sandwichsaint

I can do both - I can see them from my bedroom window. Will prob cycle round by Richborough Castle to get a decent view if it's a nice day.

yes!

You have to love the odd poor result if only for the reactions on here, I should imagine that all local suppliers are fresh out of incontinence pants this morning. Unfortunately Saints came up with the sort of performance that we have seen too many times - big expectation, possible under-estimation of the oppo (by the fans certainly), no early breakthrough, frustration for the players and the crowd, visitors gaining confidence and starting to believe they will get something from the game, Saints eventually breaking through but never looking wholly convincing, Saints shoot themselves in foot when the game was there for the winning. Disappointing but I guess we just have to suck it up and move on to the next game; maybe last night will come to be seen in time as this season's Walsall away and we can now motor on to the end of the season and a similarly happy ending? Selection? Don't think many people can have too many quibbles with the side picked on the back of the Leeds game? Puncheon wasn't very good at Leeds, Chaplow and Cork both had mixed games and both looked to be running on empty on Saturday (Cork after a lot of games and Chaplow after not enough games), Gully was also OK when he came on Saturday. Harding is a shoo in at LB and Hammond has been pretty solid most times he has played this year. Lee over Sharpe is also a no-brainer on current form. Unfortunately the changes didn't seem to give us the required lift and it was a strangely subdued performance all round with too many players below par on the day. Davis 7, didn't have lots to do but pulled out two smart saves when needed and no chance with the goal. Agree with the distribution thing, would like to see him feed it much more quickly to the feet of the CBs or full backs when they have room to play. Richardson 5, can't fault his effort but his passing and ball retention was rough all game and rarely threatend when he got fd. Set pieces were pretty poor too. Fonte 7, pick of the back four and always seemed to have things under control. Hoov 6, seemed out of sorts (by his high standards), typical committed performance but Ipswich's pressing seemed to rattle him and distribution not great. Shocker for the goal! Harding 5, reasonable first half and linked up with AL, went missing second half. Where was he for their goal while Jason Scotland helped himself to a gentle evening stroll all around his manor? Gully 6, excellent first 30 minutes, picked up several interceptions and tackles and kept trying to do the right things. Made a complete mare of his headed chance and went downhill after that. Involved in our best move of the second half but then rushed his finish when with more composure he could have got closer. Rightly subbed. Hammond 4, I'm a fan but he had one last night. Lots of effort but he seemed to completely forget the basics, consequently gave the ball away way too much. Could be his last start for some time if others stay fit. Morgan 7, worked hard but not quite at his brilliant best last night. Looked, understandably, leggy and tired. Lallana 6, some lovely touches and our most threatening attacking outlet. Really poor miss in the one on one, the ball didn't get to him very quickly which gave the keeper time to narrow it and set himself. With hindsight, AL was in tons of room and if he had taken a touch and changed it, either back inside or further to the left the keeper would have been put off balance and he would have almost certainly scored.Also had a couple of really weak efforts on goal in the second half - if he can't score from there then recycle it and work it to someone who can score! Lee 7, love his attitude, his speed, his ability, his tenacity and his sheer will to win, what a find! He's come in like a whirlwind but it's going to take time for him to connect with his new teammates and vice-versa. The channel ball for his pace to run onto gives us a useful new dimension when we learn to mix it up. Maybe like to see him in a 4-3-3 where his pace and mobility could really do some damage? RL 6, looked leggy from the off and struggled to really get into it last night being generally well policed by his marker. Glad the chance fell to him when it did, I wouldn't really have fancied anyone else to stick that in at that stage. His second chance wasn't a chance - the ball from SDR was behind him. SDR 8, the perfect sub against tiring legs and he made the most of a rare chance. I don't think he's a realistic option to start at this stage (big Q?M for me about his defensive ability) but he's definitely an option from the bench in any stalemate situation. Cork, not on very long Sharpe, not sure at the moment, he doesn't look fit and he's probably feeling the pressure of a 'big' move. One for next year, if we get him fit and playing properly he will either be a squad player in the Prem or we can get our money back from one of the relegated sides. If we don't go up we are probably looking at next year's new Rickie Lambert ... let's not even go there at this stage.

