SaintBobby

The book “Soccernomics” makes a good case that it’s pretty much impossible to make a profit out of football. There are exceptions, of course, the Liebherrs bring one (obviously had the advantage of buying us at such a low ebb - I think Aviva got stuffed on the stadium mortgage, if I recall?). Aren’t wages 107% of turnover for an average club in the Championship? If your aim is simply to make money, football isn’t a good option. Or, at the very least, it’s a very high risk option.

I remember as a kid him and Shilton vying for the England keeper position - two epic goalkeepers. RIP.

Semmens assuring us that Saints won't get complacent even if we win the Premier League 3 times in a row 😅😅

Great listen, thanks.

Top.

5 is ridiculous. 3 should be the max. I’d also like some sort of rule that you can’t make tactical subs after the 90 minute mark, but not sure how that could be made fair and workable.

I put £20 on us at the start of the season at something like 680/1. My more serious bet was £100 on Spurs at 16/1. Thinking of cashing out - or at least partially cashing out - as I’ve doubled my stake.

The bottom four are still looking hopeless against the top 16. Played 25....Won 0 Drawn 3 Lost 22...For 16 Against 54 Points per game = 0.12 In the unikely event that this dismal form continues all season, the bottom four will each pick up 3 or 4 points on average against the top 16 over the whole season.

Pity....mind you we still needed two more results to go our way to stay top...always a long shot

Yawn.

Yawn.

Ok, we’re on fourth tonight. Guess that’s fair enough as the match is over 24 hours old and it’s not called Match of Yesterday. However, I’ve watched the title sequence several times and can hardly find any representation of Saints. Redmond appears in the background right at the start. Other clubs have their emblems front and centre as the title sequence unfolds. Where’s the Southampton iconography? It must be there somewhere, what have I missed? Where have I missed it?

It's a nightmare. Problem is they can only seemingly use VAR to enforce the exact laws of the game. If your armpit is offside, well, you're offside. It's not like a penalty decision, which can be subjective (although I recall hearing that the technology is only accurate to a certain %, presumably if that's 1cm and you're 1cm offside, they count that as onside?) My preference would be to only use VAR to look at the position of the feet. If your head, armpit or knee is offside then it's down to the linesman/ref to call it. If they don't, VAR will only look at the position of the feet. I think that would eliminate most decisions which, while they may be technically correct, are enfuriating and seem to go against the spirit of the "doubt favours the attacking team" principle.

Never understood what that meant. What’s an urban challenge in contrast?

Can't believe I'm cheering on Man Utd. Feels dirty. In a good way. Man U now 2-1 up v Everton.

Would be great to still be top tonight. More generally though - and without any belief that we can “do a Leicester” - I’ve started cheering on the strugglers against the big teams. Usually I’d want the bottom 5 or 6 to be losing to the better clubs in order to aid relegation worries. I’m now thinking top six is a real possibility and relegation really is not. So I consider, say, Spurs and Leicester to be our rivals this season not Burnley, WBA, Fulham etc

We are about 120/1 to win the league and 66/1 to go down. Not sure when our odds to win the league were less than half of our odds to go down? (unless both were mathematically impossible).

Pick a lane....

Great performance...I was so nervous just because I wanted the "top of the league" thing to happen. JWP MotM for me, but shout out to Stephens....who played at left back FFS. We would have been better with Bertrand, obviously. And Djenepo - in front of him - also had a good game. But to come back into the team and to give a solid performance in an unfamiliar position was tip top. A 7/10 there is sort of worth a 9/10 if you see what I mean....

It's amazing. Too much to take in. I'm now mainly worried that we will do a Deportivo - end up missing a penalty in the last match in the last minute which would otherwise win us the league! Nice worry to have!

When was the last time we were 12 points clear of relegation zone after 7 matches? Ever?

Are you potentially fit to start against Newcastle?

So, the record of the bottom four against the other 16 teams is now: Pld 21 Won 0 Drawn 2 Lost 19 Points 2 GD -33 Points per game is 0.095

Well, we started the season about 8/1 to be relegated and Villa about 3/1 I think. Even now, Saints are odds on to finish in the bottom half of the table.

The bottom four look truly ropey - disregarding the matches they’ve played against each other, their combined record against the other 16 teams is: P 19 W 0 D 2 L 17 GD -29 Points per game - 0.105 Maybe Derby’s all time low points record of 11 is under serious threat this season?