The Kraken

The trend this season for home league games has been for tickets to go on sale around 2.5 - 3 weeks prior to the game.

Agreed, which makes it a shame we got rid of him I suppose. To be honest I thought it looked like he'd run out of legs by the end of last season, but some of his reviews from Brighton have been very favourable and they look like they'll be knocking on the door of promotion. Good job JWP has come through the ranks, if not we'd be a little buggered right now with Cork out for another month and Morgan a bit of an unknown.

Yep, that's the only other option I can see. But one that IMO weakens the CB back line to Fonte and Jos. People say that Yoshida used to play CM, its not entirely true: So he hasn't played CM for 5 years now; whoever goes in there is not going to be a natural fit. I wonder whether Hammond would have got a look in had he not gone out on loan with Brighton.

Would he play less of a defensive role than Jay Rodriguez? Because that is the discussion, not whether he would be a CM.

He should start too. He came on as sub for the last game but Martin Kelly played RB; Kelly has since been long term crocked after doing his cruciate.

So you think in league games it doesn't matter if we're 1-0 down or 6-0 down with 10 minutes to go? Ok then. And it was an entirely relevant comparison as we played the same side twice within a week, with two different formations and two different outcomes. Again, your opinion only, not fact (HOWEVER HARD YOU THUMP YOUR KEYBOARD). If you're honestly trying to convince me that Chaplow is an attacking player akin to Rodriguez or Lallana then you're just going to have to stop. I don't even know what you're trying to do here. I've registered what is only my opinion. You, on the other hand, seem intent on registering yours as fact. It frankly bizarre. Perhaps you need to have a sit down and realise that, sometimes, people disagree with each other, instead of consistently telling them they're wrong, talking nonsense and insisting that your way is the only shining light.

Put it this way; lets say Morgan is still injured and we go with a midfield 3 of Davis, JWP and Ramirez on Sunday (with a front 3 of, say, Lallana, Lambert and JRod). And lets say Davis gets injured after 15 minutes. Of everyone in the squad available to replace him from the bench, who would you choose? Its clearly a potential situation that NA will have to consider.

It has to; no midweek games (and less Saturday 3pm games) are IMO the worst things to leave behind from the lower leagues. Well, that and actually beating teams, of course....!

Being still in a game at 1-0 down is infinitely better than being 5 or 6 down. How the f*ck do you know it would have been worse??!! Its an opinion, not a nailed on fact just because you say it is. Dear me. And no, mystatement about Dickson has not been forgotten at all. I said when I mentioned Dickson in the first place that it would never happen, as he's been completely frozen out, but that it was a potential option we could explore (particularly given our current injury situation). Our only other options at left back are a right back out of position, or a couple of lads who've never started a league game. So yeah, the notion of potentially including a player who is, you know, already in our squad of 25, is utterly ridiculous and we should just play Luke Shaw instead I suppose. As for your nonsense statement about playing "League 1 level players" in the Premier League; what are Kelvin Davis, Fraser Richardson, Morgan Schneiderlin, Adam Lallana, Jason Puncheon and Rickie Lambert? They played for us in League 1 and rose to the Premier League, didn't they?

I think they spotted his cunning ruse of actually looking like he was ready to make a decision one way or the other; we're now back into a holding pattern of evaluating all bids received (and clocking up the timesheets at that average rate of £299 for however many PKF employees are currently "working" on the PFC case.

:lol: I think you downplay it somewhat! 168 tickets are being made available per match, which for the entire £30K coming in equates to £12.00 per ticket. So an extra £2,000 per match day. That's just about enough funding to pay for Tricky Trev's time to turn up and watch the match!

Just as a short term measure, I'm wondering if there's a case for Butterfield being used in a defensive midfield role, even if its just from the bench. With Hammond gone, Chaplow not really that position and Cork and Morgan both injured we're desperately short of cover there, and if (God forbid) we lose either of JWP or Davis mid-game there's really no genuine replacement left.

It entirely depends upon the job (and the architect of course) but I've been involved in quite a few large scale construction projects whereby the principal architect was involved throughout the duration of the project.

