VectisSaint

In my opinion Poke will be a very good keeper, he is gaining great experience with Torquay, and just coming up to the age where a keeper starts to come into his own, there are very few keepers who star in their early 20s. There is a reason why Michael has been on Saints books for so long, and that is because he is very talented. He has the authority in the box as well, he is not just a good shot stopper. I would prefer to see Saints keep faith with him than Bart personally, but I would also understand if Michael considered a move to further his career. I think he will be good enough for the Championship at least in years to come, consider that he probably has another 12 or 13 seasons in front of him, serious injury permitting. Just to add about Poke, he has now gone 5 hours without conceding a goal for Torquay, this is a team in the bottom half of Div4, 3 clean sheets in last 3 games, plus last half hour of the previous game when he replaced Scott Bevan. Now 6.5 hours, Gulls won 3-0 again today

We lost it really with the 10 point deduction and then the poor start, but it finally became a relaity with the draw away to Exeter, not just because we drew but because all the other results went against us. Losing home to Swindon and then the draw with Oldham only confirmed what was already evident. It would have taken a minor miracle to have reached the play-offs after the Exeter game. It was also hugely embarrassing not getting a point or even a goal against ****ing Swindon, for where I live and work now that was the lowest point. I do hope they don't go up. In some ways anyway, I want us to get promoted by winning the bloody league, not by limping through as some bloody best losers, coming 6th is not what we should be aimimg for, I won't even settle for 2nd.

I looked on here earlier and wondered if everyyone had forgotten. Still seems odd to me after 34 years knowing exactly where you were all those years ago. Still the best day of my life (don't tell the missus). Last month was pretty good, but FA Cup v Manure will always be better.

More likely "Sustrans". Usually linked with cycle routes. http://www.sustransconnect2.org.uk/

Disagree about Poke. If Bart were to leave then I think Poke would expect and be expected to stay. He has experience of promotion, albeit at a lower level, and has now played more than twice as many matches in the League as Bart. If Saints had wanted to get rid of Poke they would have done so a year or two ago, he is seen as the most likely longer term backup to KD. He is at about the right age for a keeper to start playing regularly (25). If Bart stays then expect Poke to make the switch permanently to the Gulls where he is well thought of. I'm sure Saints have not been keeping faith with Michael for nothing. On the original question keeping Connolly has to be a priority, the guy is sheer class (when fit).

They are in the same league, aren't they? I think if he had played more games I would probably vote for Fonte, who was in a different league to Ricky at the start of the season, but is now in the same league. Fonte is a class above just about anyone else in this division, one of the few that would genuinely not look out of place in the PL. But I think it should be someone who has played at least most of the season.

Extremely unlikley imho that he is on more than £1k a week, probably les. the numbers you are quoting are averages, there are many players in L1 on higher wages and many on lower. Agreed 52k pa is still a decent wage for doing nothing but its not going to set him up for life, the fella needs to find another job and thats not easy when you have no qualifications in your mid 20s.

Is he actually any better than Ali Dia? At least Ali made an appearance in the English top flight, albeit a brief one. I cannot understand that he actually has 4 u-21 caps for Wales, they must be truly shocking. In some ways I feel sorry for the lad, he is 25 and really has no career in football, and probably has no other qualifications. Hopefully he can find something else productive to do with his life.

No confusion on my part, it is quite easy to distinguish between JvD and UvG. JvD was complete cack when he was with us, and did not distinguish himslef either when he went to W Bremen. he is 26 now, so may have matured since then (wouldn't be difficult). My reference to him being a con-man was that he conned people into thinking he was a good footballer, much like Ali Dia, not in any legal way like van Gobbel. Sorry if my view is not the same as some others who may have rose tinted spcs, but to me JvD epitmoised all that was wrong with SFC under previous regismes and all that is wrong with modern day football and footballer mercenaries.

Lazy, disinterested unless getting his own way, petulant, poor tackler, poor crosser. Made it clear he wanted out at the earliest opportunity, because he thought he was too good for us. He was in short a legend in his own mind.

We're already sponsoring the team to the tune of £35000. Nice article in the otherwise disgusting Sunday Express today laying the ghost of how nice the people of Pompey FC are, owing thousands of pounds to various charities, including St Johns Ambulance. To owe organisations like St Johns significant sums of money for the services they have provided to allow football to go ahead at their ****ty little stadium speaks volumes for the people that were connected to that pile of ****, while Storrie and Gaydamak and many others extracted their millionsof pounds of flesh is frankly disgusting.

I think Roy Hodgson has far more sense than to be interested in this con man. He was allegedly a footballer, but that was shown to be a claim that was not proven. One of the worst signings Saints ever made: bad footballer, nasty person.

'Derby' is commonly used to signify matches between teams in the same town or region In this context "region" would probably be considered as a County, and as Bournemouth and Aldershot are really in the County of Hampshire (or Southampton) these games would be considered local derbies. Bournemouth is only considered to be in Dorset by those with no sense of English history . In fact you could argue that the region here is the New Forest, as Southampton and Bournemouth are on the edges of the Forest. Of course the rivalry is nothing like that with the Skates, thank goodness.

Don't really care, we are going to win the League next season. In some ways it would be good to be rid of Swindon as they beat us twice, but it would be too embarrassing at work with them a division above us, and besides, its an easy away game for me (as long as we don't play as badly as this season). Hope Aldershot get promoted.

I think it is absolutely certain that the kit described would be reveiled by all

Sounds ****ing awful, Arsenal with a couple of stripes, yuck. Don't believe a word of it.

Such as "How do you spell his name?"

We have scored more points this season than ever before in a season (if you ignore the 10 point penalty). Previous high was 77 in 83-84. We would have got 87 in 59-60 if it had been 3 points for a win. So when everyone thinks this has been a poor season its worth thinking again, we have literally never had a better season since we entered the FL.

Huddersfield 3 up

2 more now to equal our second best every goal difference (57-58), think the 47 in 21-22 is out of sight though, maybe next season

:confused:

There is no hint in that quote that he is blaming anyone. He is just making the point that we will see more and more teams coming simply to frustrate, and the best way to deal with that is for the fans to keep up the pressure and the noise and backing the team. It happened before AP was here that these sort of tactics get to supporters and crowds start booing and getting on players backs as we did during the Agent Orange and Burley eras. The best way of course to combat this is to find ways of overcoming these tactics, and that highlights the need for more creativity in MF and also the ability to change tactics during a game, sometimes slowing the game down rather than going like a bull at a gate as we were evidently doing against Oldham (according to Sky), again that needs leadership on the pitch (as well as off) to be able to sense something is not working and put your foot on the ball and take control.

Not sure about Rooney and Torres, too injury prone in my opinion. Rickie is better than Messi. Ronaldo would be a good squad player perhaps, though he would probably be behind Pulis in the pecking order

I would be a bit concerned that they are giving odds for winning Coca Cola League One next season. I don't believe anyone will win that particular competition, Saints or otherwise.

The big difference next season I hope is that we won't have so many cup-tied/loan players. Therefore the JPT will not disrupt things by having to juggle the team. We should be approaching the JPT in the same way we do the league (not higher or lower priority), with the same best team put out. AP will apparently be judged after 18 months (Dec10/Jan11) as would most mamagers in this situation. Personally if we are not top of the league at that point next season then something will not be right, thats not saying we should walk it in an arrogant way, but we should have the infrastructure and team to make that happen. Pushing for a play-off place at Xmas would be a huge failure IMHO. But I'm confident that we will be top or 2nd at worst.