The Kraken

Well Osvaldo clearly isn't going to score, as I've brought him in to my FL team. Although saying that my transfer in of Dejan Lovren 10 days ago was rather inspired.

Anything above 31k for this game would be a decent turnout. Looks like we might just get it, too.

Pretty sure the 80s movie "War Games" was based upon this premise. It starred a young Matthew Broderick, and the film starts with a simulated nuclear attack to see what the responses of the operators in the bunkers are; most of them don't retaliate so a computerised launch system is brought in.

For the first time in years Southampton city planners have had a decent idea. But being a good idea and a good final product are two different things. Ocean Village should have been our version of Gunwharf, but what we actually got was a disaster. I just hope lessons have been learnt and we actually get something good from it. But I think it will actually happen. With this and the cultural district we might actually have a city centre to be proud of. In 20 years time.

Exactly. As jeff himself said, the Saints fans didn't protest at the game after Adkins was sacked as they wanted to give Pochettino a chance. St. George has had a bit of a misguided swipe at how it all panned out. The decision itself was always much less questioned than the timing and manner in which it happened.

Echo some of the comments; when he first arrived he wasn't all that but IMO he's got better and better in his time here. And I think he definitely has a starting role to play, particularly in away games where we need to keep it tight and control the midfield. He's probably not the best option as a starter for home games, but a great option to have. My MOTM for the Rumbelows Cup game the other night too, he was excellent in posession and showed a bit more of his creative side.

Barry Sanchez.

And what would that prove?

Charlie usually watches the Gunners, so its an easy mistake to make.

Good point actually. I guess a picture of St. Mary's would be fair game but the badge, probably not. A way around that: perhaps use the "original" badge, with the 50's type football instead of the black and white one. Don't think the old one is copyrighted; the black and white football one was brought in to stop copyright issue. I always preferred the ball on the old badge anyway....

There's a few credit cards who'll let you upload your own personalised picture and print it as the face of your credit card, if you wanted to keep that part of it. Especially valid if the 10% thing is pretty much irrelevant for you with an ST.

We all have opinions, and pretty much none are right or wrong, just different ways of thinking (despite what the agenda accusers continue to peddle). I don't think I've lost patience with Ramirez, he obviously has talent and the ability for something out of the ordinary. Unfortunately I feel (especially after watching last night) that he's a level below our first team at the moment, and doesn't play the same way as the rest of the team. The biggest problem is that I don't see where we fit him in, Osvaldo seems to have pushed him further down the order. It's a conundrum. Given that MP didn't sign him, and given that Gaston has played a limited amount so far, I'm interested to watch how much MP will play him over the next month or two. If its not much then a switch isn't out of the question IMO. Right now I don't get the opinion that he's an MP type of player.

Judging Gaston right now. I take your point about coming in to a struggling team etc last season; but we're not that team right now. In fact, far from it.

What's your opinion were you to judge on just the here and now, and not last year? Right now we're a top ten side at the moment, very much a team on the up.

There's another difference in the level of opposition, so comparing like for like is a bit daft. Lallana was a 20 goal a season man at lower level. That's another difference.

Fair enough, but we do have to maximise revenues. So without raising prices, what other options are there? Lower prices will likely mean a full stadium for every game but lower revenues (being as we're already 90% - 95% full already with sky high prices). And with sky high prices we'll in all likelihood sell out around half of our home games anyway.

Well said. The only people that think there is an agenda against Gaston (other than from Barry Sanchez who is clearly a loony in any case) are from those who are too precious to accept that others hold a different opinion to them while still wanting the best from the club and its players.

I think it shows the club have got pricing pretty much spot on. The stadium 90% - 95% full in the quiestest time of the season and maximising the premium prices we charge. History tells us that we'll start getting sellouts later in the season, especially so for the uber-expensive category A games. Much better to price 'em high and pack 'em in than spends tens of millions on a capacity increase and keep prices low to fill it. Well done Nicola Cortese

Fair points, and no offence taken in the slightest, but I feel you've fallen into the trap of seeing things a bit too black and white. Its not a question of either being a flair player or not. Steven Davis last night did all the things you suggested in terms of ball retention; but he was also creative and inventive too. One little pass in the second half that allowed Harrison Reed to charge into the box with the ball came from Davis, who ran 10 or 20 yards into space, controlled the ball and on the turn played the ball through two defenders to put Reed into acres of space to bear down on goal. So its possible to do both. You make the analogy of the striker who does b*gger all else for 89 minutes other than score. And that's basically the nub of it. As a fan, do you choose to put up with all of the deficiencies of Gaston, all the times he gives the ball away in dangerous positions, while knowing that there's a chance he might create something from nothing? Or would you rather see someone like Steven Davis who can do a bit of both, albeit while perhaps not being capable/willing to try some of the more audacious things that Ramirez is? It's a choice, and there's no right answer, just opinions. Mine is that Gaston doesn't produce the audacious stuff often enough compared to the amount of times he does the poor stuff. That, and he's still got an awful lot to learn about when its actually time to just pass a simple ball rather than hold onto it too long and get disposessed needlessly. All I know isn't is a comparison between either playing Terry Hurlock or Matt Le Tissier, which I feel some try to pigeonhole it into. We can still be a team that plays with flair without Ramirez in the side.

That's what I figured. I gues Olallana just reacted and went for the cheap and easy put down.

Ah, almost Olallana! I see you're going for the much adopted put down of compartmentalising "Gaston bashers" into the supposed mindset of only rating footballers who run around a lot. The truth is that Saints fans will have a better grasp than most of the virtues and downfalls of a flair player. One of the greatest flair players of all time kept us in this division for years surrounded by a bunch of workmanlike artisans. We all know how lazy MLT was, and how he was prone to be sometimes wasteful. We already have a brilliant benchmark for a flair player; so this entire logic of yours is a bit flawed in this instance I'm afraid. In fact, the concept of a flair player in the modern game is also pretty much adequately defined in Adam Lallana. A player who rightly attracted some criticism for being too wasteful and non-productive but who seems to have really stepped up his game this season and is looking creative and productive all at the same time. Did you watch the game last night, by the way? If so, I'd be genuinely interested to hear from those with an alternative viewpoint as to why Gaston's performance should guarantee him a place on Saturday? Personally I don't think it did, as the brilliant things he did were too overshadowed by the regularity of bad things he did (which against a better opposition could have been exploited much more).

To be fair I think you're right about that, yep.

Did you not read the part about the effort I said he put in?!

Pretty much spot on IMO.

Were you actually at the game? Honest question. IMO he had two sublime moments. One, the goal, absolutely thumped it home, a great finish. Another one in the first half where he lofted the ball over the defence for Lee, who really should have scored. Other than that, Gaston was massively frustrating. Poor control far too often, very poor passes far too often, not able to hold on to the ball, and far far too wasteful for a team that prides itself on keeping posession. Steven Davis was much more effective as a midfielder looking to pull the strings that Ramirez was. One thing I won't criticise though was his level of effort. i thought he kept going, and kept trying right up to the point where he walked off injured with seconds to go. It just really didn't work out for him. Extremely sloppy is the best way that I would describe his performance, punctuated by a couple of instances of absolute brilliance.