VectisSaint

From what Downthe36 says, I guess if you want to massage Jay you have to use your phone with vibrate switched on. That should do the trick, vibrating lap tops are not so useful it ususally indicates the fan needs replacing.

No, we were mathematically safe on Saturday when Norwich lost. Even then Norwich still had to play Fulham, so we may have been safe before that.

28 actually, and at 32 for 2022 he would still be younger than Rickie is now depending on when it is actually played. Bad news for the lad, although I honestly think he would not have made the final 23, it would still have been great to have been in the mix for selection. I guess now we need to sign 3 strikers in the summer, assuming one is to replace Osvaldo, we needed another one anyway and now we need to cover for JRod being out for most of the first half of the season. Shows how thin our squad really is.

There is no financial mess. The financials for 2012/13 show the Club to be in a healthy position financially with only a very small (approx 1m) net debt. Given that the financials are for the year end when we were promoted this is really a very good position. Plans are in place to pay off transfer fees over a number of years, consistent with how the industry operates, and we already have indication that we have paid what we were due to pay. The only small down side is that we did not maximise our commercial income, and that surprisingly that income is quite low, but with lots of room for improvement. The overspend on the training ground is a slight concern, but in the end the numbers are relatively small fry (15m overspend). In the event of some crisis, we have players valued at something around a £100m, which more than covers any long terms planned payments. The huge increase in broadcasting rights for this season shows that Cortese was investing in the future, and has not done anything particularly rash. In any case the Easte of Markus Liebherr would have been in the know of what was going on. So, no financial mess. Also you asked "why did it take so long" - you seem to forget that after ML passed away his estate was in probate for a long time before Katharina became the legal owner. I don't know exactly when she finally inherited but it would have been a considerable time after ML's passing, due to Swiss inheritance laws. Sadly this post seems to indicate that the sensationalist, innacurate and ignorant press coverage lead by the BBC has been swallowed hook, line and sinker by some.

Hughton sacked by Norwich. Seems silly to me to sack him with so few games left.

The only way to achieve that is to start the thread yourself. The Toffee Troll either starts every thread or has so little else going on in his life that he is in like Flynn on every one that he does not start. He seems to be having a bit of an identity crisis in the last 24 hours, forgetting who he supports and pretending that he supports Saints, he will presumably revert to type in the next few days. Quite why the Mods on this Forum (I believe we have such people) do not have the gumption to ban him is beyond me.

Well actually no he didn't. He simply invested in transfers and ensured the payment terms were spread over more than one year as is standard practice. Most of the "debt" will be paid off this season (figures were for end of last season) and the TV money this year will more than cover these transfer fees. We have not failed to pay anyone what they are owed. The good news is that our net debt is approx 1m, which is remarkably good for a football club, especially with assets (players who do not show in the books) worth anywhere in the region of 85-100m. Unfortunately you have taken the sensationalist headlines of the press which were so wrong and swallowed them hook line and sinker. Of course we could all argue that Cortese could have done better, the commercial side is poor to say the least, but he did not leave the books in a mess at all.

Think you meant "poster", no need for plural in this case. Hope your lot do well against the Arsenal tomorrow.

So thats 3 threads now where you have referred to the fictional Gazza haters. You are the only one who seems to think Gazza is hated. Some think he is not very good, or that he is not ready yet, but no-one seriously hates him, most support him, especially Saints supporters. Anyway what has this got to do with you and Everton? Thought we would lose heavily today anyway, but think it may be a little worse than I previously feared.

Quick update to the Prediction League, already thought we would lose heavily with Boruc. Glad now that I will not be watching.

Was discussed on the other thread on here yesterday, yes Liz Coley was secretary during Lowe's reign, then went to Fulham and then apparently Sunderland. She is now looking for a new job, though Sunderland deny it is anything to do with this issue. There have been very few times when clubs in the top tiers of English football have been deducted points for player ineligibity reasons, and never in the PL. It tends to be a sanction used more often in the lower leagues. Strangely Sunderland are one of the very few clubs that have previous form for this, having been deducted 2 points for fielding an ineligible player in season 1890-91. They were the first football league team to be sanctioned in this way. You would think they would have learned their lesson. http://www.footballsite.co.uk/Statistics/Articles/DidYouKnow29.htm There is a mildly interesting academic paper on the subject here: http://www.coventry.ac.uk/Global/05%20Research%20section%20assets/Research/Centre%20for%20the%20international%20Business%20of%20Sport/Working%20paper%20series/CIBS%20WP08.pdf

Discussion already commenced yesterday: http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?49681-We-was-robbed-by

Beat me to it, I was about to make the same observation.

Surprised that for 30M we have only gone for 3G pitches, would have expected them to have rolled out 4G pitches at least, much quicker and better for long term evolution. Maybe EE's network doesn't extend to Marchwood.

