutes ... equal to 9 minutes in 'real' time! Bizarre, refs thinking they have to add 2-3 mins to every 'half' played, or refs subconsciously hoping to avoid pens and generate a result ?????

My son is a big Saints fan and he's mentally disabled, I don't know if he has any interest in FB though but I 'll be sure pass on your regards next time I visit him.

Dell-size mentality, right there.

Forster 7 kd 5 (9.5 at Man City) Gaz 5 Clyne 4 (spent 2 months sulking) Fonte 10.5 'kin imperious, should have partnered JT in the team of the year Toby 9 when he played CB, 7 in MF, 5 when he was injured, = 7.5 overall RB 9, consistently good Yoshi, typically wholehearted but a level down from JF/TA, 7 Targett, he 'could' make it but he lacks NC/RB's killer attacking instincts, solid 8 in defence but 4 coming fd = 6 Gardos, ltd games and ltd impact 5 MS, different gravy (when he played) 9 VW, ma-ssive for us and ma-sssive to keep him. 9 Davis, under-rated 8 JWP, over-rated 6 Tadic, hopefully we will see more next season, 7+ so far Reed, very good so far, 7 this year, 8 next year if he gets some more pitch time? Dujeric, SP? OK so far, 5+ Ellia, one game wonder 3 Mane 9 so far, and plenty more to come Pelle 8, needs to be more consistent, but can't fault his effort Long 7, when he plays we always carry more of a threat, unfortunately we(he) can't then follow through with the goals.

Is this all a corporate do or can individuals buy tickets? If so, how much were the tickets? It looks like a great evening. Saint Armstrong, are you really typing all that out on the fly or are you using some sort of voice-recognition-to-WP type software and dictating it? I think we should be told, great effort either way, loved your NA stuff too.

Which will make for a very nervous afternoon for the bean counters; £20m's-worth of footballer-flesh right there, running around for one-last, hopefully injury-free, 90 minutes.

Top bloke, would be a great fit at Bristol City, a real sleeping giant, back in the championship, new ground, sold out a whole bunch of STs. Reckon Cotterell's taken them as far as he can!

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/may/19/premier-league-clubs-ineptitude-index More good news, Saints are the third most competent team in the league based on these (fun) metrics. No real surprises to those that watch the team regularly, we are generally pretty competent in most areas nowadays!

I just hope that the person in the crowd with the transistor radio gets the right info out to the players, we don't want another Bally.

Long also contributed one of the highlights of the season away at Millwall - his 'air shot' then crossing the ball off his wrong foot, it was stunning live and something I'd never seen done before.

Nice touch including Forster.

Was dreading this after the Leic game but as someone once said 'a week's a long time in football'; I'm massively looking fd to it now, the players will be on a real high and we've hit some form just when we need it. Clearly City will be a 100 times better than Villa were yesterday but you'd have to fancy our front three against anyone if they all click again, and a welcome return to form for Clyne yesterday, and prob JWP's best game for Saints. My only grizzle is I hope we play Gazza, he deserves it after yesterday and playing in a 'big' game will do wonders for his development; I love KD and he's been a brilliant club captain but there's no room for sentiment (for me) in a game that has a fair bit riding on it.

Footballers eh? More spin than Strictly ..... .

Or as some of us call it 'living in a democracy'. Just because we've had an election it doesn't mean everybody has to 100% fall-in behind the winners for the next 5 years. Debate, disagreement, alternatives, choices (and more regrettably hatred and bigotry) all carry on regardless, and for the most part that's a jolly good thing too. (Sorry if this doesn't relate to the link, I haven't read that, just replying to UJ's reds-under-the-bed paranoia).!

Very tolerant people the Brits, 5m votes for 2 seats! That's indefensible in any language. Chuck in another 2-3 m who didn't bother voting cos their votes make no difference and the same again who voted 'tactically' ie negatively, all based on polling info which we now know was utter horsec9rap. Not sure how we get there but I'd be astonished if we still have FPTP in 40 years time.

We haven't played Fonte+Toby plus VW+MS since the game we lost FF..... coincidence? I don't think so, those four are as good as anything in the league and clearly a level above any of the other combinations that we have played there.

Cambiasso was excellent yesterday, worth every penny if Leic stay up.

