SaintBobby

I completely get that some fans might buy a TV subscription with the savings from their season ticket. But did you assume you’d get every Saints match included in the basic subscription package? I didn’t - even though, of course, we got every Project Restart game for “free”. As it is, we are getting far more football matches in general included in the package than for a typical season. If you want to “collect the set” you can do so for additional payments - not an option we’ve had before. Obviously, most of us would rather be watching the matches in stadia. But it’s hardly the fault of Sky/BT that we can’t and they’re providing the best - and best value - package of broadcast matches ever. Sure, we’d all like everything to be cheaper/free, but the TV deal is great value IMHO. As I’m in Tier 2 and there’s pretty much sod all else to do at the moment, I’m glad I can pay to watch so much extra football. I’ll probably shell out the extra £15 to watch Arsenal v Leicester this evening if nothing else on the tele catches my eye.

Am I missing something on this PPV thing. Aren't they matches which otherwise probably wouldnt be shown? If so, you're no worse off. You can choose to pay £15 to watch it if you want, but you wouldn't have been able to watch it as part of your normal Sky?BT package anyway.

Remind me to ask you for your lottery numbers - and to avoid them! 🙂

Conflicting reports on whether Rodriguez is fit or not. If he is, I suggest Romeu gets up close and personal in the early stages of the match...

Might be that the top of the table is mad and close this season and the relegation scrap involving way fewer teams. I agree it’s hard to see Villa winning the league, but the 3/1 on it being any team other than Man City or Liverpool is pretty tempting.

Rodriguez and Richarlison being out has sure impacted the odds. Everton are still favourites, but only by a whisker.

👍😂

Another fun listen, thanks. But as mentioned above, I think there were about nine “alludeds” and the word was not even used correctly. If you allude to something, it means you are referencing it elliptically or gently implying it. But “alluded” here was used to mean “emphatically stated”. Barry: “Theo Walcott is the greatest signing in club history, 100% of Saints fans are so ecstatic that the partying hasn’t stopped since deadline day and a 30ft statue of him is being erected in the city centre.” Tony: “As Barry has alluded to, the Walcott signing has gone down quite well with some Saints fans”. The other little tic you can’t stop noticing once you first hear it is someone completely agreeing with the previous speaker, but starting their observation with, “Yeah...no” or “No...yeah” rather than just “Yes”. Bill: Vestergaard has had a really good few matches. He has cemented his place in the team and is unquestionably a starting XI player. Fred: No. Yeah. He is definitely a starter in central defence. Overall though these are pedantic little niggles - it’s a fun show with an engaging, open, witty approach. I’m enjoying it and really glad you’ve found the support to continue this season.

I don’t think it’s a one shot game. I hope the Big Six fail in their objectives, but if I was thinking how they might succeed, I’d link back up with the EFL and offer those 72 clubs a modest slice of TV revenues/overall incomes. 5% or such like. This is a long-term lifeline for the strugglers in those divisions. You then turn to the 14 smaller PL clubs and say “take it or leave it”. This is why I think the “small 14” need to build alliances fast - especially with the Championship and bigger teams in L1.

Sigh. Yawn. Yawn.

It’s all very mysterious. Let’s hope it’s just a short-term private matter or a niggling injury. Just doesn’t smell quite right though.

Seems a pretty sensible option from their narrow point of view. Their ballache at the moment is 7 smaller EPL clubs vetoing their desires. If the big six left and linked up with the other 72, the other 14 would surely have to follow? The big six could rewrite the rule book as part of a new EFL. So many EFL clubs are now teetering on the brink that they’d agree to virtually anything as long as they have a cash handout to survive.

I believe it was the Athletic - possibly also (merely referenced) on Sky Sports or BBC Sports app. Parry didn’t say that the big six would leave and join EFL, he just refused to deny that it had been discussed. It stands to reason- you make most of the 72 non-EPL clubs into a set of desperate welfare cases and then present it as a fait accompli to the remaining 14 Premier League clubs. It’s not as if a standalone league of Saints, Burnley, Fulham and Sheff Utd plus ten other similar clubs is going to be a very credible prospect.

I agree with this sentiment, but the thing that worries me the most is the possible new alliance emerging with Project Big Picture. It seems - with Rick Parry refusing to deny it - that the “big six” would consider leaving the Premier League and rejoining the EFL. Were that to happen, it would leave the “small 14” well and truly fecked. Seems to me that the “small 14” need to urgently build alliances with the Championship and League One clubs to thwart this madness.

Yawn.

God. What a total yawn. It’s like watching your boorish, drunk uncle who thinks he’s so clever and has zero self-awareness. Doing everything to be the centre of attention. It’s tedious. And really rather sad.

God, what tedious behaviour.

Well, if you derive implied probabilities from bookies’ odds then you have Newcastle at 3/1, Brighton at 4/1 and Palace at 5/1 to go down. If my maths are correct, that equates to a 50.2% chance that at least one of these three will be relegated....and therefore a higher chance that one of these three will end up in the bottom four.

Only worry for me is if it’s set too low. If his market price is, say, £60m but the release clause is £40m you’ve set yourself up for a load of clubs triggering it. If there is a release clause set it at £100m. And for twice that amount, you can buy the whole club FFS!

It’s early days, but that bottom four do look pretty poor. As a whole - disregarding the games they’ve played against each other - their combined record over 15 matches is W 0 D 1 L 14. It’s fair to say that 0.067 points per game against the top 16 is probably relegation form. Long way to go, but I don’t remember Saints being quite this bad in the early matches in our first year back up.

This season is nuts. I’m starting to think we might get a wildcard winner of the league.

He also took out a gun. Shot dead their centre forward and then used the second bullet to shoot our left back through the skull. Brutal, but sends the right message.

Oh I see what you mean, I think. You mean how do we move from 20 to 18 teams, not what happens once we have stabilised at 18? I guess it would be done over 2 seasons, like it was when we went from 22 to 20.

Don’t follow you here. The plan is that it’s 2 up, 2 down automatically. The 3rd bottom team are thrown a chance of survival via playoffs. If they win those, then they stay in the division - so, would be two up, two down. If they lose those, then they are the 3rd team to go down and 3 come up.

The oddest thing for me is why the big clubs want the EPL cut to 34 matches. There might be good footballing reasons for doing so (more England games, fewer wear and tear injuries on players), but I’m sceptical on those. From a straight money-grabbing perspective though, you’d probably want to expand the division to 22 teams. If we go to just 34 games, you’d expect to see TV money and gate receipts fall by 10% or so. That’s a big chunk of change. I’m now so cynical about the big clubs that I take their motive to be reducing the voting power of the small clubs and then using their enhanced voting power to bend the money back in their direction even more.