I think he'd have given us some decent options, and some good backup for the midfield that we're now clearly lacking. JWP is a great prospect but its really not fair hoisting such expectations onto a 17 year old who still has single figures of league games under his belt. And I think having Cork MAY have meant we could done something different for example in the Man United game to shut it down, rather than bringing on 2 strikers in Rodriguez and Mayuka (plus Guly for Lambert).

As you say, your opinion. Chaplow wouldn't have been in the middle; I'm advocating his selection wide right, instead of Rodriguez. If Puncheon was not available, why was he on the bench by the way? Other suggestions that have been put forward (not just by myself) include not playing Lallana and Ramirez plus 2 strikers away to sides in the top 6. Yes, options were limited, but I've seen suggestions including Yoshida being played at CM, and Guly was on the bench. So its wrong to say there's been no other suggestions.

Simple. Look at the state of the bloody digger driver FFS. He clearly doesn't know what he's doing, and Cortese has rightly called things to a halt until more qualified personnel are brought in.

Not according to the BBC. 17 shots on target, 9 shots off target, total of 26. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19684126 In fact, scratch that; 17 shots in total, 9 of which were on target).

Clarkey is a delicate little flower, isn't he.

The cup final worked better than the lineup that got 6 goals smashed past it 4 days previous, yes . I know some people have got a rose-tinted view of Saints that its better to go out and try to attack and if we lose by 3 or 4 goals that's better than a narrow 1-0 defeat. I don't share that view. Who is describing Chaplow as the white Makalele? can you show me one quote where someone has said that? Or are you making it up? Against top sides away from home I'm suggesting there may be an argument to be made playing a more defensive midfielder than a striker at RM. If you think that's wrong, you carry on. And Lallana's role this season is entirely different to any he's had to play before. He's been able to be a flair, attacking player in one of the strongest teams in the division for 3 years. He's previously been released from the defensive shackles of a traditional wide midfielder because our team has often enjoyed the majority of posession and balance of play. That's not the case now; in away games we'll now be defending much more than attacking (at one point Man City had over 80% of posession against us); so to not set ourselves up to counter that is barmy IMO.

That is decent, I didn't know if they'd bring that many. And no, the corporate figures are not included in that, those figures are unavailable (though given what we've seen so far this season in corporate it's more than likely the trend of empty seats will continue). I'd say your 27,500 is fairly accurate, we may get towards 28,500.

Really? I genuinely expected the opposite, that most games would sell out or get very close. I'm not sure if reality kicking in is that much of a factor, if I'm honest. Optimism was sky high, especially so even after the Man City defeat, and yet apart from the Man United game we've seen seats available throughout the ground. Villa in the PL is typically a big draw (the last 3 PL games against them were around the 32K mark) yet we came up 1,000 or so short of that. I think it's possibly due to a number of factors: - prices are high compared to the past 3 years, and the financial situation is obviously what it is. - there's a certain ambivalence to the Premier League. - all games are shown/streamed live so there is the opportunity to watch on tv/internet. - we're no longer expected to win games so mayeb some people are put off by that. - corporate sales have been woeful, and if they continue at the same rate we won't come close to selling out any league games this season. So its a combination of a number of factors, I'd have thought. Although i confess I thought the PL novelty factor would actually kick in at least for the first 3 or 4 games, but it appears not.

How do you mean "start to affect"? Crowds have hardly been overwhelming already, we were far from a sell out for Man United, perhaps the most popular draw in football. Besides, we won our last home game 4-1 which is surely a basis for optimism?

You're still asking players to do a job alien to them. You imply that Chaplow is a considerably worse player than Jay Rodriguez. He's a worse striker than Rodriguez, that's for sure. But Chaplow is a better defensive midfielder, which is why I suggested him for that role. It's not without precedent. You probably wouldn't argue that, in our PL days, Fabrice Fernandes was a better player than Paul Telfer. Yet Fernandes was dropped for the cup final because the manager wanted to play a system that was a lot tighter than the one that got thrashed a few days before. The idea that we have a "first XI" is a nonsense. It's a squad game, we'll use different players and different formations. And right now, with the options we have available, against Everton I thought that Chaplow was a better option at RM than Rodriguez.