sandwichsaint

Glad you've backed that up, I haven't seen any telly but that's how I called it from the back of block 39 in real beer-time. First one wasn't a penalty and wasn't a card, the fd can be unseated and lose his balance - doesn't make it a penalty nor a card - second one looked blatent and from our angle was a stride inside the line. Bit of a twit for going down too easily in the first half (Deepthroat was def Linda Lovelace, she died last year, Malcolm Allison used to get in the team bath with Mary Millington, I think). Other than that it was AL's best game for quite some time - still not sure we can play him and GR away from home but very entertaining at home.

According to 'Big Ron', Ronald Koeman had all free kicks within 25m 'in his contract'; not sure I ever believed this and I certainly don't believe it now.

My thought exactly, this has completely taken the wind out of the momentum that was building to get to the bottom of this. He (the witness) now looks a right cv.nt and so by implication do any others still complaining '(the victims) they're all mistaken/thick/deluded/unreliable' etc etc. Those alleged to be involved suddenly look whiter than white, matey gets his comp/payout and we all move on. Cheap at half the price.

That'll just be Lambert then.

How's your injuries/biking? I can't find any reason to hate Swans but I also really hope we win tomorrow!

Seen most of the punk/70s bands on here, Jam, Clash, Undertones, Joy Division, Buzzccoks, SLF, Ramones, Blondie!, Costello, Penetration, Damned, Angelic Upstarts, Sham 69, Feelgood, Eddie and the Hotrods, Boomtown Rats, Magazine, Wire, Devo, Stiff tour, Ian Dury, Wilko Johnson, Smiths etc. 'Biggest' regret was not seeing the Pistols, though they never came to us - best was I've seen all those bands playing in Canterbury, either at the Uni or the town theatre (the Marlowe). Unthinkable now that some of the biggest chart/alt acts of that time played provincial tours. Regrets, I've had a few but then again I never went more than 10 miles from my house to see these bands .... would love to have seen Primal Scream and the Stone Roses.

Nick Holmes is a shoo-in, didn't Chris Nicholl regularly wear stubble? Frank Worthington and Ossie both had plenty of sideburns. Lambert regularly plays without a shave.

Thoughts? Fe.ck off Skate cv.nt.

On a complete tangent, my ST is just a few seats away from the 'bone idle' MLT - as you know he was at the Spurs game - I've never seen him looking so FIT! He's about half the size he was towards the end of his career - looked like he could put his boots on and play. For all the pies-and-burgers stuff he looked pretty trim for someone his age (early forties?)

Derry's boys, Swansea won't know what's hit them ......................... 1 Gazza ............................. ............... 2 Clyne .................. 3 Fox ............... ....4 Font ........... 5 Yoshi ............ 6 Hoov ........ ................ 8 GR ...............10 AL ..................... ..7 Mayuka ......... 9 RL .................... 11 JRod ... 12 Puncheon (if we are going to allow substitutions) The referee will be from Staffs and the linesman will be carrying orange and yellow flags. Hopefully we will be in red and white striped jerseys, black shorts and red stockings, Happy days. Only tricking D, love your posts and your enthusiasm for all things SFC.

The Skate gets it ..... nearly (!) .... GK is Gazza .... but agree on last night's back four (why are people dropping Joshi for the own-goal machine that is Jos?)... AL goes off the wide left and plays in a midfield 3, hallelujiah .... one in the hole which is always going to be GR ... Lambo starts, not JR, get Mayuka playing in his proper position. This is probably the best we can do but I can see Swansea playing a patient passing game and being clinical on the break, another Wigan if you will?

Liking this (typing) stylee ... keep the pitch B - I - G ... no wonder we always play so narrow (NA is clearly not putting enuff hyphens on the team sheet when he pins it up on the Staplewood notice board first break on Thursday).

Forget Dalek's yo-yo theory. It's time to introduce our new ro-ro manager approach. Nothings too far out-of-the-box for our wacky, free-thinking, Southampton Way. Local press? Who needs them? Pay to park to shop in the club shop? Brian Potter at his best. Play four forwards away from home? We'll **** this League. Bigger than Everton? U better believe it bro. No need for costly and messy pay-off compensation, just relegate NA to water carrier, pitch-forker, and programme seller for the next 6 months. Bring in a name manager (cough! 'arry) to re-arrange the deckchairs, continue to under-achieve in the eyes of the fans and gently watch us subside back into the second division (that's the Championship for younger viewers). Hey presto! We start life in the second division with the more suitable and completely refreshed and wiser manager and Mr Bigbucks buggers off with more of our money and more Stains (that's an anagram) on his CV. What's not to like? The ruin of HR and the rebirth of NA, and lots more Saturday 3pm kick-offs ... forget the yo-yo strategy and get behind the ro-ro approach .... SFC, re-inventing football since 2010.

