SaintBobby

Just back from St Marys. A game of three thirds really. We were good for the first 30 mins We were poor, verging on dire, for the next 30 mins We were really excellent for the last 30 mins Can we start with Barnard from now on please? He terrorises defenders superbly. Credit to Schneiderlin too - technical quality and the ability to boss midfield. Huge kudos to Adkins for making the right substitutions at the right time. The bookmakers have League One as effectively a two horse race now - Brighton at around 4/7 and Saints at around 2/1. Odds on anyone else wining the division are at least 14/1 and drifting rapidly. For promotion by any means, Brighton are about 1/5 and Saints about 1/2. But our odds are tightening fast, with some major bookies having suspended them this evening and some others (Skybet) reopening at 1/4. All other teams are 2/1 or longer to be promoted.

I quite like both Bournemouth and Brighton. Generally want southern clubs to climb the divisions - excluding Portsmouth, of course. When I saw the 2-2 draw with Brighton last season, I reckoned they could be serious challengers this time. Credit to Bournemouth particularly though for performing so enormously above expectations in League One, especially since losing their manager. Sadly, I think they've probably peaked now and are unlikely to go up. But even finishing in the top ten would be an impressive season for them. The fact that Bournemouth are above us does show that Saints have rather under-performed this term, but there's plenty of time to turn this round and I'm confident we will.

Brighton will probably win the division, but not in the bag at all. However, they'd have to screw up a lot to fail to get automatic promotion. Saints are likely to come second, and if not, will be a good shout for the play offs. Still have a modest (15-20%?) chance of first. I think I'd tip Charlton to be the third team - but at that stage, it's a lottery.

See other thread (the absurd one about fixture pile up)....assume you've finally put your money where your mouth is? If not, please just shut the f up....

For any remotely major sporting event (and, yes, League One counts), the amount of optimistic fan money is swiftly matched by professional gamblers - or canny amateurs - swooping on odds that are deemed attractive. In these relatively liquid markets, the odds very swiftly move back into credible balance. For example, if those who you characterise as "Walter Mitty" Saints fans have been piling on money on Saints to win the League, this would lead to the odds on Brighton drifting out to unrealistically attractive levels and "neutral"/"objective" gamblers snapping these up. A quick look at Betfair's odds on the League One title show that over £500,000 has been staked on the winner (and that's just on this one website). Saints are at 3.45 to win the title (i.e. a £10 stake yields £44.50) and Brighton are 1.75 (i.e. a £10 stake yields £17.50). As others have said, this equates to the markets saying Brighton have about a 50% of winning the title and Saints about 25%. In terms of achieving promotion by any means, Brighton are 1.27 and Saints are 1.56. Saints price has come in a bit since Saturday - that is to say that since the Rochdale game was abandoned (and given other results went broadly our way), the markets believe Southampton have a slightly greater chance of promotion than this time last week. Put another way, amongst the thousands and thousands of people betting upon League One - no one seems to take your "fixture pile up problem" remotely seriously. If you're right and everyone else is wrong, you can clean up, of course. You think Brighton are nailed on certainties to win the title? Great, you can nearly double your money by backing them at 1.75. Backing what you consider to be a certain outcome at about evens is a no brainer. Over £80,000 has been staked on Betfair this season on Brighton winning the title - not a single penny from a single punter at any stage this season has been bet at odds shorter than 1.7. In layman's terms, this means no one - absolutely no one at all - has ever rated Brighton's chances of winning the title at greater than 60%. Similarly, if you think Southampton will fail to be promoted this season, you can "lay" odds on Saints. The markets think Saints have a 2 in 3 chance of going up. If you think that's over-stated, you can clean up here too. It's literally free money.... Even if you're not a betting man, what these odds show is that you're wrong to consider that the typical levels of "optimism" shown on here are just the rantings of a delusional few Saints fans. A position of "Saints to win the title" is a c.25% shot and "Saints to get promoted is a c. 65% shot" is the prevailing view of many thousands of people who have staked many millions of pounds on the outcome. You might yet prove to be right in your gloomy predictions of course, but it's you who is enormously and dramatically out-of-step with the norm.

I'm hardly worried about it at all. We may pick up injuries, but so will the teams we're playing and they have smaller squads. We comfortably have enough in the tank to get 2nd and if we beat Brighton away, we'll probably win the league. Brighton have the same fixture pile-up as us, I think, and a thinenr playing staff to deal with it.

