SaintBobby

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.

The maths are interesting - but in reality, we're unlikely to need anything like as much as 13 points as it's very, very unlikely that West Ham or Reading will attain perfect records for the rest of the season (or that the loser of the WH v Reading game will win all their other games). The spread markets have: Saints 89.5 - 90.5 points Reading 83.5 - 84.5 points West Ham 83.5 - 84.5 points The implication of this is, I think, that the markets predict that both West Ham and Reading will end up on 84 points. In such a circumstance, Saints would only need six more points to win the division (owing to our superior goal difference). That feels to me like cutting it a bit fine, so although we need 13 points to be utterly certain of going up, we would most likely achieve promotion (and win the title) with quite a lot less than that.

Is the new training ground's value as much in retaining good players as producing them or attracting them?

Ruddy marvellous. I'd be happy to donate some merch.

A rush, I'd imagine. Although it's not really too different to selling play-off tickets.

True....well, he was 90% of the way to 100% of the truth....

I'd say it's pretty likely IF a win would be decisive in clinching promotion.

I'm suggesting Posh away is going to sell more than Hull away. Partly because the game might be decisive, partly because of geography. It seems we could have sold many, many more for Palace, so I don't think 5K is impossible at all.

Only 7 by my maths.

Rather easier to get to Peterborough. no? Plus Hull wasn't a "win and we're up" game (although was a massive win, of course)

Ah yes. Well, I'm glad we're all OTB and am looking forward to winning our next GOF ;-)

Great that he's recovered. But I put him behind Martin and possibly also behind Jaidi. Would be bizarre if he started on Saturday. Squad player at best and a likely departure in the Summer, I'd think.

Maybe...but that would be a bad thing, right? Not a good thing as sandwichsaint implies.

I love Martinez. Performed miracles in keeping them up (and in giving them half a chance of staying up this year)

WTF? You quite often predict defeat - surely in all those instances, you'd be satisfied with a draw?

100% bang on truth.

Didn't want to curse us by making it sound like we're already promoted. We ain't. But it's starting to look like enough of a possibility that I'm taking an interest not only in the Championship, but who stays in the PL. Who do you want to go up and down? UP: SAINTS, READING, BRIGHTON (would like to see West Ham suffer and three southern teams in the PL would be fun - espec given Pompey's collapse) DOWN: QPR, BOLTON, WOLVES (I think Blackburn and Wigan will be crap next season, so want them to stay up as "relegation fodder" if we are promoted)

I can see us taking 5k if there's a chance that a win will secure auto-promotion or secure the title....and that does seem quite possible.

Agreed. I also can't see how Reading can get to 95 or 97 points. They can get to 94 if they beat West Ham, 92 if they draw with West Ham and 91 if they lose to West Ham. I also agree that we can't count our GD as an extra half point. If we are tied with either W Ham or Reading on points, it is a racing certainty that our goal difference is superior (if not 100%, then well above 99.99%....so 100% unless you want to measure things to about 20 decimal points). So you can reduce the OP's original calculations in terms of points needed (to get promoted or win the division) by 1 point.

What's CTC mean?

Over 90 minutes, Kelvin. Over 3-4 games, Lambert or Morgan.

Have to play to win whatever the league position. Even more so if we need points to win the championship (this is probably out best chance of a serious piece of silverware for the rest of our liftetimes. If you don't think it's "meaningful", I'd love to know what meaningful trophies you think we might win in future!) We're a decent, sporting club unlike the twisted, cheating phew.