The Kraken

Whoosh.

14th.

This. Quite what people get from saying "good" is beyond me. It's in the close season and there would only be three or four games played which would have a non-existent impact on the pitch come season kick off. Even if the pitch were f*cked, the money we'd get from hosting would cover the cost of a new pitch (that's if we haven't decided to replace it in any case). Any pit h technology has moved on to the extent where new pitches need minimal time to bed in, many clubs have changed pitch mid season. IMO it would have been great to have some rugger games over a summer. Oh well, not sure I can be bothered schlepping to Brighton or London for it.

Oops, one of the locals isn't happy with the season ticket prices. Reading through POL, the in-fighting has started already...

Er, what? Their prices and kids free with a full paying adult are the exact blueprint of what we did in League One (I believe our offer was slightly more generous in allowing the child to be up to 11 years old rather than Pompey's 10 for free entry). Even their cheapest £280 season ticket price is remarkably similar to our cheapest one in League 1 (pretty sure my lot paid £288 for their L1 STs in the family centre.

Stripes or no stripes, whatever. Just as long as the new kit doesn't look as utterly sh*te, cheap and nasty as the current one.

If he is, its fair to say that the summer will have been an umitigated catastrophe.

Change your avatar FFS; it makes me laugh every time!

And RdM was apparently being sounded out from the summer; I've since heard this from multiple sources. Lard was and is a goon; but in this instance was just passing on some information. Perhaps a lesson that, even from goons, news like that shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. I'm sure we've all done it Dog Dog; you live, you learn. And I don't class you as one of the buffoon brigade, I'm sure you were just having an off day....

That thread was a classic; plenty of buffoons getting on their high horses about information they just didn't like, and desperately didn't want to be true. So instead of actually acknowledging the information being passed on, they attacked the poster; top work fellas. Poor old Jimmy D got so upset about lard stamping on people's dreams that he shut the thread down; bless.

Sustained progress for 2 or 3 years, sell-outs of St. Mary's and I hope we'll justify a stadium capacity increase. Anything 40K and upwards allows us to compete a bit better, and certainly get in and around the likes of Everton. Also allows us a good platform for European football, which would absolutely be great for me in whatever guise, a real achievement. Champions League? I won't hold my breath; not ruling it out entirely but simply not expecting it in my lifetime. A bit sad really to accept 5th or 6th place as success, but that's another tale entirely (and kind of why I'll stand by my opinion that our season in the Championship was my favourite season to date as a Saints match-going fan).

I think there might be a bit of revisionism in your thinking. Chelsea weren't far away from the top 4 before Abramovic's roubles came along in the summer of 2003. Prior to his arrival they finished 6th, 4th, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 6th and 4th. Pretty consistent. Spurs have always been a big, under-achieving club, as have Man City. It will obviously take a lot of money to get to that level. An awful lot of money, over an extended period. And/or a academy system much better than anyone elses. "Never?" I've not said that, I don't think too many would argue against the idea we could, on extremely odd occasions, finish top 4. Newcastle are showing this year how difficult it is for the non-elite to maintain that sort of challenge.

Chelsea? The club with the 3rd highest one-off club attendance of all time in England? The club with the 5th highest average attendance of all time in England? Yes, where were they?

Striker? Not so sure about that. Walcott was a striker all the way through the academy, and played for us there in the Championship. Just Wenger turned him into a RM. We also pinched Dexter Blackstock and Leon Best, though I don't think you can truly count them. CB and GK, though: absolutely. Chris Baird is the only one who you could argue for at CB and he was never really cut of for it.

3/1 according to betfair.

Correct, Captain Pedantic. As things stand. And things can easily change, so you cannot say with 100% certainty that Sessegnon will be missing for the rest of the season until their appeal has been lodged and ruled on.

Hold your horses. Di Canio just said they'll appeal it; so who knows what will actually happen.

They relentlessly bored everyone to death with factless inaccuracies.

So will Saints and Sunderland, so we're both safe.

Never mind next season, I'd have Benteke right now.

Don't get upset, dear. Just pointing out the flaw in the meaningless stat. Record or not we're not going down so its entirely irrelevant.

Wigan have got 4 games left to play.

According to Sky.... "No side in Premier League history has been relegated when 5 points clear with 3 games to play". Of course, Wigan have 4 games left to play, so its an entirely irrelevant statistic.

Imagine Belgium now. They're comfortably top of their WC group with the likes of Mignolet, van Buyten, Kompany, Vertonghen, Vermaelen, Dembele, Fellaini, Hazard, de Bruyne, Benteke, Mirallas and Lukaku in their side, amongst others. They're really on the up and could be a really genuine shout for the WC if their players stay fit and on form next summer.

Benteke really is a very good player. £7M very well spent Villa.