SaintBobby

Would prefer Carlisle I think. Having c. 70,000 at Wembley and being odds-on favourites to win is preferable I think to having c. 80,000 and being slight underdogs. But MK Dons are no walkover. The betfair odds on each team winning the trophy are: Carlisle 2.3 Saints 3.1 Leeds 3.5 MK Dons 3.5 I derive from this that the bookmakers have Saints v MK Dons as a virtual coinflip.

I've never understood why the rule is decribed this way. If away goals count double then Carlisle are 4-1 up...

V annoying.

Merrington's an idiot. A few moments ago he said that he didnt understand why Antonio had been pushed up front when we had Connolly and Waigo on the bench. Then when Antonio breaks through he says this was exactly what he meant and what he was asking for. Moron.

According to a mate of mine who's a Gunners fan, the Arsenal fans were all signing "We're all standing on a future block of flats.." (to Yellow Submarine) at their last visit to Fratton Park. :-)

I quite like Papa, but on balance wouldn't sign him. I think the agreed fee is £500K and his wage demands may be high too. He's good, but I think we can do better.

Centre forward please. Massive burden on Rickie's shoulders at the moment. Am a big fan of Connolly and Papa, but think we lack depth here. Not persuaded that DC will play more than 50% of our remaining minutes. Think signings so far are both exciting and sensible. But if - madly - Saints were to hand the transfer kitty over to me right now, I'd buy a £1m striker.

Overall, I'm not sure that opinion is enormously divided. For me LJ gets a 6/10. Or a C+. He's okay. Not great. Not embarrassing. He does alright at RB. RM and CM. But if I heard he'd left Saints or was out for the rest of the season, I wouldn't be paricularly upset. The reason I'm in the "anti-LJ" camp is on practical terms. Right back strikes me as a position where we could credibly - and cheaply - improve our starting XI. Obviously, for the right amount of cash, we could buy a better player in EVERY position. But as we stand now, I'd say it would be very difficult and/or very expensive to find players willing to come to Saints who would be measurably better than our current GK, LB, CBs, Midfielders and CF. (My other issues are whether we need a better left midfielder/winger and who is the 2nd striker with Rickie (if Connolly isnt going to be fit for at least 80/90%+ of our games)) I think I'd be saying that Davis, Harding, Fonte, Jaidi, Lallana, Waigo, Scheiderlin, Hammond, Lambert and Connolly are a tough "starting ten" to improve on. In most of these positions, we also have good cover. But for, say, 750K I think we could get a MUCH better right back than LJ.

Oh my, if true (which seems to be) this is an absolutely fantastic signing - on a par with getting Rickie Lambert.

1. He has a track record of saving English south coast football teams from extinction. 2. No one wants to see any of the 92 teams actually, finally go to the wall. 3. He is a billionaire, so can easily afford it. 4. He could pick up Portsmouth for a song - maybe £25m or so. 5. Portsmouth are at least certain to be playing at the same level as Saints next season, and could just conceivably be playing two divisions higher. 6. He could then spearhead the south coast dream - resisted only by the dinosaur die hards - of a single, united Hampshire team that could genuinely aspire to take on the giants of English football. Of course, point 6 would require some deftness of touch and a genuine sensitivity to long standing supporters of both clubs - and a few difficult decisions would need to be taken. 1. What division should the new club play in? The two clubs should only formally merge in June 2010 and some of the finer details of the merger would need to be concluded in July. In August 2010, the new club would obviously start from the highest divisional status achieved by either Portsmouth or Southampton in the 2009/10 season. If Portsmouth are relegated and Southampton are promoted, the point is moot. If, however, Portsmouth are relegated but Southampton fail to secure promotion, the club would begin life in the Championship. If, unlikely as it may seem, Portsmouth avoid relegation, the new club would begin life in the Premiership. 2. Where would the stadium be located? On simple business principles, Fratton Park has reasonable real estate value for retail or residential redevelopment, wheares St Mary's is on a brownfield site and can only be used for sporting purposes. Also, Fratton Park has limited capacity and would be hugely expensive to expand - whereas St. Mary's can already accommodate 32,000 in modern surroundings and can be fairly easily extended to allow for the anticipated substanial growth in support for a united Hampshire team. 3. What colours should the team wear? This decision should be made on sartorial grounds alone. I have yet to meet anyone who doesn't like the style of the Portsmouth socks. These are a simple, yet elegant, red. In order to maintain overall brand consistency, it would make sense to ensure the shirt broadly matches these, and the shorts go some way to off-setting them. A red and white striped shirt and black shorts should do the trick. 4. What should the new club be called? It would only be fair to amalgmate key parts of both teams' names. From the name "Portsmouth Football Club", the words "Football Club" sound rather good. From the name "Southampton Football Club", the word "Southampton" has a nice ring to it. So, a new, single, united Hampshire team called Southampton Football Club could be playing at St. Mary's next season in red and white tops, black shorts and red socks. The team will be playing at Championship level (or even above) and will have a very bright future ahead of it. If I was Liebherr, £20m or so would sound like a great investment.

Thierry Henry at Juventus? (or is that the exception that maybe proves the rule). Actually, I think players can sometimes blossom from a change of scenery and that picking out the best-perfoming fans' favourites can sometimes cost a premium.

I wasn't at Elland Road for the 1-0 defeat, but thought Leeds were immense today.If we matched that team - away - that's grounds to be cheerful. Very lazy (and typically brainless) decision by ITV pundits to give MotM to Beckford. Their backline was awesome. Really is a funny old game. Colchester losing 7-0. Gees.

Yes. A bit of a disappointing draw IMHO. Only good thing about it is that we're at home. I guess it's a worse draw for Ipswich. I hope we concentrate on the JPT and trying to nick a play-off place. I'll get excited about the FA Cup when/if we're in the last 8. Would have prefered a big team away.

Unfortunately, the result would stand at this stage...

Can we get that moron Merrington off the airwaves, please???

Beckford off !!!! ?????

Merrington : "I'm convinced this could go either way now..." Moron.

"To be fair to Jermaine Beckford, he went down like a fairy!" You f***ing what???

Producer blames commentator for missing ten secods. Commentator blames the music system at Elland Road. That buck is moving at speed...

Absurd. Saints player misses the start of the 2nd half and nearly a goal because of the reading out a "humorous" text message from Tunbudge Wells. Utter, utter c*nts.

Need to get Lambert involved more...

Not bad....scary last ten minutes though... Dont think we should go 4-5-1 as Connolly seems to have been our best attacking outlet...

Maximum bet allowed was a grand at bet 365 and a grand at Skybet. Rickie is now in to evens!

Two grand on Lambert to be top L1 goalscorer at 2/1

I really don't see what people find so difficult here. Or has this just become an in-joke semantic argument? Teams can be eliminated from competitions without losing matches or can progress in competitions without winning matches. For example, in the 1982 World Cup, in the second round, England drew 0-0 with West Germany and 0-0 with Spain. West Germany proceeded to the next round and England were eliminated. Did we lose 0-0 to Spain? When drawn matches were resolved by the toss of a coin rather than by penalties, did this mean teams were winning or losing matches 1-1 etc?