sandwichsaint

We will sign a CB not much better than what we've got and a wide midfielder who is the Prem equivalent of Jonno quick (he won't get near the starting XI, sometimes on the bench, will play a max of 200 mins first team football before the end of the season). We will also take someone on loan from Spuds who will make one anonymous appearance and disappear without trace).What we see is what we have, there is no St Mary's money tree (allegedly).We will stay up on the last day by beating Stoke 2-1 (karma on the oatcake fanzine); where that leaves next season's CL ambitions is anybody's guess ... ?

Yoshida's great! He's mobile and determined and he reads it really well. Strong tackler and excellent at holding up an opponent when 1 on 1 against. Looks genuinely pleased to be here and loving playing for us. Good communicator and works well with Fonte. Weakness is he's not great in the air (though he spoils very well) and his distribution can be a bit hit and miss (Sunderland's goal came from his aimless hoof upfield). All in all not a bad signing at all. Hooiveld did OK today too; for me a decent GK is the number one priority over a new CB(s).

was Monk home-produced?

Really, we lost 1-0 yesterday in a must-in game. Our CHs were two of our better players. Last 4 games, 0-1, 1-0, 0-1, 1-1, we have scored 2 in 4 games and our defence appears to be OK, it doesn't suggest CBs are a number 1 priority? Nor does it suggest that GK is an immediate problem but I really don't see KD as a long term solution, flappy yesterday, distribution slow and predictable, nearly let one through his legs. What will Gazza's mental state be when/if he returns? Why did we sign Boruc? Fit but not playing. Single best thing we could do would be to sign a decent keeper for the remainder of the season (like we should have done in the summer). Second best thing would be to sign a striker who can score 10 goals in the remainder of the season. We have lots of striking options 'on paper' but no one doing it on the pitch, who do you think is going to score the goals to keep us up?

GK for me: Freidel/Robinson/Given could be worth the extra 6-8 points we need, none of the current GK s are doing it for me. Striker, any player from home or abroad, from any level who can score 10 goals in the remainder of the season would probably keep us up. For all the attractive approach play how many league goals do our current front four have? SRL 6? GR 1/2?, JP 2/3? AL 0? Not sure how accurate these stats are but it's clearly not enough. A left back, Shaw is playing brilliantly but can we expect him to play 30 games in his first season as a 17 year-old? Definitely a big cause for concern when Fox is next in line. Decent pacey wide midfielder. Puncheon has played well so far but we are very reliant on him maintaining this form, without his cutting edge he quickly becomes average. Lallana has generally been pretty good and we clearly missed him yesterday but we know he misses games and as of yesterday no suitable replacement. LOL at those who wouldn't want Downing or Johnson in our squad. They are the areas I would go for: GK / Striker / and then depending on who was available and what it would cost I would put LB/Wide mid as fairly equal priorities.

Sounds like a perfect description of the Tory party and of those that vote for them.

Steady, you'll start off Dalek's yo-yo theory again.

Probably not my 'favourite' Xmas song but it's up there in the top-5, check out Clarence's vocal and sax, gone but not forgotten.

Every MOD clip this weekend will feature a row of Santa's, the tears of a face-painted clown and a tinsel wig or six. Frankly I'm thankful for these people, they save me from going to the bother and expense of dressing like a *****.

We are going to Samoens in late March (satellite village for Flaine/Grand Massif). Third time we've been so we must like it. We are a mixed ability, mixed age party of about 12-14. Ticks all our boxes, genuine 'village' location, very authentic, rather than a purpose-built high altitude village. Snow sure, lifts generally pretty good, a few slower chairs but generally v efficient modern chairs and minimal queues, at least at that time of year. Literally miles of skiing, very good beginers areas, and the rest is mainly loaded to intermediates and 'good intermediates' rather than full on blacks and off piste, though there is plenty of that as well. Not one for the 18-30 crowd, nor the dedicated apres-skiier but for families it's absolutely perfect, plenty of restaurants and bars and all in a compact village lay out. Also done Deux Alpes, an excellent beginners resort, higher up the skiing is a bit 'samey' but perfectly acceptable; it's also renowned for it's off piste if that is your thing. Big cable cars are very good and shift a lot of people out of the resort quite quickly, lifts elsewhere are pretty basic in places. The resort and the apres is outstanding, definitely one for the 18-30 crowd! Done Chatel twice, both at Xmas and didn't really enjoy the best of conditions either time, links were shut once and we had to drive round to Morzine, massive queues up from the Morzine side in the mornings. Avoriaz pretty good but one of the busiest resorts we have done, queues and cowboys in abundance. Skied Andorra a few times with school parties, does what it says on the tin, cheap and cheerful and ideal for beginners. Surprised no mentions for Alpe D'Huez? We stayed in the satellite of Vaujany, 2 minute walk, no queues and two big cable car rides from there to well over 2000m. Almost unlimited skiing, all abilities well catered for, lots of blue, lots of proper long reds and full-on blacks. Very snow sure, very sunny, very few queues and generally good lift system . Party types are well-catered for in Alpe D'Huez itself but we loved Vaujaney, very small and very laid-back. We've tended to stay away from the 'bigger' (more expensive!) resorts - I don't feel I am, but am I missing something?

