SaintBobby

Agreed. I think we will finish between 22nd and 24th. No higher than 19th. Unless we sign Messi. I also think that our average attendance will be exactly 21,368. Furthermore, I predict that Honey Monster and Tony the Tiger will burst out from their cereal packets and form our central defence before the transfer window closes. You may disagree with this analysis, but I have a perfect right to my opinion.

Good advice. And I'd also like to point out that two diagnoses you put forward are not mutually exclusive.

It's pretty simple isn't it? Crowds went down under Lowe because: 1. Saints were performing poorly and playing crap football AND 2. There were substantial organised protests and boycotts against Lowe It seems to me impossible to quantify the exact number separately attritubatable to factor 1 as opposed to factor 2. Nevertheless, on any remotely feasible like-for-like comparison, Saints are a far better supported club than Portsmouth. It's impossible to ever get an exact comparison - as the two clubs aren't ever going to be at exactly the same position in the league, with exactly the same boardroom politics going on, playing exactly the same quality of football at exactly the same time. However, we can clearly say that if things are even remotely equal then Southampton's levels of attendance are very dramatically and markedly higher than Portsmouth's. Comparisons were hard when we were at the Dell - because even if we sold out every match and had 50,000 baying fans queueing round the block, our average attendance would only be 15,000. Similarly if Fratton Park was selling out every game, comparisons would be difficult because you wouldn't know how many more fans Porstmouth could accommodate if they had a greater capacity. But as they are not tending to get remotely close to filling their ground, it is clear that Fratton's capacity is not diminishinmg their numbers. They remain one of many clubs teetering on the brink of financial disaster and avoiding entering adminsitration again before the end of the season will require some very fancy footwork. In the long term, they are probably viable as a middling League One team with some forays into the Championship. Saints long-term future is probably between bottom half of Premiership and top half of Championship.

There's absolutely no rational reason or evidence to suggest we will finish as low as 17th. I keep asking Dalek to place a bet with me - but he goes surprisingly quiet each time. The markets have us at 98% to finish in the top 12, and that seems about right to me. We'd be about 99.8% to finish in the top 16. I do think the odds on us winning the league (5/1) or beign promoted (2/1) are a bit short though.

Echo points out a couple of records/near records http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/saints/news/9208865.Another_record_falls_on_day_Saints_boss_reaches_his_century/

Does anyone care that our third string keeper is pretty damned cr@p? I'm happy to have a Conference South quality goalkeeper as our back-up. If either Kelvin or Bart got seriously injured, we'd seek to bring in someone on loan, I'd imagine.

No. If we'd been crowned champions already, we wouldn't be 5/1 against to wint he title, would we? As it is, we're about evens to finish in the top six and about 100/1 to finish in the bottom six or seven. Our points spread is around 77-78. Of course, we could still finish bottom with just 12 points from 46 games. Are you still offering that £100 bet that we finish outside the top sixteen? As posted previously, I'd like to place a wager please. HTH.

Ah sorry, of course. I saw your quote out-of-context... Apols.

Lol. Spectacularly wrong predictions by Dalek and delldays. I still can't see that we can keep up the present level of results (well, obviously we can't...we won't win all 46 league games...) But a swift check of the odds shows: 1. We are now second favourites to win the league at about 5/1 2. We are about 2/1 to be promoted 3. We are 1/50 to finish in the top 12. I'm assuming from point 3, that if there was a market, we'd be about 1/100 on being in the top 16. Predicting that Saints will finish 17th or worse is about equivalent to predicting that Man Utd will lose all of their next three home league games. In other words, a very, very wild long shot.

According to wikipedia: Most consecutive wins: 14, joint record:[5] Arsenal (Premier League between 10 February 2002 and 24 August 2002) Manchester United (Second Division, 1904–05) Bristol City (Second Division, 1905–06) Preston North End (Second Division, 1950–51) [*]Most consecutive wins from the start of a season: 13, Reading (Third Division, 1985–86)

Was that by Reading about ten years ago?

Am hoping for a striker and a centre back, but if I can only have one, I'd plump for the latter.

Hmmmm....I still think we might struggle a little against Man City, for instance.

So good has our recent form been, that a whole load of records seem to have tumbled or be on be on the verge of tumbling. Be interested to know from any stattos on here how much better we'd have to do in some of the following categories to smash club (or even national records). Or whether we already have. Where I think I know what the record is, I've said so. Saints win 10 league games in a row (club record) Saints win 11 games in a row in all competitions (club record) Saints win 5 league games away in a row (club record) Saints win their first four league games of the season (club record) Saints win their first five games of the season in all competitions (club record) Saints win 11 home league games in a row - ? Saints undefeated in last 14 home league games - ? Saints go on to win 27 league games in a row when they have led at half time - ? If Saints score they don't lose, true of the last 34 league games - ? Adkins acquires 100 points in his first 45 matches (club record) If that last stat isn't a national record, I'd like to know who has a beaten Adkins to 100 points.

Let alone Saints managers. How many managers of any club have amassed 100 points in their first 45 games?

Managed to avoid any of the trouble yesterday at SMS...went for the walkway and moved as fast as possible. Oddly, witnessed a scrap between a Millwall and Newscastle fan in the Encore pub afterwards. My favourite moment though was an otherwise very pleasant Saints fan who was regaling me with a story that began with the wonderful phrase "I'm not agrophobic about poofters, but...." I immediately said that he was very open-minded. As lots of people find large gatherings of gay people in open spaces hard to cope with. He was rather non-plussed...

I'm glad - for some reason I can't quite put my finger on - that my comment on the post-match thread that Cork was MOTM with an honourable mention for Seaborne seems to be agreed by many other fans according to the early results. Davis made some good saves, but there were some communication problems at the back. E.g. when he came charging out and didn't appear to tell the defence that it was his ball to clear and when Fonte cleared with an overhead kick when Kelvin could have put his name on it and collected.

Satisfied with that. We never truly clicked and had to soak up a lot of pressure in the 2nd half. But, fought hard for the win. Sometimes dropped too deep and invited Millwall on to us. Lallana was very average and I think we can only play really well when he is. 6.5/10 overall. Jack Cork MOTM with honourable mention for Seaborne.

Great news. He's real class and I feared we'd lose him. On a pedantic point, the OS says he's one of "only a handful" of players in the present squad who remain from our previous stint in the Championship. But I think there are seven such players...

I can nearly answer this for league games We finished last season with a record of W 13 D 1 L 1 Started this season with W 3 D 0 L 0 So for the last 18 games, we are W 16 D 1 L 1

There's no point. If you want new players, sign them in June. After that, there's no point. No point at all.

You're wrong. It would. It really would.

That video is a deliberate spoof, surely???? Please someone tell me that it's a spoof. Pretty please. Pretty, pretty please?????

This seems to me to be a very fair and accurate summary of the legal position. But not a remotely encouraging explanation of the technological issues. Yes, I appreciate that you have the legal right to convert this webspace to a Pompey site overnight, but I'd still think you were a total w@nker if you did. Having 500 people or so hitting F5 should not crash the site. It doesn't require much bandwith to deal with that. I think charging people £5 was a terrible mistake. It's a nominal sum. And I'd probably still pay it even if I could only access the site on Thursdays. You should have charged £20 or £50 if you really needed the cash to get this sorted. Or alternatively, nothing at all. A nominal cash fee gives people the right to complain but maybe not the resources to solve the problem. If you need £200 or £500 or £2,000 to solve the problem, please just say so and we can see if we can raise it.