SaintBobby

We're still 1/2 to win the division and about 1/10 to be promoted. Btw, you can't bet on us "finishing third".

Have emailed you.

The latest issue of FFT has another of those interminable lists. They've done these things to death. The top 100 matches, the top 100 upsets, the top 100 types of boot polish etc etc Well, this issue they have the top 50 players in the Football League. Peter Wittingham wins it. Lallana is no. 2. Rickie is no. 3. The other Saints are Sharp at 12 and Guly at 27. Shows how daft these lists are really.... (Morgan, Kelvin and Fonte are all in top 50 for my money. Not so sure Billy or Guly are). But then these list things are only designed to generate debate/discussion/outrage, so I've fallen right into their trap....

Agree. I think he's the nuts. I'm just amazed that Burnley would rather get £3m in July than £6m in the previous window. Hooper might just be a "not selling" issue. JRod isn't.

Great signing if we go up (and assuming we lose Connolly and/or Barnard). I think they wanted £6m for him last time out? He'll go for about half that now. Sharp was turned down at £3m, but we got him for £1.8m a few months later. You wonder who runs the finances of football clubs like Doncaster and Burnley. It's not just the skates who are innumerate and insane.

You've got to hand it to them. A brilliantly planned military operation. Years of preparation. But it all goes tits up because a skate in a suit decides to divulge the entire scheme to a guy in a Bournemouth pub carrying a Saints Megastore carrier bag. I guess that was the one random eventuality they didn't quite count on, hey? Rumbled again.

In otehr news, I hear Alan Pardew has been sacked http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulfletcher/2010/08/pardew_sacking_at_saints_raise.html

If "literally hundreds" means about 360 people, then they've raised just enough money to pay Tal Ben Haim's salary for one week. MMMMMMMMMMMMMMWWWWWWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Am I in a minority in finding the secrecy over injuries a bit OTT? Yes, I can see that full and immediate disclosure isn't always in the best interests of the club. I'm a tad sceptical though about how much it really flusters the opposition to not know whether Lee, Lambert etc is injured or not. It does seem strange to me that the BBC are happy to report the news as fact on their website http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17584386 whilst there is still zero confirmation of anything on the OS. If a player is 50-50, you might want to be circums[pect about what you state in public. If a player is undergoing surgery and is out for several months, I don't see the poitn in obfuscating. Very pleased overall with how Saints are doing both on and off the field at the moment, but comms with fans/supporters/STHs does seem to be pretty dreadful (and unnecessarily so)

I questioned this too. If these are loans with a 100% obligation to buy then they are actually, to all intents and purposes, transfers. And they are outside of the transfer window - so that would be a breach of the rules. I can just about see there could be an option to buy - but surely not a promise to?

Sorry to hear this sad news. RIP.

Blimey, what a total mess. I sure hope next season is better than this shambles. (but I'm usually sceptical about some new flashy "database solution"...it seems we need some basic human competence)

That's not really a precedent. If I recall, the relevant info about Swindon only came to light after the play-off final. It wasn't as if - many weeks before the play-offs - the authorities were umming and erring about what to do. The issue this time is whether a "double dip" administration without the first CVA being honoured counts as a more substantial penalty than simply drifting into admin for a second time. The situation isn't directly covered by the League's rules (in the same way that the Southampton Leisure Holdings/Southampton FC situation was not directly covered). But I'm struggling to see what might happen between now and the end of the season to shed more light on this anomaly. The facts are basically in, but the League's judgment is not.

I'd definitely take it. I care much more about promotion and winning the division than about beating Portsmouth. In anything approaching reality though, the two are positively not negatively correlated. So, I'm not quite sure which fairy godmother I "make the deal with"

Not so sure about this. I think we're now beyond the "points deadline". So, if a team now gets a points deduction, then unless its impact is meaningful this season (eg. The deduction gets them relegated), it will be carried over to next season anyway (as happened to us in our relegation from the Championship) I think the league needs some certainty as well. If, for example, a team survives relegation by two or three points at the end of the season, it's bad for the integrity of the competition for further points to be deducted in May or June. I don't want the norm to be that the league finishes in April/May, but who ends up where in the league is determined in committee meetings or court hearings in June and July.

Strongly disagree with this. Most likely, we need six more points to get promoted (that would leave West Ham needing W 4 D 1 L 1 to overtake us). The two most winnable games are Pmouth and Coventry. If Lambert can only play two more games this season, these are the two I want him to play. That's nothing to do with the rivalry, it's just the maths. Blackpool was our toughest remaining fixture of our last 7 games, so if RL was 50-50, it made sense to rest him.

