The Kraken

Good answer, Bear-features.

No, it really isn't. Unless you want a fanbase who believe everything they're told and question nothing. The whole point of a message board like this one is to debate issues; not just blindly assume that the club will get absolutely everything 100% correct.

Bloody hell, Hooiveld at left back?! With Lallana in front of him?! I'd rather have Dickson than Jos at left back. I'm wondering if Puncheon will get dropped for this one, in order to cover Baines' overlapping. I'd be tempted to go for: Gazza Richardson - Yoshida - Fonte/Hooiveld - Clyne Davis - Schneiderlin Chaplow - Ramirez - Lallana Lambert But with Chaplow in a role to cover Baines bombing forward (so it may revert at times to a 4-3-2-1).

*waits for information as to why this news is actual a good thing for SFC*

Can someone ask Neil why the Trust have only offered £2.75M for Fortress Fatpipe, when Corp Ho told us it was worth £10M and upwards?

Agreed. Its not as if we've never had decent League Cup attendances before (over 20K against Colchester at St. Mary's few years back), but there seems to be little enthusiasm for it amongst Saints fans these days. Even when in League 1 and drawn against Premier League Bolton we only got 10K. Compare that to West Ham's 25K last night against Wigan (who probably took about 5 fans themselves) and it's really quite poor. Is it cost? £15 really isn't a huge amount to pay; I get the feeling even a ticket price of £10 wouldn't do it. Is it the opposition? Well, our attendances in league 1 and the Championship would suggest that more than 20K will go and watch Saints play lower league opposition if it feels right, and pay more per ticket for those games than they were being offered for last night. Is it the sides put out? Likely to be a factor, yes, although last night's team contained a number of players (Gazza, Richardson, Hooiveld, Yoshida, JWP, Cork, JRod) who will be in contention for at least a place on the bench on Saturday, and some will start. So its not exactly a team of nobodies, or a development side. Is it a common factor that all PL sides get crowds this low? Well, no. Crowds are down, of course, but West Ham had 25K, Chelsea over 30K, Leeds over 20K, even MK Dons had more watching them than us last night.

I'm only up to page 14, I'm almost crying here! His love in for Sulaiman Al Fahim was quite brilliant, but this one has just almost finished me, I'd completely forgotten about it. You're right though TDD, I shouldn't clutter this board with nonsense, it should be a new thread.

Ah, Corp Ho; that poor, deluded fool. I do love his particular gem of inside information (no doubt from his contact at the club who he saw socially 2 times a week). This was on page 3 of this thread; no wonder we've gotten this far, the lols have been incredible. :lol: I'm bored sh*tless today, stuck under a blanket with a heavy cold and a lemsip in hand, I think I may have to search out some of Corp's best quotes just to pass the time.....

Yep; there were also only two other sides who let in more goals than us! Played 38, scored 71, conceded 63. We finished 7th in the league after losing our last two games of the season; had we won both those games we would have finished in 3rd place.

You're right TDD, I do. You see, I've done the prawn sarnies a few times before, but I certainly wouldn't be going corporate now as the quality has sunk so badly (while the prices haven't, they've gone the other way). I just think its a small problem area that needs addressing; some of those empty seats can be explained by the worldwide financial situation, of course, but I believe a lot of them can be explained by the over-priced yet under-delivering nature of the corporate service these days. It doesn't offer any value for money which is why IMO the takeup is so relatively small. I also don't like seeing swathes of empty seats (particularly in the Man United game when regular seats sold out two weeks in advance).

Villa's allocation (according to their OS) was 31,000. The segregation goes all the way to the edge of block 43, block 42 is entirely made up of home fans. According to the SFC ticket site, blocks 43 - 48 have 3524 seats. Add in some for the disabled areas etc, lets say that's 3,600; so with a full away allocation 500 seats are unused or for segregation. So a typical full house will be around 32,169. against smaller away allocations (e.g. Coventry last season) we can get a little more, hence the record SMS attendance of 32,363. Last time in the PL our highest attendances were just over 32,000, so its clearly an achievable figure; it just requires all home tickets, corporate boxes and corporate lounge tickets to be sold, which we're obviously a little bit away from just now.

Without wishing to labout the point; for the other teams that I listed and their attendances much higher than ours, most of their fans knew they would also not put out 100% strength sides and yet their attendances were all relatively decent. The fact they played Premier League opposition may have been a factor; we'll see in the next round if we draw a PL side (though our 10K gate against Bolton in the League Cup 2nd round a couple of years ago suggests its no guarantee). Again, we'll have to disagree. It wasn't a 100% strength team, of course it wasn't, but to call it a reserve team just isn't accurate IMO.

I get it now. So you're saying that (in spite of whatever the previous team was) there can only ever be 11 first team players, and the rest are reserves. Even though it may not be entirely clear who those are. If Mayuka starts in the next game, who is the reserve, him or Puncheon? If Cork makes it back from fitness and is available for the weekend, which one of him, Morgan or Davis is the reserve? Richardson replaced Fox at half time and we could go with that formation again; or we could not. So is Fox the resrve, or is Richardson? Gazzaniga started in goal but is now suddenly a reserve, despite the fact that your choice of first team keeper hasn't yet started a game for us. Which one of Fonte, Hooiveld and Yoshi is the reserve?

JWP has been in the "first team" 3 times out of 5 this season. He's come on as sub in the other 2. I'm sure he'll be disappointed to hear he's only a reserve. But I do enjoy how utterly black and white you are trying to make team selection, its laughable. Was Ricky Lambert a reserve when he started on the bench against Man City?

After getting thumped by Arsenal down the flanks, I wonder if (away from home at least) we might do something to play a bit tighter. Neither Puncheon nor Lallana offer their full back much protection so it could be an option to go a bit more defensive out there by having someone like Chaplow, JWP or Cork to play RM but in a more defensive manner.

It wasn't a "reserve team" and you know it.

Wrong about what? That QPR are equally as attractive a draw to Saints fans to go and watch at St. Mary's as are Everton and Newcastle? Sorry but no, I can't admit that as I don't believe its true.

Funny looking reserve side. 3 of the back 5 that finished the game against Villa, and arguably another CB who might have played against Villa had he not been injured. The return of a midfielder from injury who played every single game for us last season and is expected to feature heavily this campaign; plus another outing for JWP who is clearly not a reserve. And our £7M signing up front. the only genuine "reserves" in that team were Seaborne, Chaplow, de Ridder and possibly Guly. Besides, you make it sound as if none of the other sides put out any of their second string!

We played Arsenal and Tottenham at St. Mary's, last time in the PL (shortly after we moved in). I went to both games, we had just under 10K for one and just over 10K for the other, not 100% sure which way round, if guessing it was Arsenal just over 10K.

I did, yes. It seems those factors mainly influence Saints and not our competitors. MK Dons had a higher attendance than us tonight; MK Dons!! Chelsea had 32K. Leeds had 21K. Man City 28K. West Ham 26K. So yes, I was hoping for more.

Christ, are you still getting at it about this?! And using Saints categories of tickets to "prove" that QPR are a similar size club to Everton & Newcastle?! You really are a West London version of MLG.

Absolutely shocking attendance, really. I've been to a reserve game at St. Mary's with a higher attendance than tonight.

Did quite a few decide not to bother then?

31,000 is not as good at it can get for us. As our last 3 previous home gates in the PL against Aston Villa testify.