VectisSaint

Palace is potentially our hardest away game to win. They are still targetting a playoff position, please don't tink for a minute they have nothing to play for. They also have one of the best home records in terms of avoiding defeat, 2 losses at Selhurst all season (same as us, only bettered by Birmingham), and have only conceded 10 at home in 18 games. We may not lose it but anyone who thinks this is our easiest away game is seriously unaware of their form and position. Middlesbro are probably the easiest away team, their home record is not great in terms of wins, but they don't lose many either. Posh showed last night that they are still very good at home, but inconsistent. If you offered me 4 points from our 4 away games now I would bite your hand off..

This really is a must win. I know thats a bad saying, but we need to ensure we win at least 3 of our remaining home games, because on paper our remaining 4 aways are all very tough, all against teams looking to get in the play-offs and who are good at home. If Iwas offered it now I would take 4 points from our away games, but that leaves us needing 3 wins at least at home and even then it would be squeaky bum time.

We bought him for 3 reasons: (1) So that he is unavailable for Donny this weekend (2) To stop Wet Sham buying him (3) As reserve goalkeeper Seriously though, he has suffered because he has not been able to demonstrate anything much in the chances he has been given, whereas Chung has grabbed his chances with both hands and made a huge impression. I suspect Billy is finding it a bit difficult to settle. But I am also confident that he will come good, but maybe it will be next season before we see him at his best. He really does have some competition at the moment, with Chung, Connolly and Guly all playing well (despite what the moaners say about Guly and even Connolly). I think Barnard is no longer in NA's plans and will be off at the end of the season. I would be surprised if Billy doesn't start on Saturday though, since Chung, Guly and Connolly all seem to have injuries to varying degrees. But I would be delighted if Chung is fit to start ahead of Billy, because he is a better option if fit at the moment.

Beginning to believe, but 10 points will not be enough, think we will need 90.

What a brilliant job Warnock has done so far.

Apparently not

Well Davis is playing

While I agree with the conclusion in the article and many of the points there are some points in the article which are clearly nonsense: "This team is top of the Championship on merit, and the goals have come from every aspect of the side" This is patently not the case. We are lacking much goal threat in central midfield. While Morgan has contributed 2 this season (which is a huge improvement) he is the defensive MF and so we should not be too surprised. But Hammond & Cork have contributed just 1 between them I think, and Puncheon has not scored either. Our wide MFs have scored quite well though. Our central defenders are a bit strange as well, while we are all well pleased with Jos' goals, what has happened to Fonte this year, 6 last season and 0 this. Fox and richardson have also not contributed. So to say that goals have come from every aspect is to ignore the facts to be fair. Lambert's goals come in fits and starts (or like London buses). The fact that he has scored 4 hat-trickas somewhat masks the number of games where he has not socred at all, and in truth in some games he has played poorly as well, but as it is SRL we all forgive him, everyone has an off-game. "Had he (Lambert) not been playing, someone else would have taken them (penalties), and quite possibly scored them too, which would again completely change the outcome of those games." So what you are saying here is that someone else would probably have scored the penalties, therefore this would not have changed the outcome of those games at all. Actually I would disagree with this anyway, you would need to question how many of the penalties would we have won if SRL had not been playing. Not all were won by him, but some were. So would we have got as many pens awarded without him? "Arguably, without Lambert we would have gained at least a point at Brighton too. Sent off with the scores at 0-0 in a game Saints were dominating!" Would we have been dominating if Lambert had not been playing? Who knows "Guly do Prado. For me, still one of our most consistent and impressive performers, to other Saints fans the devil incarnate. " I like Guyly and really appreciate what he brings to the team. But to accuse him of being consistent is just laughable. Its his inconsistency that frustrates people but it also makes it exciting to watch him, because he can be brilliant one day and have a howler the next. I don't agree with the conclusion that Chappers is our most missed player, think you need to look at who else was missing in these games as well, in some we were desparately short of players in some positions. If he is that badly missied how come we have been unbeaten in our last 10 and yet he has hardly figured in that run. Last point - you don't even mention Morgan. He is the key to our success this season. No way are we a one-man team, and Spiderman is one of the main reason that we are not. Still, enjoyed the read

I thought Falque was a Left-sided midfielder, certainly looked that way when he played his only game. Thats why he's not getting a look-in, we're not going to drop Lallana to give the guy a go.

