Arizona

Almost like 'Arry's getting his excuses in early, before the game has even kicked off. Doesn't sound like him, something must be wrong. :-k

Bit of tangent from my other thread about pointless races. Put the F1 circuits from the current calendar (and any oldies you may want to include) in order, favourite to least. My list 1. Spa 2. Silverstone 3. Brazil 4. Suzuka 5. Malaysia 6. China 7. Magny Cours 8. Hockenheim 9. Turkey 10. Melbourne 11. Monza 12. Bahrain 13. Barcelona 14. Montreal 15. Monaco 16. Singapore 17. Hungaroring 18. Valencia

Ok, I'll rephrase: It's a pointless race, but I can see why it's there.

Lol, I know. I'm not complaining about the last 2 years, and I have high hopes that next year will be even more exciting. I was just pointing out that cars can look terrestrial and still provide entertaining races.

I just mean generally off the pace. Alesi was a bit like a much worse version of Coulthard. Drove some fast cars, but was generally outperformed by a much better team mate. I can't think of any particular races where they would have won. Alesi in Monza maybe. DC won that race and Mebourne aswell, so I guess that would have made 7 winners. That season was just overall much more exciting than most of the seasons since groved tyres came in. Hakkinen should have won 4 race, but his engine popped whilst leading at Silverstone, Nurburgring and Austria. Coulthard could also have won in Canada if he hadn't stalled in the pits whilst Panis was breaking his legs. Some cars down the field even ventured onto the podium on several occasions. Fisi, Rubens and Panis getting a few second places for Jordan (Spa and nearly Hockenheim), Stewart (Monaco) and Prost (Brazil or Argentina, can't remember) respectively. On any given day, the Williams, Ferraris, Bennetons and McLarens all had the pace to win races, with a couple of dark horses like Fisi and Panis. Could have been the best season ever if Frenzen, Irvine and Alesi had performed and Hill wasn't stuck in an Arrows. In all, 14 drivers made it onto the podium and only Minardi, Tyrell and er... Lola failed to get a driver up there.

I know Imola is in Italy, that's part of the reason I don't get it. It's not even that from Monza either. You could probably drive between them in 2 hours. I can't really remember an interesting Imola GP. There was the 2006 race when Alonso kept Schumi behind him, only for ITV to cut to a break with 2 laps left, but that was a small LED in an otherwise dull, if tragic, history. Monaco is boring, but I wouldn't really class it in this thread as I can sort of see the point. It's all about clamour. A chance for Bernie, Flavio Max, Ron et. al. to hang around in Cassinos with Kate Moss and Brad Pitt. That and the fact that pretty much all the big cheeses and drivers own property there. Means Jack to average Joe Public, but that's why it's there IMO. Oh yes, and Valencia. I had (understandably I think) forgotten about that. I actually find Magny Cours exciting on occasions. There is the long straight with the hairpin which generally allows for some decent overtaking. I remember DC overtaking Schumi in 2000 and giving him the finger before going on to win. There was also Frenzen winning a soaked '99 race in a Jordan which crossed the finishing line using fumes.

Would reduce the performance of the engines horrifically to the point where it wouldn't be ecconomically viable. There would be some very difficult technical challenges involved in making it at all. The airflow through the mesh could potentially reach supersonic speeds, which would cause terrible vibration and turbulence which would basically destroy an engine over a period of not too long. You would also have to make a structure massively strong to withstand the force of air rushing into a jet engine. On top of that, a mesh with space to let enough air into the engine would probably just dice anything which hits it and the bird would still still go in, just in more pieces. And... this crash and the Ryanair crash in Rome last Autumn are the only airliners I can think of which have been brough down by birds in my lifetime. The chance of the 'fireguard' system developing some kind of a fault and collapsing into the engine would provide far more of a hazard IMO. The way the ecconomy is going, I think US will just take the insurance money and stick it in their back pocket. Can't see any US carriers buying new planes for a while. Amen. P.S. Interesting how the US Air and BA (Heathrow last year) pilots were hailed as heros by the media, but the Ryanair guys in Rome just got ignored.

You can just turn up and watch the reserves, who usually play at Staplewood. Guessing the accademy is the same. Can't see why it would be different.

6 hour round trip for me. In the good old days maybe.

Darren Powell is absolute gash. I think that's another bucket we can all p*ss in. We could even get a few Derby fans if there's room.

Can't decide between Pahars against Pompey, Skacel against Brum and Rasiak against Derby.

Any F1 races you just didn't understand why? Races which were never exciting, dull circuit layouts, they weren't hosted in countries where motor sport was that popular and there was no real politic reason to host them. For me the Austrian and San Marino GPs seemed kind of pointless. I guess that's why they're gone. I still don't see why we have a Hungarian Grand Prix though. I know way back when it was good to have race behind the iron curtain, but I think that's a bit obsolete now.

