The Kraken

He's shaped like a pear.

I completely understood this view when there wasn't a smoking ban; thinking back to bars and restaurants at the time, it was truly disgusting. With the smoking ban, no smoking in the workplace etc, I'm not sure how you can still get so fired up about it? Unless you have mates who smoke while driving with you, then I can't see how passive smoking isnt entirely avoidable these days.

Non-smoker. Gave up in June Don't execute smokers though, I'm sure I'll probably lapse at some point

True dat; and Everton away is going to be a big challenge to come away from with anything.

We have no decent option to replace Fox. Luke Shaw is not ready to step up.

Nah, he got that one wrong, he thought we were signing Beckham. What a fool.

Why would Cortese and Adkins be the only ones privy to a transfer? And why is it so terribly hard to begin to accept that transfer news may have been (deliberately) leaked from the club?

Maybe Nixon is just a really lucky guesser, and fluked all of our transfer scoops by drawing names out of a hat. I may ask him if he fancies doing my lottery tickets.

Its a bit like saying you don't want Mourinho to come to Saints because he was a bit negative with Chelsea.

"Prat" is a word that needs to become more widely used again.

Wes, if you want to carry on believing that then that's fine. To others its frankly obvious that Nixon had a direct line into the club. Who exactly that was, well it doesn't really matter, but its obvious he has an inside contact (to those that want to see it anyway). But I don't see how it would be a myriad of different agents when it was Nixon each time that broke the news. You take as large a pinch of salt as you need to though.

Great cross from Chappers there.

Wages will be an issue for many clubs, but Liverpool is a very good shout.

Talking of transfer opportunities; Demba Ba for £7M, anyone? http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19655578 Now that will be a very, very good signing for somebody.

Arsenal was fantastically disappointing in that so many of their goals were avoidable. But even if we hadn't gifted them the goals we did, they'd still have beaten us, so its a somewhat moot point. Wigan was disappointing; but we've improved our attacking options since then. Villa will be our first proper benchmark since then; so far we've played the teams in 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 14th. You could argue that we're 3 points from where we could / would have expected to be at this stage. The nature of losing the Man United game was hard to take but heartening enough in itself. But we now have the tired (but accurate) old cliche that you have to beat the clubs around you, especially at home. Then its onto Everton and Fulham, and after that we'll have a much better idea of where we are. I'm hoping it all comes together, Ramirez runs wild and we stick a few past Villa on Saturday.

Our defensive frailty is my point. Yes, we've played some good sides, but its not unprecedented for newly promoted sides to try to shut up shop and keep games tight. We've been unable to do that, even against Wigan, and the nature of many of the goals we've leaked are the worrying factor, not that we've actually conceded them in the first place. I'm not sure about your question; you assume I'm writing the team off. I'm clearly not doing that. We've yet to see what real impact Yoshida will have. And we've also yet to see if Gazzaniga can step in. Unfortunately I feel keeping Kelvin is simply not an option, he's not commanding enough or reliable enough to be our first choice keeper. All IMO of course.

14 goals conceded in 4 games Danny, but that's by the by.

Alan Nixon clearly had a direct line into SFC; he was aware of all of our transfer movement well before it was out in the public domain. Every single transfer (and those that didn't actually come off) were leaked by Nixon before time, and he was typically the first to report the actual signings as and when they happened. So no, its not futile placing any credence on what he says, actually. In fact its just the opposite, he is one rare journalist who has an accurate feed of actual information from the club, and therefore its fair comment that any news he puts out is reliable in fact. Your Paul the Octopus analogy is frankly bizarre.

So it was sold out? I'm pretty sure it wasn't. An attendance of 31,609, more than 1,000 less than capacity, would say that it wasn't a full stadium. And various reports on here testify to lots of corporate seats not having sold, and thus being empty. As well as the exec boxes too. Does "bored now" actually mean "Oh f*ck, I'm wrong, but please God don't ever make me admit it or call me up on my obvious mistakes"? Seems like it to me.

It's harping back to nothing else apart from you saying the stadium was sold out for the Man Utd game. Were your wrong to say it was sold out?

All of the home corporate seats were taken, were they? Not this again ffs Or do corporate seats not count as home seats?

Again. We sold out against Man United, did we? Of all home tickets?

Well that's wonderful stats MLG. Did we sell out either of those games?

Ha ha ha. I just knew. KNEW it, that you'd of course say that, Matt Le Wrong! But bless your heart in any case. Wrong xx

Eric, were I wearing a hat, I would take it off to you sir.