Fair play - never seen it myself.

Southampton Football Club Prohibited Items Flares Knives Firearms Fireworks Laser devices Bottles, glass vessels or cans Balls, frisbees or inflatable items Air horns Offensive weapons, i.e. baseball bat Flag poles Alcohol Unauthorised fliers and handouts Aerosols Smoke canisters Dangerous or hazardous items Glass Flasks Drugs (illegal substances) Musical instruments, i.e. Bell Transmitting devices or recording monitors Spray paint Cameras, flash photography or other lighting devices Flags (due to an expected capacity crowd for this specific fixture there will be no areas where flags may be displayed) Any item which may be used as a weapon and/or may compromise public safety Can't believe this hasn't been posted up anywhere, from the Portsmuff website detailing arrangements for the forthcoming 'bubble' (900 tkts now available on open db sale); items not allowed in St Mary's - 'bells'. Human rights, using the word human loosely, obviously forbids us from also prohibiting 'smelly bell ringers' within the confines.

Why's Reading a derby? Other than that it is fairly near, duh! We've hardly played them in the last (30) years. For me. when the blue-few are no more, our 'rivals' will be Brighton, Spurs, maybe Palace or Charlton. We have absolutely no history with Reading and let's not start creating a tradition with a Noddy club who were on nobodies' radar until 5 or 6 years ago.

absolutely f-u-c-k-i-n-g brilliant

TBF they will be the only team who can field 4 regular first-teamers at the Sky masters.

Jethro Tull - Skating away (on the thin ice of a new day) I think we can close this thread now ..... please, please, please play this at SMS in the upcoming (maybe at HT?).

Doctor Feelgood - She's a wind-up. Smiths - How soon is now? Bowie - Ashes to Ashes REM - It's the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine)

Personally I don't think an outcome of a '44' game season is any where near as 'clean' as you (and others) are making out. Of course it's the least worst option and the only realistic one available to the league if that circumstance (a team dropping out in mid-season) comes about. In theory expunging the points gives a neat, clean solution that's absolutely 'fair'. But there are some fundamentals that they can't legislate for - some teams will 'play' 46 league games in the season others 45, some teams (potentially including us) will have a break in their scheduled fixtures in their run-in, possibly a good or a bad thing (depending on form, injuries, fixture congestion, suspensions etc), some teams will have incurred injuries or suspensions in their games v P (which other teams won't have). If we go up in a 44 games season we'll take it, if we win a 44 game league we will be Champions; no one will take that away and we won't care. I'll take all that but don't tell me it won't always be tainted; the only wose outcome would be that they are forced to finish the season with a completely scratch/youth team and the results of those games then have any bearing on promotion or relegation. What a shambles and with hindsight it would surely have been better if they hadn't started the season at all -playing games with only 13 or 14 players has been a complete **** take.

Very unlikely they will go under mid-season, FA/football league will pull out all the stops to complete a full league table, worse case scenario would be they fulfill their fixtures with a scratch team and then disappear at the end of the season. I'm pretty sure if they did/do go under and finally knock all their creditors the league would facilitate a 'fresh start' as 'Portsmouth 2012' playing at a non-league ground share in Lge 1 or maybe Lge 2, franchise-Dons style. Pretty sure they would get a buyer/funding to operate in that scenario; not sure what their competitors would make of it, but hey... Best we can hope for is that they have shipped out several more big earners by the time they play us, you never know though; we had an 'impossible' ending at the Dell, what would be the odds on Pompey's final game ever being a 6-0 stuffing at SMS?

Knobby Stokes?