Think the new Renault looks like a cheap Japanese Scalextric ripoff of a 1993 Williams. No offence Ponty. Why can't we go back to something like the 1997 spec? Good looking cars, the Championship was decided by about 2 points and we had 6 different winners. There would have been 9 if Hill hadn't broken down in Hungary and Alesi and Irvine weren't carp.

Using a friend´s laptop at the mo, so that´s going to happen. COYS!! Saga to net a brace and pull us out the drop zone.

Got to by my all time favourite Saints player. I liked him even more than MLT. So many fantastic moments. I have never seen anyone so happy to score for Saints as Marian against the Skates. Nutmegging the world´s best defender at Old Trafford. The goals against Blackburn and Everton when he had just joined. Scoring a brace against Liverpool at the Dell to come from 3-0 down and get a draw, then leaping into the crowd after netting the equalisers with 10s left of injury time. He scored Saints first ever goal at SMS in a defeat to Villa and scored the only goal in our first ever win at SMS against Charlton. His best goals aren´t even that well known as they weren´t as important. Who remembers him running through the entire Man Utd team to score a late consolation goal at the Dell or the strike against Derby that wouldn´t look out of place on a "MLT´s top 10 goals" compilation. I think he is also third in the Premiership´s all time headers by a short arse tally, behind the English Marian Pahars and SKP. If that doesn´t qualify for legend status I don´t know what does.

Surprised he didn´t get more games in our first CCC season when Pahars was injured and Fuller, Kenny and BO couldn´t hit a cow´s arse with a barn door. Apparently his attitude sucked, but 2 goal in 5 Prem outings is a reasonable start to a career. One of those promising stars that drifts into obscurity. Bit like Shev, Tim Sparv and Scott McDona... er maybe not.

"Jason Euell not good" would be an equally accurate headline. Irritating that we have loaned out players like John, Saga and Rasiak to save money, when this cart horse is still on the wage books.

Typical. Haven´t had access to t´internet for a week and Saints go and win. The way things are, I don´t care if we stick 10 men on the goal line for 89 mins, then nick a goal of DMG´s arse in stoppage time. Well done Saints. Nice to see we´ve found the cash to pay for Saga and a defence. Slightly worried that we sign a LB shortly before Skacel gets an ´injury´ in training.

I heard the building was constructed by Ferrari, without permission, right next to the taxiway. Bet they get away unpunished.

And then as they were leaving the room. "Oh, by the way Rudi, if you don't leave, you will be left out the team anyway, we will spread rumours about you not giving a sh*t about the club and generally do anything we can to force you and all the other experienced players out the club. We have to cut costs, so I'm going to completely anihalate the first team squad to save wages. We wont have a hope in hell of stay up, so I'll hire so cheap foreign coach and spin a load of bull about 'total football' to keep people interested so the gate receipts don't drop too low."

Telling the players we cannot afford the wages or putting them on the transfer list would be the proffesional way of doing it. Going by reports from many players however they are being told they wont be allowed to play if they don't agree to leave. On top of that there have been a lot of rumours spread around about the senior players not giving a s**t, which I'd be very surprised if they weren't engineered by the club in some way. In short, there are correct ways of getting rid of players we can't afford without treating them like garbage. Telling Skacel he wouldn't get to play unless he took a 50% pay cut to join Ipswich... that's just wrong.

He scored at Preston too although it was officially credited as an o.g. in much the same way that Dodd didn't score against Pompey. http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/news/?page_id=9087 Anyway, splitting hairs. I don't care if Saga didn't score any goals last season, he's still better than McGoalkick.

Well, if the board didn't treat all our experienced proffesionals like sh*t to the point that they all wanted out, that wouldn't be a problem. If you only have players in the team who want to be here, then you're pretty much just left with the kids, which is pretty much what Woopert has been gunning for all along. I went to watch Saints training along with LatvianTolix a few weeks ago. When we got there Rudi and Morgan were out kicking a ball about 15 mins before anyone else had even begun warming up. Throughout the training session a few things became apparent about Rudi. 1. He seemed a real character and a nice bloke. Him and BWP were the two taking the p*ss. When we asked him for a couple of autographs and photos after he was all to happy to oblige and seemed genuinely happy that we'd come to watch them training. The last player I'd have said didn't want to be here. 2. He is f**king quality. His crossing and finishing were far better than any of the other players training that day. DMG on the other hand was knackered after about an hour and seemed intent in making holes in the tarpaulin on side of the dome.

Actually, accross the first half of this season, I'd say he has been one of our best players. He's been consistent if nothing else. You could say the same last season, and the season before he was probably our best midfielder, even if he hasn't lived up to the hype. If we lose Skacel, Perry and Davis from this team, we lose all grip on reality IMO.

Fair play to the bloke too for getting his head down and playing pretty well. If Rupert said basically you can either f**k off or not play, it would be very easy just to stick two fingers up and say fine, I'll sit in the reserves and take my wages.