Clear run all the way up there. Met my nipper down who was from L'boro with a couple of his mates. Nice hour in the Vine before the match, lovely drop of beer (but as a negative couldn't get near the indian bbq which looked brilliant). Reasonable hot dog on the way to the ground. Always good to see Saints play and be in with our generally excellent supporters (big negative, who were the 2 or 3 idiots from racist idiot tendency about 6 or 7 rows back down behind the goal?) Enjoyed the banter and the singing. Trouble free get away and incident free journey home (but miles, literally, of 40mph and 50mph restrictions on the M'ways last night. Home at 13-30!) You meant on the pitch? Gazza looks v promising, Clyne is young and raw but has a great attitude, I love Yoshida's Desperate Dan style-defending, you won't find it any coaching manual but it's pretty entertaining to watch, Lambert hit the bar with his only meaningful action, that was about it positives-wise on the playing side. Not a classic away day but about as good as it's going to get this season.

Love it and still good to see it's not every teacher that 'helps' kids with their DT coursework.

Walking out the ground last night and seeing NA walk half way across the pitch, said to the lads I was with, 'that's a good-bye wave'. Top bloke, thanks and good luck in the future. Whole club needs to have a look at itself today, Nige has carried the can for multiple failings IMHO.

Why would we do that? Gazza is one of our better players at the moment and needs a decent run in the team, agree with Cork though, I know it's a minority view on here but I would have bought Chaplow back 5 games ago, we have no fight no bite no leadership.

Myuka looked like a poor man's Antonio when he came on; clumsy, headless and no end product. Granted it was for only 20 mins, out of position, in a losing and demoralised team but compare that to how Lallana came on in similar circumstances last time we were there, he grabbed that game and scored a wonder goal, different gravy. Myuka is another odd-ball signing who is not going to get many starts in his prefered position, not sure we should base our whole recovery strategy around him. Maybe we should have bought specialist wide midfielders rather than a complete set of strikers/attacking mids. We haven't been able to effectively combine JRod and RL into the same starting line up, looks also like we would be better (certainly away from home) with one or other of AL or GR at number 10 but not necessarily both (I posted this after the Everton game). Oh for a CMFG! Or a Jarvis? Should we change shape but that's difficult with the current personnel. Gully at RM a possibility? Shaw looked decent when he came on, prob ought to get JWP back in there some where too.

'One' of the problems last night was West Brom sat very deep, 2 lines of 4 if you will. We don't have the pace out wide or the invention through the middle to unpick this system. We had loads of the ball second half but it was all sideways and backwards stuff, when we did come forward we were either knocked off it too easily, our passing was very poor and our ball retention when recieving in tight areas was poor. If that's the case we must do much better from set pieces, there were one or two really dangerous corners (one where Yoshi went close), most of them were utter gash, either too short or more commonly over hit and too high. Foster never looked comfortable but we didn't get any pressure on him all night. We need to attack, and particularly counter-attack, much more quickly, for me Lallana needs to move into the middle asap, it's JRod or Lambert, not both (has this pairing ever worked?).

Don't you get bored talking to yourself - seek help before it's too late! The most obvious double-poster on the board.

Just back from the game. Decent support but you could see tonight how low confidence/belief is. Gazza and Clyne both had decent games but hard to see a positive beyond that (obviously Ramirez coming back too but he looked well off full match fitness, hopefully he will be stronger/sharper for Saturday). Really weak in centre-mid, whats happened to Schneiderlin? Started the season really well but is his head turning towards January now? Davis yipped and yapped but to little effect, constantly gave the ball away, another that started well but is now fading. Lallana another very poor performance, he was great in the first two or three games but has offered little since, **** poor tonight offensively and defensively. TBF let's not play him wide-left anymore, he is 10 times better in field than out wide. I've seen some improvement in JRod but he was poor tonight, lightweight and lacking in any real ideas how to create scoring chances for himself or create anything for anyone else either. RL had one as well, looked slow, cumbersome, disinterested, another one for the January club?

Sensible without being hysterical. We need to win three of our November games to get back on track ... a massive ask from where we are. Looking fd to seeing Lambert and Ramirez back together tomorrow, Villa stylee, 3-1 Saints, see you there?

Thanks for posting, first time I've ever read anything like this.

Remember watching a TV series a while ago about Ajax's academy. They assessed and recruited on TIPP - Technique, Intelligence, Pace, Personality with those four factors given broadly equal weighting. Guess players need to meet basic standards in all four areas and some weaknesses can be countered by strengths in others. Not all players can be the same speed and not every player can be the quickest but there are few genuinely 'slow' players nowadays. Also clearly depends on what you are measuring etc. Surprised to see from one of our early games this season (can't remember which one it was) that our fastest player over 10yds in the game was Lambert (!), not something you would necessarily pick up from the stands. 'Your lost at International level without some sort of pace' Mick Channon, only he didn't say 'lost'.

Saw them twice in Canterbury, around 77-79, awesome live band and two great gigs. Their 'best' album is surely All Mod Cons (1978?)? One of those rare albums with just about every track a winner, can't think of a dud on there.