The Kraken

Big Malky will also be in with a shout.

Is there? You say it like teams only score on the break in the PL or something. Or that the only strikers who score or contribute massively to their teams are fast. Or that there's no merit at all in playing through teams with skill, or even a direct approach. I don't buy it, I'm afraid.

And yet still they do business. Still they found suppliers to add to their almighty debt. And they have the prospect of £16M of parachute payments; probably a bit daft to suggest they couldn't get a lawyer with that in mind.

It's a thoroughly worthwhile question, and I agree. Nonetheless I can easily see them getting away with it, on the pre-text that CVA1 has neither been ignored nor gone away; it will still need to be serviced as part of CVA-2, albeit at a lower than initially agreed rate. Complete horse-sh*t of course, but you can just imagine that the Football League don't actually have a rule for this and will bottle the big decision in fear of huge litigation.

This is exactly the point. Lambert is utterly crucial to the way we play, and the way we have played both since Pardew got here and since Adkins took charge. He defines our whole style of football. I simply cannot see that we are going to look to utterly change the way we play, just because we have been promoted. Pace or no pace, Rickie Lambert is utterly vital to the team, and (injuries aside) I'd be completely astonished if Billy Sharp gets anywhere near the sort of game time that Lambert will.

Who is PAUL TELFORD?

I don't think the way Crouch plays is unique at all. He's a handful to play against, for much of his career he was described as relatively poor in the air for someone of his height, and always got the old "good feet for a big man" tagline. From the top 20 list I'd have definitely put Crouch, Steven Fletcher and Grant Holt in there as players who don't rely on pace (Yakubu also, he used to but since he got fat he doesn't so much). Dzeko isn't all that slow but plays a differet type of game to an in behind or run the channels striker. If you won't accept the Crouch analogy then another Saint Kevin Davies wouldn't be too far away. And a point in case that sometimes a goal scoring tally is not all you should judge a striker by. Since he arrived RL has always dictated the way our whole team play football. Without him we are, without argument, much weaker. That will still be true in the Premier League, unless we sign two strikers who are better than him. J-Rod is different but for my money, definitely not better. Lambert may do a Holt and score 15 next season. He may just as easily do a Carroll and score only a handful. But I think he has a huge contribution to play for us.

Without spending a lor of money there's really not too many players you could list who would definitely be a lot better than Hammond. Plus there is the added benefit that he already fits into the system and his teammates know him inside out. I don't rate him all that much (particularly going forwards) but in the PL he'll be playing even more of a defensive midfielder role than he has done in previous years, and that could well suit his game. I'd prefer to see a decent CM signed, if not Schneiderlin and Cork as the first choice duo, but Hammond could still do a job even as 3rd / 4th choice.

He may not be a Teddy Sheringham, but there are definitely a good deal of parallels between Lambert and Peter Crouch. And Crouch doesn't seem to have done too badly at club or international level. And there were at least 3 or 4 strikers in the Premier League in the last season alone who got into double figures of goals and didn't rely on pace as one of their main attributes.

I doubt it very much. The BBC do have a good amount of form in presenting a pre-conceived idea from rather flimsy evidence, but there really are some cases when the camera doesn't lie. The monkey chants at the two black players walking past and the attacking of riot police inside the stadium were very poor in themselves. What shocked me almost as much as the beating of the asians (whether it was indeed racially provoked or not) was how all the stewards treated it completely at arm's length; they did pretty much nothing to stop it, which in itself suggests an area of massive concern of how they police and control their stadiums out there. All I know is that I'm glad I'm not going out there. It may well all turn out rosy and not be anywhere near the levels of violence some are fearful of, but I would not be willing to take that risk knowing what I know and having seen what I've seen, in this documentary and countless other archive material.

I definitely wouldn't say Lambert can't do that. In first season in particular he was good at running the channels, and had a decent cross on him when required. Pardew and Adkins just recognised that RL was much, much more of a threat closer to the box, both for making chances for himself, bringing team mates into the games, or picking up fouls. RL's ability to do all of that has pretty much defined the way we've played in recent years; and rightly so given how successful he's been at it. I imagine the idea of running the channels has largely been coached out of him while with us, in favour of doing what he's best at in central positions.

The biggest difference for me will be the distinct reduction in the amount of Saturday 3pm games. I'm interested to see just how many times we'll play at home for that day and time. I know that the next TV deal will have even more games being shown on TV, meaning that the average club will be on TV 3 times out of 5 games.

There you go! I'm pretty sure rebranding it doesn't change the fact that we've been trying to do that for decades! I can remember going to see Saints teams with the 3 Wallace brothers, Shearer, MLT, Benali, Dodd etc etc. But no; its the revolutionary Southampton Way.

