SaintBobby

Lol. What's his salary £300K a week? Still, never say never....:-)

Sure, but the market prices for next year have altered accordingly. Leicester are about 30/1 as opposed to 5,000/1 this season. Saints are around 120/1 on Betfair (we usually start the season at 1,000/1). I think West Ham are about 60/1. These are all long-shots, but the aggregated price of a "smaller" club winning the league next year is probably about 6 or 7/1. A long shot, but not an insanely long shot. Put another way, the market prices now suggest it is quite likely that a club other than one of the top 6 (Man C, Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs, Liverpool) will win the league in the next 4 or 5 years.

I am unsure whether Leicester winning is a "once in a century" sort of event or whether English football is levelling out. We would need a risk adverse accountant to crunch the numbers, of course! However, I'm wondering whether the huge influx of TV money makes it more likely that teams of the size of Leicester, Saints or West Brom could perhaps win the league more frequently in the future. The fact that a higher percentage of revenue for each club is based on (roughly equal) TV rights is, potentially, a major leveller. It might be that in the 1990s, Man Utd were paying their players, say, £20K a week and we were paying players £2K a week. Now, they are paying players £150K a week and we are paying £50K a week. The cash gap is bigger but the ratio is much tighter. Maybe it is eminently achievable for a club with a £100m pa turnover to outperform a club with a £400m pa turnover. Or at least considerably easier than a club with a £10m pa turnover outperforming a club with a £100m pa turnover.

I thought Tadic was epic. Surprised to see Long winning the MotM vote on here. I think I might just have got used to him being brilliant, so am perhaps taking him for granted. Agree that he could be next season's Vardy, if he could only improve his finishing by a notch - he is otherwise fantastic. Defenders must hate playing against him.

Despite all the compelling evidence above that this "source" is talking complete and total made-up bull$hit,, I think we have to commend this chap for having the balls to start a thread. Never listen to that "source" again...and please go back and ask for an explanation as to why he was 1000000% utterly wrong. Thanks.

Am conflicted about this. I want Norwich to stay up, but want Arsenal top 4 not Man Utd. Guess I'll just limit myself to cheering on WBA.

Brilliant idea. Good luck!

Seems to me they'd be crazy not to rest their top players. It's a bit odd to prioritise next year's UCL over this year's (this could be their best chance to actually win the Champions League in many years) Furthermore, they are pretty damned likely to end up in the top four even if they lose to us. Perhaps they will further weaken their line up if either Arsenal slip up v Norwich or Man Utd are failing to beat Leicester.

I think the encouraging thing is that even with that nightmare run at the end of 2015, we're on track for a solid 8th place. The issue is whether we can ever really "push on". It's easier to go from an average of 50 points to an average of 60 than it is to go from 60 to 70, I guess. Nevertheless, in our four seasons back in the Premier League we are averaging around 9th place. That's way better than I expected when we went up in 2012.

Yep, that's fair enough. I don't even mind Yoshida and Stekelenberg as back-ups. But beyond those back-ups, there is absolutely nothing at all. Whereas is we lose, say, Jay and Austin for months on end we still have a good attack. I really want to buy some cover at centre-back, we should have 5 decent players who can play there (even if one of them is also a DM or LB/RB). I think we currently only have 3, given Gardos has been out all year. If we had an injury to VvD and a suspension for Fonte, who the heck covers those positions?

Ok, not quite true...Crystal Palace have beaten us twice this season, given the FA Cup defeat at SMS. But with 3 games to go, no team has done the double on us in the league, right? That's quite a weird stat - have we ever got this deep into a season before without a league opponent taking maximum points from us? Have we ever gone a whole season in any league without being "doubled" by an opponent? Of course, all of our next 3 games are against teams who have beaten us once in the league, so we'd need to avoid defeat in all of our next three games to get through the whole league season without being "doubled".

Trying to work out how we might get into a situation whereby we hand the title to Leicester with a result at Spurs. There are loads of ways either Leicester or Spurs can win the league, but for us to specifically have a role, I think we need to go to WHL with either of the following: 1. Spurs six points behind Leicester and we win or draw 2. Spurs five points behind Leicester and we draw If Spurs are >6 and

The mystery for me is that our attacking options look way, way better - and deeper - than our defence. But the goals for/against tally tells a very different story.

I'm still laughing at the mere idea that Southampton play even remotely like a Pulis Stoke team. I don't think anyone else in the world shares that view, even in jest.

I think you mean "Why not?" not "Why not." An example of very poor punctuation.

Think we need 9 points to equal last season's total, but last season we just squeaked 7th and it was a tad unusual for this position to be good enough for Europe. If you want us to qualify, you probably need Liverpool to screw up badly in the Premier League but not win the Europa League and Man Utd to win the FA Cup. If those things both happen, 9 points might well be enough. If they don't both happen, then 12 points probably isn't enough anyway.

If only we had the imagination of those teams. They're leaving us behind. This is probably because we need to sign players quickly in early June. Or something.

Classic. "Absolute maximum". Lols.

Villa were truly appalling. They could tumble down the leagues. Good riddance. They've been awful for several years and have only stayed up because they have managed to float like a turd.

This thread and opening post just get funnier and funnier with each passing match. A bed wetting classic.

When was the last time we were 2 goals down with 30 mins to go and win? Brilliant.

I think I'd rather skip Europa this season. We got in by a mathematical fluke last season (League Cup and FA Cup winners being in the top 6 and us in 7th) That may happen again, but I hope not. If we storm into 5th place or 6th and are ripping our way up the division, fair enough. But getting into this tournament (which no one much cares about) on some bizarre chain of results that ends with us ahead of, say, Everton on goals scored or goal difference is just a joke. Best avoided.

It turns out that (a) Shane Long was worth £12m and (b) that people paid very large amounts of money to decide these things know much, much more than fans on a website. Neither of these things are particularly surprising. Lock thread?

I'd settle for 0.841 points now. Where do I cash that in?

I'm conflicted on this. Sort of still have an old-fashioned "romance of the Cup" streak in my DNA, but am also noticing I care about it less and less. I also want Saints in as many competitions as possible in the hope of winning silverware. I still cherish the JPT win. So, some random thoughts: 1. Merge the English and Scottish League Cups from round 4 or 5. 2. In the 3rd round of the FA Cup, Premier League teams should always play away to any lower league opposition they are drawn against (in all other circumstances, the team drawn first out of the hat plays at home) 3. Replays in the third round, but decided on the day in all subsequent rounds (prob after extra time, rather than straight to penalties) 4. Premier League teams can only name a maximum of two players in their squad who have not started a league match so far in the season. 5. Bonus points in the Premier League for the winners and also possibly the runners-up/semi-finalists. Say +4 for the winner, +2 for runner-up and +1 for semi-finalists.