Thoughts? How did you see out of your pram? Did your mum give you an extra pillow? COYS!!!

Welcome to my world. I posted up just such a system (on the old SFE) when we played Wolves in the cup on the way to Cardiff all those years ago. If only we had had the language back in the day to describe it, that post was 'liked' by around thirty posters. ST start with home games x2. Members (there's some free money for the club straight away) x1 for home games Away games for everybody tiered at 1-2-3 points Spends in the club-shop= points. On this scale £30 = 1 point Saints player 0.5 points a month As soon as we come to a Brighton or an Oient or an Arsenal ... Away tickets will be available next week to all supporters with (25) points on their card, Any tickets remaining will be available the following week to all supporters with fifteen points on their cards.etc etc. Club control the demand and availabilty; fans locked in to their 'accounts', 'loyal' supporters rewarded (wherever they live LOL). What's not to like? - given that that the costs of the scheme (which would be covered by the members' subscriptions) are outweighed by 'extra' tkt and merchandise sales, and an increased customer satisfaction in the way tkts are allocated. ST would always trump non-STs, just gets rid of the ST-plus-one mentality which is INCREDIBLY UNPOPULAR with non-STs!

I was there and I feel a certain tingle for that team - they were carp (f'sure) but hey. they were OUR CARP! The only players on that list I would wish some bad karma are Ryan bloody Smith and Bradley W-P! Davis - nuff said James - too much too young, actually an OK player for us in L1 Perry - excellent, gave over and above in every game he played for us Saijs - definitely could have DAJFU in L1 Skacel - Burley personified, all mouth and no trousers. Surman - decent player, would have been excellent in L1 and well worth his place in this current team Wotton - right signing, wrong player, legs had gone but he always gave it his all Euell, I liked him, lots of people didn't. McGoldrick - never worked out for him - guess the hype went to his head? Decent under Pearson but never had the mentality to back up his potential. Once a Saint, always a Saint!

I'm struggling to keep up with all this. I'm buying 4 Ipswich tkts on Monday, can I order 4 Cov at the same time? I really fancy the Pompey game: on the same day next week I will buy 4 Donny tkts (which I don't particularly want) and then I can phone in on Sunday x March and I will be able to buy Pompey tkts? Why has something so apparently simple been made so devilishly complicated? (Can anybody else see a situation where more Donny+Barnesly tkts are sold than P. tkts are available?). PLAN B: Opens window now - if you buy a Donc or a Barn tkt this week you can buy a Pomp tkt with it. Anything left goes to ST + one. Anything left beyond this goes to general database sale. Wouldn't that be better/fairer?

What day do the tickets for the brewery tour go on sale?

TBF it's DS's opinion, not Fat Sam's (Sam's still a knob tho!)

What did he say?

Train from Netley (70p), Saturday mornings at the old top rank out near the old County ground in Northlands Road (60p), Saturday afternoons in the chocolate boxes (£1.30). Saints in the old second division under Lawrie Mac. Me aged 13-14. And the kids today think they have it hard - no iphone, no FIFA, no interweb; we made our own fun then.

It's a shocking miss - he's paid to think, quickly! Freeze frame it - he's completely unmarked 6yds out with at least half the goal in front of him. He either crashes it back in to the empty half or takes a touch and plays it into a space. Caught in two minds and does nothing with it - looks just as bad on here as it did it real time.

Is there anybody over 18 on ****ter? What is RT?