Blimey. My apols. I thought the story had been thoroughly debunked by others. Bad news.

You're either (a) a wind up merchant or (b) your source is. If (b), can you tell us his name and exactly what he said to you and when? (there's no reason to protect his anonymity given he is passing on lies, is there?)

Right - but whatever the knock on on overall capacity, they haven't sold out in the Premier League and they are about to be playing Barnsley rather than Man Utd. My guess would be that 32,000 is probably just a little on the small side for Saints in the top flight. But that doesn't mean it's worth spending a fortune on increasing capacity to, say, 38K. Basic economic laws of supply and demand tell us that prices would tend to be lower if capacity expands - so revenues don't increase proportionately with an increase in capacity. If (and it's an absolutely HUGE "if"), we were able to get 38K rather than 32K for every game in the top flight, the extra revenue stream would be about £150K per game or around £3m per annum, which is not huge when compared to SKY revenues of £30m a year. In practice, of course, we'd probably only sell out for the top clubs and so it would probably be more like an extra £1.5m or so. You'd also need to be confident that we could keep up such a level of popularity consistently for many, many years (e.g. not get relegated for three decades or so). This leads me to believe that £40m would be better to be invested in stocks and shares at the moment than in expanding the stadium (in terms of rate of return on investment). I agree that the corporate facilities could do with a makeover though (but I imagine that's a pretty tiny outlay - a few hundred grand? maybe a million?). Also, it may become plain that we really can consistently shift 40K+ tickets a game over the course of the next few years, so we should keep the whole thing under permanent review (which I guess is exactly what Cortese is doing!)

Sorry, wasn't suggesting that Molineux was a 1950s stadium - was just generally saying updating facilities after several decades makes more sense than doing so after barely ten years. If they are undertaking this revamp entirely to expand capacity, I don't understand their business plan (why do they need a 38K - 50K stadium when only 26K turn up in the Premier League?) If the main aim and cost is to rejuvenate corporate facilities and other key revenue schemes (megastore, bars etc) than I guess I can see what they're doing. But these facilities at St Mary's seem pretty adequate to me.

Correct me if I'm wrong, I've never been to a match at Wolves, but aren't the current facilities at Molineux pretty awful in terms of e.g. corporate hospitality? From what I can see on that site, they also need things like a megastore. If St. Mary's was a crumbling 1950s stadium with a capacity of 32,000 but with Dell-like facilities, I could see the case for a major makeover in the Premiership - increasing corporate capacity from 200 to 2,000; making sure the club shop isn't a Scout Hut, ensuring the toilet facilities aren't just a concrete wall and a gutter etc etc. It might also be that in undertaking such a revamp, you take the one-off opportunity to increase capacity by 5k or 10k. But St. Mary's isn't a crumbling 1950s stadium. It's pretty damned modern (I'm not sure I'd describe it as state-of-the-art, but it's definitely "fit for purpose"). If Wolves are undertaking this exercise solely (or primarily) to increase capacity, that seems pretty odd to me as they are only averaging 26,000 this season (3K below capacity) and I'd imagine this will fall if (as seems very likely) they get relegated from the top flight.

It's always hard to know what to believe. I think Cortese is fantastic, but it's worth pointing out that in that interview he seems to think that aap3 are a "very important brand" and that Alex Oxlade Chamberlain won't be going anywhere. Things change pretty fast in football. However, it does sort of seem that Cortese is in it for the long-run. At least he doesn't give the impression that his contribution to our revival is about to reach a natural end!

Just a question on the stadium thing. Is it really £125m to expand to a 40k-45K stadium in the circumstances that one was ever needed? If so, this strikes me as complete madness. Is there any precedent for a club building a spanking new stadium with a capacity of X, all the necessary corporate facilities etc and then 15 years later spending £100m+ to simply expand capacity by 35-40%? The financials on that just don't add up as far as I can see. I suppose I can just about imagine some amazing game-changing future in which Saints are regularly in the Champions League and need some space-age 65,000 all-seater stadium which sells out every week. But anything short of such a quantum leap forward and surely St. Mary's (or a marginally expanded St. Mary's) will be more than sufficient? Back on topic - the Staplewood development looks hugely excitingand cutting edge. I just don't feel informed enough to know whether it's a white elephant grand vanity project or has the potential to make us the next Ajax/Barcelona. (or more realistically, where on the spectrum between those two points it sits).

I'm not sure we are clear on that. Isn't that precisely what's in issue?

If Pompey go pop (or spend the next twenty years meandering around the lower leagues/non-leagues), I can see Saints and Brighton developing a decent rivalry. I'm quite up for that.