No-one has described Adam or anyone else as "league one players", you have added this in your reply as if it is a direct quote, which it is not. Nick quite rightly stated that we have several players "from League 1 days", which is factually correct, and not offensive in any way. Having a pop at someone else for being offensive (when they are not) is somewhat ironic when it comes from someone like you who is habitually offensive.

Seems to be a distinct lack of movement and pace in that team. Only Englishman in the team, I guess that depends on who Januzaj eventually decides to play for doesn't it? Also would not be too happy with a keeper called Scuffet, Boruz' kicking is bad enough.

He is our 4th highest scorer. This is a criticism that should be aimed at a lot of our other players, rather than SD. Morgan, Wanyama, Guly and Cork have scored 3 between them in total this season, we have 3 excellent full backs who so far have contributed 1 goal between them. More importantly Davis is 13th= in the Premier League for assists, with 6, same as Lallana, only a few very good players have more, Suarez, Gerrard, Rooney and some guy called Lambert amongst them. It is also SD that enables Chambers to get forward so much where he has impressed hugely in the last few weeks, with Davis slotting back into the RB position usually when Chambers gets down the line (which is why Davis will not be moved to the centre any time soon). SD is a top player and we are very lucky to have him and to have got him on such a good deal. Although not from our set up he did hail from one of the best youth set ups of the time, Villa, winning the Youth Cup in 2002, technically he does not have the flair of Lallana but he is still a very very gifted player.

Scored twice in Europa League against Trabsonspor, so both technically correct, Bandini said none in 7 league games. Apparently Juve management have been impressed with his attitude and effort in training, as well as his physical conditioning. Tonight was only his 4th start in Serie A, as Tevez was suspended. I think you'll find Juve rate him more highly than Bandini and that's good enough for me, after all it will be Juve who have to pay for him.

Think you're getting confused with RoMa, he speaks very good English as you well know, ToSa.

Completely agreed. But just to be pedantic, we haven't lost more than anyone else from a winning position. That would be West Ham, who have lost 5 times. In fact this stat of dropping more points than anyone else from a winning position is something of a double-edged sword. We have been winning 19 of our 31 games this season and in the end we have failed to win on 7 occassions. You could legitimately argue if you were so inclined that we must be doing something very right that we can get into that position so often. We just need to learn to hold on to that lead better in future, and its easy to see how to do that, by stopping dropping off when we are one or two up.

Not true, Matt Busby famously said that Big Ron was the best centre forward in the world. Shaw clearly isn't the best LB in the world, probably not even the best in England, but he has potential to be so, especially when he starts scoring goals as well. Is he as good as Baines, or is he as good a LB as Coleman is a RB? Anyway, what is your opinion Toffee Saint? Or in the style of your reference to our manager, my new moniker for you, ToSa.

Don't bring Fred Dineage into this FFS.

What obsession? The point is to illustrate that your assertion that one win against top 10 sides is bad or poor is a false assertion and that there are other examples to illustrate this that counter your continuous negativity against Saints. This is what happens when you put forward an argument, people use facts to counter your argument and show that you are wrong. Statistically for a team in 9th, 2 wins against top 10 teams all season would be as expected. We have one win already, and have 4 to go against top 10 teams. If you work on the basis of top 9, then the team in 9th would not expect to win any games against other top 9 teams, therefore to have won one is actually doing better than could be expected statistically. The use of Man Utd as an example however illustrates that this is not necessarily a good measure of success. They are currently 7th, and yet have only won one game against top 9 sides, statistically they should win about 4. So, how many games you win against top 9 or top 10 teams is not necessarily a good indicator of success, but if it is then we are about where we should be given our win ratio. Sorry to **** on your parade. How many games has your team won against top 10 sides?

Incorrect. They have 2 wins against the current Top 10 sides, Arsenal (1-0) and Stoke (3-2). The fact that was accurately stated was that they have 1 win against Top 9 (Top 9 is easier to compare because it has been very stable for most of season, only 10th has varied). Against Top 9 sides Man U's record so far is P13 W1 D4 L8 F7 A21 Pts7 Saints record against Top 9 so far is P12 W1 D4 L7 F12 A24 Pts 7 So, our record against Top 9 sides is similar but marginally better (goal difference and less defeats in less games) than Man Utd's. If you want to compare Top 10 then United have 1 point more than us. Hardly makes our record poor as you would like Saints supporters to believe. Only winning 1 game against Top 9 sides when you are 9th in the league is actually 1 more than would be statistically expected, so you could argue that we are punching above our position with respect to wins against top sides, but given that I expect us to finish 8th, 2 wins would be par for the course, and we could achieve that this weekend and still have 3 games left to play to achieve more.

He gets the beers in.