Great game and the eternal ‘two points lost or one point gained?’ conundrum .... 2 points lost for me. Positives: we went toe-to-toe with the league leaders away from home: big club, big atmosphere, and we absolutely stood up to be counted to a man. We had a lot of the game and created a long spell of pressure in the second half. Fans were absolutely terrific, non-stop backing for the team and none of that moaning and groaning stuff every time a player misses a pass. Defence and GK showed real determination throughout and were only beaten by a pen, only one goal conceded from open play v Cardiff, Brum, and Wham is an outstanding effort. Negatives: despite the possession we again struggled to create clear cut chances, RL was well shackled by Faye all game and not for the first time we looked short of a plan B. I’m sure Sharp is going to be great for us and was really looking fd last night to seeing his partnership with RL but it never got going, he looked short of fitness and form and his miss was truly horrendous (Green made a right hash of a fairly routine drive from Lallana and spilled the ball fwd and sideways about 4 yds from goal, Sharp was completely unmarked and had half the goal to walk it into but inexplicably dragged the ball back into the only area Green could reach it – for all those on kumb – it wasn’t a ‘worldy’ by Green – 99.9% of the time it was a simple tap-in to the fd and a poor goal from a basic goalkeeping error.) KD 8 top performance, couple of really smart stops and gathered several dangerous crosses, very brave take against Cole on the top of the D. Right back on it the last few games. FR 7 up and down all night, couple of good crosses in the first half but couldn’t find the killer ball tonight. Surprised he went off, injured? JH 9 (every game), came out on top in a real battle with Cole and always on hand to double-up where needed. Absolute quality and a real steal from Celtic. JF 7 typical Jose performance, whole-hearted and a bit of everything including sweeping upfield with the ball a couple of times in the second half. Good stuff. DF 6 usual busy performance but as ever not very much end product – always leaves me wanting more. Gully 6 worked hard but typically inconsistent contribution, you can see what he’s trying to do but too often it doesn’t quite come off. MS 7 gutsy performance and kept us ticking over nicely. Lucky to escape with one or two very loose passes that put us right under pressure. JC 5 for me rapidly becoming the enigma of the side, first dozen games of the season it looked like he had it all but worryingly inconsistent since then. No lack of effort last night but nothing really came off for him and conceded a needless yellow card. AL 9 right back on his game and ran the show for the first 20 minutes of the second half when played infield. Faded last 20, not sure if that was the subs effect or he ran out of legs somewhat? RL 6 no lack of effort and one fizzing free kick but he was too-easily shackled by Faye and had little impact on the game. Not England quality tonight. BS 3 OMG! Looking forward to seeing his ‘burst of speed’, his ‘intelligent movement’, his ‘partnership with Lambert’ etc. I didn’t see any of that – he looked more like a pub footballer who had taken a wrong turn on the way to the game. His first touch was all over the shop, he was constantly beaten to the ball, he didn’t win any one on ones all night, and he capped it off with one of the misses of the century. He’ll have better days! Subs ????? A right dog’s dinner if I’m honest with you. Puncheon was excellent and a logical replacement for Gully but after that not sure what we were doing? We bought Connolly on for Richardson, with Cork going to RB, which gave us Lambert, Sharp and Connolly bunched in the middle and forced AL back wide when he had been very effective through the middle, and then as a point-saver we stuck Hammond on for Sharp in the last 5 minutes. No real game-changers there and a disappointing tactical response from NA when we played 70 minutes against 10 men. I’d have played Tandoor at half time for Sharp – their two-banks-of-four were resolute and organised and Tandoor’s pace would have helped break up their lines much more than the ‘high-ball-to-Lambert-(easily)-collected-by-Green’ which we saw way too much of. Great night out; proper football game in a proper football stadium and 1-1 probably a fair result overall. Very pleased to see a proper PL ref in what was a hothouse atmosphere and I thought he did well, more sour grapes from slug-face Allardyce. On last night’s showing these two ought to be able to hold onto the top 2 spots till the end of the season but we really do need to move it up a level on our finishing (and don’t get me started on our corners, why do football fans cheer when their team gets a corner? We looked much more dangerous from throw-ins!)

