ericb

Yeah because the amount of headers he's won against two teams proves he's better than people think. Of course it's not like that stat could well be the same if he was 6 foot 5 and the defenders where blasting it into his face from three yards away whilst he stood immobile. Nope stats prove everything even when taken out of context.

I believe it's illegal to mention his name without it being followed up by this. Taider

Being selfish i hope he doesn't play for England, in fact whilst the Liverpool transfer network still works through the England squad i hope none of our players play for England again.

Today's game confirmed how far we've dropped from last season sadly. No disrespect to west brom but we're a shadow of the side we were last year and just don't look like threatening in the slightest. On top of the lack of a cutting edge we are way to slow and predictable in the middle of pitch. Today's game looked like what it was, two mid table teams, with no real hope of competing and no chance of being relegated playing out a nothing game. From our perspective we've sold/wasted a golden generation and I doubt we'll see anything close again for a while.

I think it's naive to think we can produce more than one player per season who's good enough to step up to that level. This current crop are a freak happening, in that they all came through around the same time, the likes of which only really Man U and West Ham have had before. One, at best two, every two/three seasons is about the normal rate. Even for a club with an academy such as ours.

I've been feeling very similar and the feeling only grows with each year we're in the premier league. The game is ****ing rotten at its core these days

Great memories, my first game at the Dell was 1984 and miss the place massively. Dump or not it was just better fun, better atmosphere and more competitive back then. Also the feeling of a surge on the Milton when Saints scored, and the noise of a properly - hold each syllable till you're almost out of breath - OWTS like we used to get in the 80s on the Milton couldn't be beat.

As much as i dislike their plastic "ultras" i feel sorry for palace on this, a manager that could've kept them up and done well for them ****ed over by the money that it takes to do anything in this league. The Premier league is a truly ****ed place and everything i see points in the direction that this sport is dying on it's arse outside the top 7/8

Good point that, being london you can use Uber too and save yourself a fair bit

Damn that's actually pretty annoying as i'll be coming from liverpool st! Also means the drinking by Borough might not be on.

If we sell him to Palace that's a terrible choice, god knows what the club are thinking to do that.

Ah i see so you're basing it on the 3 times they flirted with relegation since the outset of the premier league, so 3 seasons out of 22. As opposed to the 11 seasons out 22 they finished top 10, or the 18 out of 22 they've finished in the top half of the premier league table. Yup i can see which model that is now, the one where a big and incredibly successful club had a few freakishly bad seasons model. I can't argue with that at all. Oh and for reference... 1992-93 42 7 6 8 26 27 8 2 11 27 28 -2 53 13th 1993-94 42 8 4 9 26 30 4 4 13 16 33 -21 44 17th 1994-95 42 8 9 4 31 23 3 8 10 13 28 -7 50 15th 1995-96 38 10 5 4 35 19 7 5 7 29 25 +20 61 6th 1996-97 38 7 4 8 24 22 3 8 8 20 35 -13 42 15th 1997-98 38 7 5 7 25 27 2 8 9 16 29 -15 40 17th 1998-99 38 6 8 5 22 12 5 2 12 20 35 -7 43 14th 1999-2k 38 7 9 3 36 19 5 5 9 23 28 +12 50 13th 2000-01 38 6 8 5 29 27 5 1 13 16 32 -14 42 16th 2001-02 38 8 4 7 26 23 3 6 10 19 34 -12 43 15th 2002-03 38 11 5 3 28 19 6 3 10 20 30 -1 59 7th 2003-04 38 8 5 6 27 20 1 7 11 18 37 -12 39 17th 2004-05 38 12 2 5 24 15 6 5 8 21 31 -1 61 4th 2005-06 38 8 4 7 22 22 6 4 9 12 27 -15 50 11th 2006-07 38 11 4 4 33 17 4 9 6 19 19 +16 58 6th 2007-08 38 11 4 4 34 17 8 4 7 21 16 +22 65 5th 2008-09 38 8 6 5 31 20 9 6 4 24 17 +18 63 5th 2009-10 38 11 6 2 35 21 5 7 7 25 28 +11 61 8th 2010-11 38 9 7 3 31 23 4 8 7 20 22 +6 54 7th 2011-12 38 10 3 6 28 15 5 8 6 22 25 +10 56 7th 2012-13 38 12 6 1 33 17 4 9 6 22 23 +15 63 6th 2013-14 38 13 3 3 38 19 8 6 5 23 20 +22 72 5th

Is this the same Everton model that's seen them win the league and numerous cups in my lifetime, or the model that's seen them get into Europe on an incredibly regular basis, or the model that saw Everton as one of the traditional Big Four, or the model that has them as one of the best supported clubs in the country (ground restrictions of Goodison aside), or the model that hasn't seen them relegated since the 1930s? Just asking because many on here seem to compare us to them regularly when i'd always naively thought they were a far, far bigger side

Gotta be away, even as we are now we'd ****ing stuff them and doing it in their backyard would be priceless. Would take them a generation to recover from too as we're not meeting again for a while

Totally mickey mouse idea that i hope never happens, the Fulham away game showed it was just an excuse for the away fans to turn up and take the ****. Would make us look even more small time and embarrassing than Reading or Wigan.

Spot on post there mate

Yeah but as anyone who remembers our relegation battles of the mid 90s will tell you Rodney Marsh is a cu.nt of the highest order so what he says is irrelevant.

If you're a west ham fan trying to get tickets in the Saints end you can kindly fu.ck right off, it's the last season at Upton Park and going i'd guess a lot of Saints fans will want to go for that reason.

Isn't the moneyball model exactly the model that Lyon have used to aid their progression to becoming a champions league side? There's a good blog post on it here http://www.msg.com/teams/red-bulls/bulls-run/olympique-lyonnais-succeeds-with-its-own-version-of-moneyball.html and actually a model that Cortese alluded to early in his career at saints (before he went mental and decided to spend £30m each transfer window). Anyway i think the bigger question is, what the hell was an american doing choosing to support a side who at the time were in league one!?

Unless you're a genuine fan in which case it's a chance to rescue the club you love. Naive? Maybe, but i still hold out hope that somewhere there's a football with some ****ing morals.

Well if he is actually a saints fan maybe he should realise we need him now and he should step up to that. Otherwise he can **** off to liverpool with the rest of them and prove he's not actually a saints fan at all, just another player that claims to support a club.

Got a personal upper limit on games of over £40, got a feeling there aren't going to be many i'm making this season.

All those people saying "grow a pair" or "have patience" can you please show me another club that's sold this many FIRST TEAM players in one transfer window, and/or had success in changing so many of it's playing staff, plus manager? Who knows if we'll get relegated but it's certainly not being in meltdown to say that this is nigh on a disaster for us, money or no money, and is going to be incredibly difficult to recover from. All i know is that any lingering hope i had in ever being able to compete has no gone. The premier league is hedged towards the top more than ever, combine that with ticket prices, **** atmospheres, plastic fans/jcls, annoying kick off times etc. etc. and i just don't see the point anymore.

I can only hope that Dejan gets snapped in half by Wanyama and is out for the rest of the season in the first game.

Personally i think the cups get in the way of what should be our main ambition, talking about champions league football, aiming to finish 7th and having the honour of selling most of our squad to the teams above us. That's the kind of thing we all dreamt of as kids, i don't think i can put into words the pride and joy i felt at finishing within touching distance of the mighty manchester united and knowing i could watch our best players play for those great teams that we're so lucky to see at st mary's now we're in the premier league. Truly Sky are right, we are currently living the footballing dream