Here's a tiny little and quite superficial insight and I put it out there without any spin just as I saw it. Me and the missus stayed up at Leicester on Friday night, decent hotel on the outskirts, we rocked up at 8-00 and I jokingly said to Mrs Sandwich is the team bus here yet? She said, what, do Saints stay here, i said i don't know but it's the sort of place they would. Didn't think any more of it and we were sat down in the lobby/lounge area at about 9-25 when lo and behold I look up to see RK and group of players heading across the lobby. Players and entourage enter (we must travel with a total complement of 40-plus people including players and staff) plus assorted kit and medical bits and pieces. Slightly surprised to see Les Reed was at the centre of it all, no particular reason he wouldn't be but i was surprised to see him so hands-on with the team, does he travel to all the games? Hotel was virtually empty, couple of families at the door with kids and the players very relaxed and signed autographs and did pics etc. Players very polite, very relaxed, and super proffessional in the public areas. They had all the first floor booked out and using the business suites for team meetings and physio etc and ate upstairs, the staff ate downstairs with the general public. Saturday the staff were up and about pretty early, players appeared from 09-00 and ate upstairs. At this stage I got chatting to someone with the team about the routine for the day, just generally interested in their eating and prep etc. I asked him if they were late last night (9-30 ish). They said not particularly late but it did make it tight for physio etc and an early night, the players had trained at Staplewood on Fri, evening meal there, then flown (to East Mids presumably?) and then coach transfer. I asked him the arrangements for the morning and he said the players would come out for a walk after breakfast at about 10-00 and would walk around the car park and the local area (a bunch of out-of-town trading estates) for about 20 minutes just to relax, get some fresh air and help digest their breakfast. Players came out bang on cue, it was a blowy morning and they walked once round the block and were back inside within 5 or 6 minutes. Players then either went to their rooms or sat in the public area reading papers and magazines. I did get a chance to speak to Harrison Read and asked him if he was playing, he said he wouldn't know until the team meeting at 12-30, and we small talked across the foyer area. So that's it really, a tiny snap shot of the life of a pro footballer so my conclusions on the public face of SFC (?) Saints players really are a credit to the club The whole team (players and staff) are very relaxed and there appears a real positive buzz about them In fact the atmosphere is so laid back they are almost horizontal The players clearly want for nothing, everything about the set-up is PL and very professional Players may have some autonomy, clearly somebody made the decision they would only go out for 5 mins rather than 20. Footballers are very young and very lean when you see them up close in their training kit! I'm sure if we had won 2-0 yesterday I would be posting up brilliant, superb preparation; when I was walking out of the King Power yesterday I was cursing the whole set-up and wishing that they had slept in tents and had tripe and onions for tea!

Yeah, pretty s5hit day out really, total no-show by us on the pitch and we were completely owned by the Leicester fans off the pitch. I get it that there's not much to play for and we've had a really good season but the King Power was not a good place to be for a Saints fan yesterday. Team lacked any sort of shape and discipline and it was like time-travelling back to a time when we always used to be pretty gutless away from home. I'm not one to moan about our support and all that but this was my first away league game this season (I did the league cup games) and it wasn't what I was expecting at all. I've always rated our away support as pretty good but it was pathetic yesterday. Some of the people round me made more noise and appreciation at the end of the game than they did for the whole 90 minutes. Did people really clap the team off yesterday? Probably 50% did but there was plenty who told them what they thought of them too, I was firmly in the what-they-thought-of-them camp! And someone sort Mane's diving out - it's getting beyond embarrassing now.

Remind me again, exactly which bits of Labour's manifesto were actually 'red'? Stay in NATO Keep polaris Not repeal trade union law Not re-nationalise the railways Keep tax and spend broadly where it is now Maintain and improve the NHS Encourage the private provision of houses (both for sale and social housing) Not take back academies and free schools into local democratic control. There must have been lots in there I missed cos I'm not seeing any red there.

Tories are in a very difficult place, they can now govern on their own wit hno LD concessions, but with a majority reduced from 70 to close to zero; their big-business backers are very much pro-Europe and moving out of the EU is generally seen as being bad for big-business/finance/city of London. The leadership will now be forced to squirm between their own big-business backers and their hard-line anti-Europe back-benchers. UKIP offered two distinct (but connected) policies, namely coming out of Europe and reducing immigration. I would suggest the majority of UKIP voters voted for the latter over the former. While Ukip clearly do attract voters from right across the spectrum including plenty of bright and articulate people (step fd our very own Lord D.) my, admittedly anecdotal, evidence based on what I've seen/read the last few weeks and living in Farage's actual putative constituency and having seen Farage and his followers canvassing down my actual street is that the majority of Ukip support is concerned first and foremost with 'immigration' and rather less with more peripheral concerns about sovereignty. I'm not sure you can take the Con's 36%? + UKIP's 10%? = 46%? of those that voted as a 'massive endorsement' (of ONE single policy)? For what it's worth I don't disagree with the first part of your post, the EU has clearly grown and become increasingly undemocratic with little say from the people, but that's the price of a parliamentary democracy, we elect people to make decisions for us, we don't vote on single issues and parties don't stand on single issues, and we don't (generally) have referunda unless it's on big one-off issues, the EU has been established through 'creep' over 30+ years. Clearly it is time for a straight in/out referendum with all sides agreeing to be bound by the result for a set number of years (20?); clearly in real life that won't happen, the side that loses will be back picking at it within 6 months (see Scottish devolution!) Probably like a lot of issues in politics 'Europe' is massively important, but to a relatively small number of people. The reality is a lot of people give it little thought and to all intents and purposes it doesn't impact overtly on their day-to-day life either positively or negatively (although of course in reality Euro law underpins a lot of day-to-day stuff). If you ask people in the street or pub or at work their concerns they would be more likely to say: health/housing/cost of living/immigration/education/local issues before they ever say 'Europe' Out of interest what do you think the split would be on an in/out vote? I'll go 55/45 in favour of staying in.

It's been my though for a long time but this election absolutely confirms it - they should ban publishing opinion polls from 60 days before the election. They add nothing to the debate; as we have seen (again) they are all froth and ******** but they are covered in depth as 'news' and 'facts' by the media. All they do is create a false choice for voters and add to the general terror, in an ideal world people should vote for who they want (in a fully PR system) but all they do in FPTP system is encourage tactical voting on what we now know to be very partial and selective information. Did the ConLab vote really split from 34/34 to 36/30 in 24 hours? Of course it didn't, someone somewhere is telling us a load of porkies, who those people are and why they would do that I couldn't possibly begin to speculate.