Its a soundbite so that the supporters don't ask too many questions when we do things completely different to other clubs. "But that's a worse way of doing it!" "Maybe, maybe not, but its the Southampton Way".

Because contraception never fails, does it?

In a nutshell; yes, that's why I believe. I don't for a minute believe we're losing out on thousands of potential season ticket holders; I've never said that. But I do strongly believe we will have lost out on some, yes. Whether its 1 person, 10, 100 or more, we can never ever really know, which is why I point out that its all speculation, but I do believe it to be the case, to whatever extent. You disagree, and that's fine, neither of us can be proved right in any case.

I'm not sure if you're deliberately missing the point or not now. You assume that everyone, every single person, who buys a season ticket makes their decision to do so at the start of the summer and then follows through with that decision. That nobody decides "i'm going to get a season ticket" at the start of the summer but talk themselves out of it by July. All I'm suggesting (and it is a suggestion as there's no evidence either way) is that, by decreasing the window of opportunity to market and sell season tickets, there are some opportunities to get potential customers on board BEFORE they decide "you know what, its not worth me getting a season ticket, I'll just go match by match". Straight after the promotion, everyone is on a high, and there MAY have been a number of people who got carried away on that wave of emotion and went and bought a season ticket. Those same people, after thinking about it for a couple of months, MAY then decide not to purchase. You seem happy to suggest that this simply isn't possible or feasible. That not one, single person would do this. I disagree, in fact I think its pretty much a certainty, if only for a relatively small number of people. And there's no way to say whether either of us are correct. So there we are, I think this has been done to death and the prices are finally out now.

Sure you can. If the club believe he's truly guilty of gross misconduct they don't need FA backing to bin him out. The FA ban might just make it a bit easier for them if he appealed it in a court of law. At worst he should be formally suspended IMO.

Decent player; potentially a replacement for Guly on the right, unless we changed our favoured formation and went with him in the #10 role and one up front.

The club have clearly read this thread and taken heed of the well-reasoned arguments from the "where are the season tickets?" brigade.

Very well put. Some people take it as a massive affront when anyone dares to question any part of club operations, no matter how minor it is. And then get all uppity and claim that any such criticism is part of a deep seated cynical plot to undermine the club and de-stable things. Or bring out the old classic "we nearly didn't have a club 3 years ago...". Its childish and tedious in the extreme. And given that every single other club in our division (including world leaders in their fields) choose to operate in an entirely different manner to us in terms of season ticket sales, it is an entirely relevant question to ask.

Financial years typically run from the start and end of a particular month. For instance its being suggested that ours starts in June, so would run from 1st June to 31st May. Either that or it would be July, so July 1st to 30th June. Last year, season tickets went on sale on July 1st, so that ties in with your theory. This year, however, its been suggested that tickets will start on sale some time in June. If that turns out to be the case then I don't think the FY theory holds water.

You've just brought up an entirely different argument. Price has nothing to do with what we're talking about. Whatever the price of season tickets are; whether they are £100 or £600. I maintain that we could sell more in total by getting them on sale as soon as possible after clinching promotion to capitalise on the feelgood factor at that time. I maintain we could sell more in total by having a longer sales window. You clearly don't. You think we're like Apple, and a shorter sales window will actually increase the amount of season tickets we sell. That's fine if that's your opinion. But quite clearly, world leaders such as Man United, Man City, Arsenal, Liverpool etc disagree with you, as they don't go for a shorter sales window. they maximise sales by maximising the amount of time in which they can make sales. I'll choose to accept their method as the most efficient one, and not SFC's "Steve Jobs" equivalent.

I've stated the reasons I think a longer sales window leads to more sales. I'd have thought it was common sense myself; its certainly telling that we're the only club who seems to believe that a short sales window is the way forward. We're not competing with tin-pot clubs here; we're up against world leaders in their field, who know what they're doing. We'll have to agree to disagree if you think they've clearly got it wrong and ours is a much more efficient system that will lead to exactly the same number of sales. Because I think that's a complete nonsense.

No, you haven't read me right. It is not just people who are renewing; Reading have a loyalty points system (or Royalty points as they call them), based on season tickets and match tickets etc which get topped up with each purchase. So its not just renewals of season tickets, there will also be people buying who have just been members, so are potentially buying a new season ticket. You're also justifying this approach just by basing it on what you'll do. You've made your mind up that you're buying a season ticket, and that's that. I find it surprising you discount the fact that a longer sales window could lead to more sales. That capitalising of promotion by making STs available straight away could lead to more sales. And that communicating with the fans throuhgout the close-season and promoting sales could lead to more sales.