LOL at this ... the 'home' end will be 80% full at best. (I know it's segregation etc but in an MLG sort of way, shouldn't their away allocation equal 10%?)

Don Bradman, golf ball, random.

Great news, remind where I can tune into their radio station?

Bit abstract for a 10 year-old?

Mackams 3 Cottagers 0 Thugs 0 Arsene's boys 3 Villa 3 I think we'll get 9 points, we might have to swap an Arsenal or a Villa for a Fulham or a Stoke but we can definitely win 3 of these 5 games. Much improved over the last few games, back 4 now looks like a unit, conceded 4 in last 6, still creating plenty of chances. We'll be relatively fresh for the Xmas slog-fest. Why not?

You could do it with money. Work around a pound being 'one', the pennies are hundreths (100 x 1p =£1) 1p = 1%, 10p+10% etc.. Work around this to get the idea 50p = 50% 50p add 50p =£1 (50p is half of a pound, a half is one part out of 2, written as 1/2, 50p and 50p = a whole one, 1/2 add 1/2 equals 2/2 etc. The equalvalencies are prob not that important at this stage, more important to understand decimals/fractions/percentages as three seperate entities - once child has an understanding of all three the links/conversions will be fairly self explanatory.

We are doing the 'Kentish Killer' in Feb, only the short version (40 miles) but looks pretty lumpy. http://kentishkiller.ning.com/ 1000 places and all sold out. Also doing the big London 'Nightrider' event in June - 100km round and through central London at night, starting from Crystal Palace at 23.30. Looks really good http://www.nightrider.org.uk/ . There are about 20 of us from work entered and we are riding for children's diabetes research.

Awesome. Geraint Thomas to win a stage?

Yep, what we're really saying is that somebody needs to look at all the regular starters in the top 5 leages in Europe and work out where they spent their time between the ages of 12-18, one point per year, and a bonus 3 points if they played for the majority developer's first team in a comp match before the age of 18. When somebody has run that one we'll be able to see that Saints will probably move up the table a little bit further and be in the top half dozen producer clubs in the country, and in top 20-ish in Europe. Bale, Walcott, Chamberlaine, Shaw, JWP; Saints academy, the gift that keeps on giving! Nice.

and Norwich too. I'm surprised his %ges are as high as they are. That's not a criticism, his all-round play has been excellent and he is obviously a key player for us. But I would imagine the chances that he's had he must be disappointed to be on 6 at this stage, we have played a lot of attacking football and created a lot of chances (we haven't had many penalties either! 1?), as long as somebody scores it doesn't really matter but it wouldn't take much for him to go on a bit of a run and he could still get to 16-20 for the season.

Forget it, if Boruc was going to play, he would have played today.

Seems to be a few that are damning Saints with faint praise today? I thought we were excellent, not withstanding the cr8p officials and the cr8p opposition we won with room to spare ... I bet on 3-0 and I feel cheated! Excellent performances all around the pitch, Clyne and Shaw really are a perfect pair and Fonte and Yos are starting to get it together, from the shambles of the early season we are now starting to build a decent back 4 - the real test(s) are yet to come but in a high-scoring season conceding 4 goals in our last 6 games is excellent going. That'll be the last 6 games where we have won 3, drawn 2 and lost 1, 11 points from 6 games, solid mid-table form. Cork excellent again, Punch now really looking like he belongs, he's clearly worked hard on his fitness and offers much more to the team than he used to. Good to see KD back and taking time out to help Yoshi. JRod's best performance in a Saints shirt, did the squad-job to perfection today - came in when he was needed, looked fit and alert, DAJFU and he will know he goes back to the bench when everybody is fit. MOM for me was RL, awesome today in the link roll, worked the whole width of the pitch and constantly provided the outlet while defending from the front. I'm surprised more people don't comment on RL's defensive qualities, today (and Norwich and Newcastle) absolutely excellent in our own box both in the air and on the ground. Terrific team performance, you get the same number of points for beating Reading as you do anybody else, job done, in entertaining style, same again v Sunderland please!

OK! 'clambered to my feet' would be more accurrate but I was one of the first up and he definitely did get a mini standing ovation, and slightly more clapping from the sedentary position. That's how good the football was, we used to sit down and watch it.

I instinctively blame the transfer committee.

I see we're still on the 70's and 80's celebrities/groupies spectrum. We're probably going to get onto the children's homes, politicians, police, judges and well-connected people's spectrum sometime next week (or perhaps not?)