Stud mark of doom

Good article in the athletic looking at all the 80 odd teams relegated since the prem went to 20 teams. This suggests: proportion bouncing back in first year - 25pc second year - 10pc third year - 5pc relegated again within three seasons - 7pc Remaining in championship beyond three seasons - 53pc So our experience last time we went down was pretty typical, unfortunately. Also said the parachute payments last 3 years and are 55pc in year 1, 45pc in year 2 and 20pc in year 3.

My son’s ticket (u18, inner central) has only been reduced £399 - from £404 to £399 Pretty sure that’s not “at least 6pc”. Although my adult seat has dropped 13pc so perhaps I shouldn’t worry too much.

When we were down in the championship and league 1 last time I almost gave up hope of competing at the highest level of the game - there was so much money involved. My son was born towards the start of this period and I thought it very unlikely he’d ever see the type of football I was fortunate to watch in the 80s with the Keegan era, finishing second, and the brilliant young players coming through. I was wrong - we did compete and at times we were incredibly good, even better than the teams of the 80s I’m his first two home games we scored 8 goals (Norwich and Newcastle towards the end of 2013/14). At the start of the next season we hit another four past Newcastle, again without reply, and then - incredibly - doubled that against their rivals, without really breaking sweat. His first away game was at old Trafford - we won that too thanks to Tadic, and we deserved it. (I had to go for years before seeing us win away.) We won on our next away game too - at Swansea. It was only right at the end of our third away game - at arsenal and 1-0 for most of the match - that we actually saw a home side manage to score against us. Several trips to Wembley followed too, including a brilliant performance in the league cup final. We definitely competed. The MoPo and RoKo teams were top drawer. And even in the years following we would throw in an excellent game every now and then. What a great 11 years.

Looking forward to us further establishing our identity by aimlessly passing it around the back (or perhaps up and then back down the side occasionally) before conceding to their first shot around 20 minutes

Just as a 7 year comparison - the home record for our 7 years out of the top flight W82 D44 L35

I suspect quite a few people will have seen this and I’m not sure if anyone was injured. After last night’s game there was a car driving down the (closed) road towards the Chapel Arms - not all that unusual, although perhaps a bit faster than usual/was safe given all the pedestrians in the road just after the match. When the car reached the barrier and was told to stop, the driver decided to accelerate round the barrier, so it was completely on the pavement by the spa, travelling quite fast - I was about 10 or 20 meters behind, and it looked like some people were probably hit by it, although no one seemed to be on the floor when I got there. Turning right past the pub. The roadblock staff tried to make it stop but it sped off. Lots of people were talking to the roadblock staff about what they’d just seen and they suggested as many witnesses as Possible report it to the police I managed to get the registration number and I’ve reported it on the Hampshire police website, so they have it. if you were hurt - you might want to let the police know, as they will have the registration number. If no-one was hurt, it was a very narrow escape.

Good point. This could well have been the reason Selles subbed him. 🤣

Has Skachel signed yet?

Before the arsenal game out goals conceded versus expected was 14 - by some distance the worst in the premier league. (Leeds we’re next with 11 more than expected)

Really pleased I got tickets for this one - definitely our best away trip of the season. (The beer in the stadium put SFC’s offerings to shame, and a trip to the old Highbury pre-match brought back memories of swaying on the terraces in the 84 semi and watching Paul David break Glen’s jaw…. And arsenal coming back from 2 down to snatch a draw in oodles of injury time) Great goals but for me, with this team, even with the two goals margin I never had any confidence we would hold on. I was just on the point of saying to my son “ok, I think we will actually do it” when, from nothing, it was 2-3. From then on we did well to escape with a point. It was so close to one of the all time great nights following SFC. If only we had a bit more experience in the team, rather than wall to wall youth. I was sure we were down before the match. Now there is the very faintest glimmer of hope.

I’d take an 8-4 win.

Ralph - 12 pts (14 games) - 0.86 Front foot - 3 pts (8 games) - 0.34 Selles - 6 pts (3 games) - 2.00 I’ve just built an algorithm and, with all due respect, it’s telling me whoever appointed the middle bloke needs sacking.

Anyone else think the fans were pretty poor today. Firstly there was all the agitation when the keeper was looking for a short pass rather than booting it long. Ok it was taking a long time and it was 0-0 but surely that was tactical and shortening the game time was a sensible part of our strategy. The agitation in the crowd was the last thing we needed. Then when we do take the lead a large chunk of the crowd starts singing “how shit must you be, we’re winning at home”. That is really going to inspire confidence in the team - maybe save that one until we are certain to go down and we can all laugh along at the hilarity of it. We were very lucky today, but that is now 6 points from 3 games under Selles. Somehow, despite the Jones debacle, we are still in this. We are going to need the crowd right behind us to stay in it.

One thought that crossed my mind as the 12 minutes went up, was our third manager’s first game in 2004-05. if memory serves we were 2-0 up going into injury time, at home to Middlesbrough. A few minutes later, it was 2-2. we went down by 2 points in the end - if we had held on in that first game we would have stayed up. An absolutely huge win today. A long way to go but things are looking so much better than they were.

That’s the second reference to shearers debut against Chelsea - surely it was against Arsenal when he scored a hat-trick? (Or is it a came on as sub/full debut thing) I think on the stream they said the last double against Chelsea was in the season he made his debut. anyway - great result!!

I wonder if Leeds might have taken an unexpected firm stance on the wording of their contract, with a view to making it financially unattractive for Marsch to take over (at one of their relegation rivals)? Otherwise, it does seem odd that this would only have been thought about at the 11th hour.

Agreed - very sad and a great place for fantastic beer pre match. is there anywhere else near the ground that is even close to being as good? In contrast, the official SFC ale remains the worst beer I’ve ever tasted!

Oh when the saints go Marschin’ in…

Isn’t the whole moneyball thing all about getting some metrics to measure performance which enable you to find some unappreciated talents everyone is missing. Of course, it does rather depend on getting the right metrics. On managers, it looks like they might have failed to include some crucial aspects such as something to measure - ability to motivate and inspire premiership level players - basic post match interview performance not leading to further alienating players and fans

If only Dyche had been available when we were looking for a new manager…..

Bree?

21 for me - funny enough I either knew them or had virtually no recollection of them. Far fewer “I can’t quite remember his name” than I was expecting.

Wasn’t the JWP Saha thing before the red - actually leading to the red - which is all part of the game and probably related to a weakness identified in Saha, whereas the Murphy incident was after the card was shown and the player was leaving the field?

Barry Manolo Gabbiadini

Weird decision to start a thread on this - I thought he did pretty well today. Most of the team played well and he did too.