SaintBobby

Wasn't David Hirst another record flop?

Really good win, especially with so many of our top players missing.

You were making a reasonable point until this highlighted bit.

The OP is right. It's feeble and dire. The only defence can be that they need to move from this slightly tacky and crap stage in order to get to some NFL-nirvana land, in which the Red Arrows fly over the stadium every time we score and Beyoncé does the half time entertainment with a special effects show costing millions. If we can't get to the top of that mountain (and I'm not even sure I'd want to), we shouldn't be ****ing around in the foothills.

Isn't the whole thing about getting more cash out of the current fans? I'm a season ticket holder from London. I spend a lot of money in Southampton, but not that much at St Mary's. I probably spend £1,000 a year on staying at the Premier Inn or Jury's Inn just down the road (about 12 overnights a season), about £2,000 a year on food/drink in Southampton (c25 matches at anywhere from £25-£200 a pop). The club takes hardly any of this £3K per annum (maybe 10% max of the food/drink stuff). Ok, readily accept that I'm not a typical fan - either in location or expenditure. But if those gas towers were converted into somewhere I could eat, drink and stay overnight, and owned by SFC, the club would get a lot, lot more money out of me every year,

Gabbiadini/Tadic? Ok...a no. 9 and a no.10...but maybe?

He's just behind Kane, by 1% when I voted.

Good or bad? I say very, very good. But open to other thoughts.

Good win. We seem to have moved from having a solid defence and toothless attack a few months ago, to having an awesome attack and a porous defence.

Get in

A game of inches. The amazing effort makes defeat harder to take.

Of course we didn't "throw the game". But any squad rotation strategy means, basically by definition, you're putting out a side that isn't maximising your chance of winning. We did that in spades in the Arsenal FA Cup game. The EFL Cup final might actually be the first game where Puel is going to field the strongest team he possibly can. He is not going to rest anyone or "take a look" at a fringe player.

As has been pointed out, 40 points is almost always enough. In fact, a point a game is almost always enough. At the moment, the bottom clubs are averaging less than a point a game. I'd guess 35 or 36 is enough this season.

Can't decide if I want Leicester to drop or not. Probably yes because of Vardy injuring Virgil. I went for Leicester, Palace and Sunderland.

Weirdest transfer (or non transfer) ever. Massive player. Apparent family tragedy. Huge need for a CB at Saints. And we can't even be bothered to get his beyond a 15 page thread. I'm bracing myself for some idiot asking "Has Skacel signed yet?" and thinking it's funny. But no one can even be arsed to be that lame. Weak.

Brighton, Poole Town and Cowes FC. Basically as many southern teams as possible.

Christ, this is the most tedious, self-important post-match thread ever.

Big fan of Tadic, but I'm not yet persuaded he is our best no.10. Mainly because I don't trust him to finish chances from 6-10 yards out, so the central position is a bit wasted on him. I'd keep him on the left.

The club should only send out emails when we win. Easy solution. Sigh.

We're going to win this. Please, God.

I'm beginning to think it's possible that we won't get relegated this season.

I hope we get this over the line. Will cheer me up a lot.

Am I alone in being okay with us selling JRod for £10m and buying Gabbiadini for £14m? Sure, I'd like to have both. But if I can only have one, I'm kind of cool with it.

In theory, couldn't a new cynical owner seek to get all the players off the books, pocket the transfer fees and reduce the salary bill by 98%, field a bunch of amateur players, pocket the profits (basically the Sky TV and parachute money and the transfer fees) and possibly even run up a ton of debt? Once the parachutes run out, sell the club and stadium to anyone willing to buy it. I'm not aware of any laws against doing something like this - its basically just asset stripping. I'm not sure the football authorities have any rules that would obviously prevent something like this happening either, more's the pity.

That's more like it. Very good performance - even if against the weakest performance I can remember seeing from defending champions. Can I just give a possible defence of the officials for the Morgan own goal? The lino believes Yoshida is in an offside position, but doesn't flag as he doesn't believe he is interfering with play. Oliver believes Yoshida was "active" but is unsure whether he was in an offside position, so rightly consults the lino and then disallows the goal. To my mind, the replays show Maya was level - with only his arm in an "offside position", so the goal should have counted. But I have no problem with how Oliver tried to resolve the issue or why the linesman didn't raise his flag.