Great game and the eternal ‘two points lost or one point gained?’ conundrum. Positives: we went toe-to-toe with the league leaders away from home: big club, big atmosphere, and we absolutely stood up to be counted to a man. We had a lot of the game and created a long spell of pressure in the second half. Fans were absolutely terrific, non-stop backing for the team and none of that moaning and groaning stuff every time a player misses a pass. Defence and GK showed real determination throughout and were only beaten by a pen, only one goal conceded from open play v Cardiff, Brum, and Wham is an outstanding effort. Negatives: despite the possession we again struggled to create clear cut chances, RL was well shackled by Faye all game and not for the first time we looked short of a plan B. I’m sure Sharp is going to be great for us and was really looking fd last night to seeing his partnership with RL but it never got going, he looked short of fitness and form and his miss was truly horrendous (Green made a right hash of a fairly routine drive from Lallana and spilled the ball fwd and sideways about 4 yds from goal, Sharp was completely unmarked and had half the goal to walk it into but inexplicably dragged the ball back into the only area Green could reach it – for all those on kumb – it wasn’t a ‘worldy’ by Green – 99.9% of the time it was a simple tap-in to the fd and a poor goal from a basic goalkeeping error.) KD 8 top performance, couple of really smart stops and gathered several dangerous crosses, very brave take against Cole on the top of the D. Right back on it the last few games. FR 7 up and down all night, couple of good crosses in the first half but couldn’t find the killer ball tonight. Surprised he went off, injured? JH 9 (every game), came out on top in a real battle with Cole and always on hand to double-up where needed. Absolute quality and a real steal from Celtic. JF 7 typical Jose performance, whole-hearted and a bit of everything including sweeping upfield with the ball a couple of times in the second half. Good stuff. DF 6 usual busy performance but as ever not very much end product – always leaves me wanting more. Gully 6 worked hard but typically inconsistent contribution, you can see what he’s trying to do but too often it doesn’t quite come off. MS 7 gutsy performance and kept us ticking over nicely. Lucky to escape with one or two very loose passes that put us right under pressure. JC 5 for me rapidly becoming the enigma of the side, first dozen games of the season it looked like he had it all but worryingly inconsistent since then. No lack of effort last night but nothing really came off for him and conceded a needless yellow card. AL 9 right back on his game and ran the show for the first 20 minutes of the second half when played infield. Faded last 20, not sure if that was the subs effect or he ran out of legs somewhat? RL 6 no lack of effort and one fizzing free kick but he was too-easily shackled by Faye and had little impact on the game. Not England quality tonight. BS 3 OMG! Looking forward to seeing his ‘burst of speed’, his ‘intelligent movement’, his ‘partnership with Lambert’ etc. I didn’t see any of that – he looked more like a pub footballer who had taken a wrong turn on the way to the game. His first touch was all over the shop, he was constantly beaten to the ball, he didn’t win any one on ones all night, and he capped it off with one of the misses of the century. He’ll have better days! Subs ????? A right dog’s dinner if I’m honest with you. Puncheon ( was excellent and a logical replacement for Gully but after that not sure what we were doing? We bought Connolly on (for Richardson, with Cork going to RB) which gave us Lambert, Sharp and Connolly bunched in the middle and forced AL back wide when he had been very effective through the middle, and then as a point-saver we stuck Hammond on for Sharp in the last 5 minutes. No real game-changers there and a disappointing tactical response from NA when we played 70 minutes against 10 men. I’d have played Tandoor at half time for Sharp – their two-banks-of-four were resolute and organised and Tandoor’s pace would have helped break up their lines much more than the ‘high-ball-to-Lambert-(easily)-collected-by-Green’ which we saw way too much of. Great night out; proper football game in a proper football stadium and 1-1 probably a fair result overall. Very pleased to see a proper PL ref in what was a hothouse atmosphere and I thought he did well, more sour grapes from slug-face Allardyce. On last night’s showing these two ought to be able to hold onto the top 2 spots till the end of the season but we really do need to move it up a level on our finishing (and don’t get me started on our corners, why do football fans cheer when their team gets a corner? We looked much more dangerous from throw-ins!)