VectisSaint

So its a bit like the FA Cup or Carling Cup then. Place will go into melt down if we were to qualify, put out a strong team, but with one or two first choice players missing and then we lost. It would probably mean the rest of our season would be pointless. As things stand we do not have anything like the resource to compete effectively in the Europa League, it would probably mean recruiting between 8-11 decent players this summer (assuming no-one leaves), that might have a disastrous effect on our team morale, especially if we were to recruit pirate look-alikes. Can't wait for away games in Ukraine, would be a fun trip.

They have been struggling for strikers all season. Nothing new here. Fat Sam has bleated on and on ad nauseum about it, despite them buying every striker in the country a couple of years ago. Doesn't seem to make much difference, Nolan scores their goals. We are not exactly blessed with strikers ourselves.

OMG I am going to agree with Dalek. Really beggars belief some of the pathetic crap written on this forum about season being over. What ever happened to wanting to see the team win every game of football, to put one over on our rivals (i.e. every one of the 19 teams in our division) and just enjoying individual games. It has hardly ever been about winning a competition whether that is league or cup, that is just the icing on the cake when individual games go well.The season is not over, I'm looking forward to beating the Scousers again, beating Wet Sham an their pathetic football ethic, and putting one over the mancs on the last day of the season. Would the same people on here who are moaning about season being over be saying the same if we were playing the Skates at St Mary's next week? And if we manage to get up to 6th (still possible) then that would be nice, but its not the be all and end all of the season.

You could of course do what you say, however Wiki moderates the changes and therefore any vandalism such as this would be undone. Hint, always check the version history, the changes that were being seen earlier were amost certainly being done by a Skate on a windup. People think "anyone" can make changes in Wiki, its true to a point, but only registered editors can make changes that remain in place when reviewed for authenticity. Sometimes it takes a day or so before the vandalism is caught and resolved. Its usually pretty obvious, the user who was vandalising the page yesterday made lots of edits, and they have all been undone. I don't recall his handle now but it was quite obvious it was just a moronic attempt at humour by someone who does not understand how the system works.

The Club has never been run for the fans. Never has and never will. Clubs are run for the good of the Club. Supporters (note use of the term rather than fan) support the club financially and in other ways so that it can survive and prosper. Running clubs for the fans is a pipe dream. And as for the nonsense of the Le Tissier dream ticket, I doubt we would even now exist if we had gone down that road. Lowe thought we were all oiks, and never gave a toss about the fans.

What would our strongest side have been? Apparently we did field the strongest side available. Are you seriously trying to tell me that the side we fielded was not capable of winning that game? If you are seriously saying this then you are as potty as I surmise. Perfectly good team, Boruc, Fonte, Lovren, Gaston not available. We had decent chances to win, Lambert missed a complete sitter. Sunderland made 9 changes, this allowed 9 players who cannot get into the Sunderland side, you know the one that is 18th in the League, 15 points worse off than us, yet they won. Liverpool made 3 changes today, including playing their backup keeper, is anyone calling for Rodgers head to roll because he dissed the FA Cup? The reason we lost yesterday was nothing to do with fielding a weakened team. There were other factors, the main one being that Sunderland scored more goals than we did. We have failed to beat Sunderland in 4 games this season, yet some wallies on here, you amongst them, for some reason believed that our name was on the Cup this season and all we had to do was turn up and we would win and then march supremely on to the Final where we would wallop Man City 10-0. Its the ****ing FA Cup, it is a lottery, no-one plans to win it, and I don't believe anyone plans to lose in it either. Swansea and Cardiff also got knocked out this weekend, one to a Championship club, teams that are comparable in size to us. **** happens. I'm lucky that in my lifetime I've seen us win at Wembley in the FA Cup, I really don't expect that to happen again in my lifetime, but if it does, that will be great. We "waited" nearly a hundred years for the first win, who is to say it won' be that long again?

Can we assume that you will honour that argument in future as well? You can't go on being the troll like you are and then expect everyone to confirm to your rules on the one occassion that you post something reasonable. Having said that, as usual you have your pre-formed idea anyway and so this becomes just another troll thread. The answer is quite clear that there are several other clubs with similar or worse record to ours and of similar size to us, and so your post has been answered, but as usual, you don't really like to hear that. Who should we blame for this lack of ambition? We went 75 years without an FA Cup Final appearance before Lawrie took us there in 1976, that must make the Club one of the least ambitious clubs in the country. Another 30 years and we were back, albeit in a foreign country, and now its been 9 years since a cup final appearance, most of which time we have spent outside the top flight, and even then we won a trophy, and received two runners-up trophies, not bad really. There is a lot of crap being talked on here about the club not taking yesterday seriously, well as far as I could see the team we put out was just about full strength, bard Davis and Guly, and the team we played put out their reserves almost en bloc. Some people need to get some perspective, and trolls need to wind their neck in.