I think we're going to come 2nd. But play-off final is a real chance. If you have a wedding, funeral or 40th birthday planned, cancel them. See you at Old Trafford for the penalty shoot out....

Can Nick Illingsworth just do a full blown mea culpa...via Saints Trust or something? For his own sake? Otherwise, he will be the "representative fan" until (a) his actual credibility with the fanbase falls to such miserable levels that not even the Echo feel able to quote him or (b) he has a moment of self-realisation. Never (a) nor (b) are immimnet, it seems. This thread is now longer than the Exeter one, but even more boring. Its basically half-full of "who cares, hes a ***t?" comments. For a sizeable section of the fanbase to voice these sort of views must surely be deeply humiliating for Nick Illingsworth. The head of a fans trust should be a moral leader. The sort of guy who is instinctively backed by 99% of fans and will get a good section of fans to fight to the death for him. I wonder how many letters SFC has received from outraged fans about the treatment of Illingsworth...two? six? maybe ten? That's not to say Cortese and the club have behaved well. Its just to highlight how NI is just a media rentaquote and utterly marginalised in the power politics of SFC, rather than an effective lobbyist for fans. Even in happy times, there would be an outrage at most football clubs about an "uber-fan" being treated this way. Incredibly, Illingsworth has managed to maneouvre himself into a position whereby he is the highest profile Saints fan, gets quite badly treated by the club and most Saints fans reaction (in so far as they can even be bothered to have one) is to shrug their shoulder and say "good, the man's an arseh0le!" It takes a very special type of incompetence -possibly mixed with a sprinkling of narcissism - to get yourself into that sort of situation. Thats just the way it is. I'm not sure Illingsworth gets it at all. Quite sad really.

And presumably, Manchester United need to beat teams like Wolves if they have a serious intention of winning the Premier League. It looks like we're going to need about 80 points or so to secure 2nd place. That means getting c.32 points from our last 18 games. A record of something like W 9 D 5 L 4. To win the division, we probably need more like 92 points (and/or hope that Brighton have a rocky patch) That would require something like W 14 D 2 L 2. Or, if Brighton stop producing so consistently, maybe something like W 12 D 2 L 4. To achieve any of these outcomes, we are going to need to beat teams "like" Tranmere. But merely to secure automatic promotion, we don't need to worry about losing specifically to Tranmere. Or the fact that we will lose points to teams "like" Tranmere between now and the end of the season.

The Tranmere defeat seems to be assuming disproportionate importance in people's minds. We played badly and lost. Move on. What was the last league game we lost? We haven't been great in the last three games, but have picked up 7 points. We need a bit of tinkering and Lallana back to full fitness to pick up momentum again. No need to panic.

"And if you dive like that again to get another opponent sent off, I'll pinch your other nipple"

I'm usually a bit of an apologist, but f*ck me that was poor. Happy with the three points, of course, but we made very heavy weather of it. Downsides of today: Brighton and Bournemouth are still motoring; we have been pretty mediocre in our last three games; about the worst I've ever seen us play and win. Upsides: Hammond (I'm not a big fan of his) was tireless; Harding and Fonte both good too I thought; Lallana getting 45 minutes was a big plus (he understandably lacked some sharpness) it's fair to say our dip in form correlates closely to his injury; at least we did actually win. I'm still v confident of promotion, but we look as if we're ambling or stumbling towards it just at the moment.

Unbelievable to hear cheering at him being subbed. He was dreadful today, with the first touch of a bull elephant, but that ain't the point. Was v surprised he wasn't subbed earlier (did Chaplow pick up a knock...would have thought AL for DN was obvious half-time substitution...or was it to protect Chaplow from suspension). Disgraceful behaviour from our "fans" though. Increasing sense that there is a growing number of utter ***ts in the Northam end.

Local newspapers are on their last legs. The Echo wont exist in five years time, most likely. The world moves on.

I'm sure I read somewhere that Saints penalty conversion rate was the best of all 92 team since 1992 or something. Rickie has every chance of being top scorer. Hope so I have 50 quid on him at 4/1....

Does anyone other than hypo care about the fans forum? Ive been to a couple and enjoyed them. But they are a bit of a self-indlugence for uber-fans, really.