Huh? Perhaps you mean Richardson. Don't think Butters would survive long in the PL, probably given contract extension so that we can get a fee for him rather than lose him on a free. I would put Jos in the top bracket, no doubt in my mind that he is PL quality, already proved himself in Europe. Not so sure about Fonte, has not looked as good this season, but has formed a good partnership with Jos.

He clearly stated that after the match when he saw the 3rd goal (2nd pen) again that this was the first time he had seen it replayed and accepted that he got it completely wrong and should have gone to Specsavers. I don't really like Merson, but it seems like they don't always have the benefit of replays as you would think. What I don't understand is the logic of having Merson covering Saints while Tiss sits alongside watching Dirty Leeds v Wet Sham, seems a bit cruel to me.

Well done, I expect it takes a lot of guts to out yourself.

Agreed, everyone thought the 2nd was not a pen, but the replay showed it was blatant, full marks to the ref.

Neither penalty was dubious, just shown them on Sky, both stone walls. Merson had to eat his words when he watched the 2nd one again, blatant hand ball by Millwall player

Its a game of 90 minutes, so how can you say we played excellent yet admit we were poor in the 1st half. We were OK in the 2nd but not excellent, spent most of the time passing the ball around because we were out of sight of a very poor Barnsley team, when we should have been going for more goals.

Did we? We were awful in the first half against a very poor side who stopped us playing. Better in 2nd half but would not say we were excellent.

Every Spanish language site I can find mentions Southampton as the origin. Its only Wiki where some Mackem is currently making mischief that contradicts this. Elorduy was at college in southern England, there is no way that he would have gone to Sunderland to purchase the kit, and anyway there are plenty of references to him sailing from Southampton. There are even some strange references to the colours being connected to the White Star Line (Titanic etc), although this seems a little far-fetched given that the Titanic sailed in 1912, over 2 years after Elorduy allegedly departed from the same docks. I am reasonably sure about the Bilbao/Madrid connection though. Athletico Madrid was a junior offshoot of the Bilbao Athletic Club for Basques in exile in Madrid.

I don't get it, we sing Pompey songs, why would anyone else sing them to us. We must be the only team that sings about our rivals more than about our own team, and then we slag others off for taking the **** at us.

Mostly the ones written by Sunderland. It is not disputed that people from Sunderland, as well as from Southampton and Portsmouth were instrumental in the set up of Athletic Club, but it is usually accepted that Juan Elordy took the kit back to Bilbao did travel from Southampton (he had been staying in London, so not very likely to have gone to Sunderland to catch a boat to Bilbao), and purchased 2 sets of kit in Southampton, not Sunderland. The other set of kit was given to Athletico Madrid I believe, who were set up by Basque players living in Madrid (Madrid use blue shorts I think, as Southampton did in those days of course).

I hate the huge red patch on the back. They should stick to copying our kit, since they play in red and white stripes as a result of buying copies of our kit back in 1909.

Maybe they were fired up because someone called them Spanish. Doesn't go down well with Basques.

Seems like a completely reasonable request to me. Because of the nature of the hospitality suites evacuations due to fire etc (other than during the actual match) are completely different to those actually seated within the stadium. As well as that they are trying to make sure that you are not bringing John Westwood with you, since he is a health and safety hazard.

So surely that means he supports Manure

I've seen some crazy explanations for our blip, but to make out it was due to Martin really takes the biscuit. Martin proved to be a more than able stand-in for Jos, now have total confidence that if needed (hopefully not though) Martin could come back in. But we do need another CB, if not right now then in the future. 3 CBs is not enough (Raidi and Dan will be gone before we play in the PL).

Wrong Nigel, in my opinion Pearson would be a better bet for England (but probably because I prefer NA to stay with us). Hodgson is head and shoulders the best candidate if the manager has to be English, it requires as Arry says someone who can coach, so thats Arry out of the running.