Out of interest, what different selections would you have made? Perfectly good team selected today, apart from Kelvin and Guly I suppose. What were the other options? I know you will say Spiderman and Cork, but during the second half we really were not far short of our best available team. You cannot knock MP selecting Yoshida and Hooiveld, when there are really no other options. On the other hand Sunderland made 10 changes to the team that played last week and dropped all of their "stars". Total disrespect to the FA Cup, but **** me they won. It wasn't the team selection that was the issue, it was that the players selected forgot to turn up or are completely cream-crackered (I don't actually buy this argument, they are some of the fittest players around and fast recovery is what you get when you are fit).

Poor, scrappy match thread, the three trolls dominating with constant criticism of a player. Really is a waste of time on here these days, unfortunately. Get a different picture actually listening to the commentary, Saints weathered early storm and are now looking more dangerous, but it is a bit disjointed due to the number of changes. Hopefully will get better the longer the game goes on.

That was last season, this season he has become a liability, although not as much as Fox was. Part of the problem is that it will also force Yoshida to play right, he is much better on the left, Jos cannot play right side, so everyone else has to make way.

They both trained last week as well, from the pictures on the OS.

Glasgow Troll does not support Saints, therefore it is not a problem for him to slag off Saints players.

Arial and Wingdings might be slightly more original

Michael Poke

Yet still made 13 appearances for us, another myth.

Might be a decent backup to Shaw. I can see Spuds might be trying to offload him, he hasn't played since May due to a wrist injury (must be a bad wrist injury to keep someone out for 9 months). He was a decent LB who has lost his way a bit, might be a good prospect, but as I said only as backup, not instead of. Is definitely an upgrade on Fox.

Does the guy never learn? Erik Damela, Andy Woodman, Jose Fonte and now the post. Whatever next.

What about Lallana in the Championship in 08-09? He played 40 league games that season. He played a handful in each of the previous 2 seasons as well (well 6 to be precise). So 2 full seasons in the Championship and 2 in League One. He was not in the League One team of the season in 09-10, though to be fair he did score 15 league goals. So he was not actually selected for any team of the year until May 2011 when he was 22, nearly 23 (and that in League One), remarkably similar age to Senor Ramirez (who is struggling to be totally effective in the Premier League, not League Friggin 1).

By the way, why no MOTM poll?

Really don't understand the people who still think we need a winger. We don't play wingers any more, our full backs provide the width and act as wingers. The problem yesterday was that the FBs didn't do enough of that for some reason, and when they did they did what all wingers would do and lob hopeful crosses into the box for Shawcross to deal with eyes closed. It was pathetic, apart from the few minutes when the rain/hail lashed down, why ow why did we decide yesterday of all days to play hoofball instead of our normal game, keeping it on the deck. If it was a deliberate tactic then it was scandalous. Our central midfield were poor, I cannot remember Schneiderlin and Cork having such in ineffective game (and I am a huge fan of both), Shaw did not try to beat his man tall in the second half until about 80 minutes in. Not convinced Lallana was on the pitch, following several immense performances from him he was completely snuffed out, JRod was hopeless, completely bereft of ideas, and Lambert scored a stunning free kick and did very little else, I feel he is still carrying a slight injury. Steve Davis was MOTM by a mile (and yet the moron behind me was calling for him to be taken off because we needed pace, you really coudn't make it up). Jose Fonte had his worst game for a while, several really poor decisions and bad passes. Yoshi was very good, his reading of the game is top class, makes up for his lack of stature sometimes, although I will still be glad to get Lovren back. Hopeless, hopeless performance, but credit to Stoke who were well organised, defended well, stopped us playing with their niggly tactics and generally were hardly ever troubled. One of the most disappointing games for a long long time.

Duncan, did the article referenced earlier in the thread make it to print yesterday, did not get a chance to pick up a copy before heading back here after the game, and cannot see it in the online version. Although I am not related having exchanged several mails with one of the family members I would be interested to read the rest of the story, other than the bits I know.

I think the concern is more about getting to and back from the game. Although hopefully Boruc will have his shooting boots on.

Scottish, early 1900s, not Danny Fox. Was helping one of the family trace his ancestry a few weeks back. There is still mystery about what eventually happened to him, perhaps you have found out. Will see if I can grab a copy of the Echo tomorrow somehow (will it be in the online version?)

Agreed basically, our away form is good when compared to what we are used to, but about average for the league. However, historically most teams do significantly better at home than away, a trend that is being bucked by some teams recently (Sunderland for example who until recently were hopeless at home, Spuds and Villa also better away). But 15 of the PL teams are better at home than away, and the best are significantly better at home, rather than marginally like us). Being average at home is a recipe for being average overall. If we had done as well as we have away and combined that with an above average home record, then we would probably be top 7, rather than 9th. Turn defeats into draws, and draws into wins and we would have an outstanding home record. Taking your point about our defeats and draws the conclusion is still that we have failed to win in more than half of our home games, the top 5 teams in the league have lost only once at most at home. To be successful we need to do better at home, or we have to buck a long-standing trend that teams win more at home than away.

Our away record is good, unfortunately our home record is average. We have only gained 3 points more at home than we have away. Winning more at home is the difference between 9th and 7th/8th.