I'm able to confirm we don't have any exciting loan signings lined up. See my previous post, starting a thread, on the January transfer window. HTH.

Many congrats to Alex. I thought the tabloid-invented £10m asking price was made. But if Andy F-ing Carroll is worth £35m..... Anyway....hope he stays.

Yeah. I care. There's some pretty good evidence that the club has acted like a bunch of a**eholes. Nick Illingsworth himslef may be an a**ehole. Whether he is or not seems to be a matter of great fascination for many of us. Certainly, after the Silverspoons debacle, my own impression is that he is probably incompetent, is incapable of delivering on his promises and is not a man to be trusted ever again. But I don't much care if NI is an a**ehole. I am certainly not intending to have any sort of business or personal relationship with him again. Ever. And I'd advise any other sensible Saints fan (or indeed human being) to follow the same course. Put as much distant between yourself and Illingsworth as you reasonably can, without getting too paranoid about it. And certainly don't send any money in his direction. In contrast, I am intending to have an ongoing relationship with Southampton Football Club. And I am intending to give Southampton Football Club a large chunk of my cash in months and years to come. I care passionately about Southampton Football Club. Nick Illingsworth isn't even worth ignoring in comparison. Consequently, if Illingsworth scores, say, 9 on the a**ehole scale and SFC score, say, 5 for their treatment of him, I'm still more worried by the 5. It's not a "who is the biggest a**ehole"?" issue. It's whether you're worried about the behaviour of the club. I am.

Actually, unless the IFO document is a total hoax, I'm pretty apalled by this. I'm no fan of Nick Illingsworth. I don't know the man personally at all. I have only not taken legal action against him for the JPT rip-off because my lawyer has found it neraly impossible to identify the legal party who "organised" the event. I don't have any reason to believe that he is representative of Saints fans. I know quite a lot of Saints fans and none of them know Illingsworth. The broad brush view on here is that he doesn't really represent anyone. But that's really a complaint against SKY, The Echo etc for claiming that he does. Not against him as such. But the club has some explaining to do here. Either this man is such a threat to national security that SFC can only discuss the matter with MI5 etc or they have acted in a petty and vindicative fashion. There are plenty of petty and vindicative people in football. No surprise there. I'm just a tad worried that SFC have clearly gone to some considerable length to act in a petty and vindicative way and then not even apologise. If you're going to do dictatorial loony behaviour, do it properly. Ban him from SMS altogether. But what sort of totally warped bureaucrat thinks "no....don't ban him from the ground...let him buy tickets as and when he pleases...let him come to any game he wants....just don't let him have the satisfaction of owning a season ticket" The only conclusion I can draw is that one or more people on the payroll of the club went through exactly this thought process. I find that creepy, weird and unacceptable. I don't think a response of "So what? It's Illingsworth!" is a fair one. Nick Illingsworth shoudl lodge a subject access request with the club under s8 of the Data Protection Act of 1998 to find out what happened. This isn't going to knock the meltdown in Eygpt off thefront pages. But that's not the basis for deciding what's right and wrong.

I think you can find a thread I started a couple of weeks ago. Namely that we would not make any new signings. Forte for Punch basically. I hate to say "I told you so"..... Btw, I should say I'm not too disappointed. We've kept the squad together basically. And they shld be good enough to get promotion with comfort.

It's a weak service. But it's the best you're gonna get. I reckon I've seen maybe 20 people complain about their fivers. That's £100. How much time and effort do you think that buys us collectively? Sooner or later someone will decide that they can get migration from this site to another (just as previously). I do agree this platform is waning, shame.

Am reluctantly starting at agree. We dont have anyone on target for a 20 goal season this year.

Here's my take on it, although a lot of this involves some leaps of faith as well as the evidence of yesterday: 1. A sort of 4-1-3-2 formation works, with MS as a "quarterback"...worth far more than a mere defensive guard for the back 4. 2. It did mean we lacked a bit of defensive width...especially v Fabio in the first half, so we need to get the midfielders more used to covering for the right and left back. 3. Our strike force isn't as on fire as last year. From open play, not much of our threat came directly from RL or LB. My solution is to experiment a bit more up front, e.g. 4-3-3 or try RL and DN together, just to see if we can make something "click"

Kelvin was rested according to the club officials in the Channon suite