SaintBobby

It's a bit like Derby. Small-ish city with a surprisingly big following. Because there is absolutely nothing to do in either Derby or Norwich other than watch football.

Sigh of relief. Important win and very good performance across the whole team. Tadic my MotM (mainly for his 1st performance rather than his 2 goals). Only note of caution for me is that Norwich were beyond dire. Truly, utterly appalling team. But you can only beat what's in front of you and we did that with ease and quite a bit of class.

Wasn't VvD cup tied in Europe anyway having played for Celtic who are now in Europa League? I guess if he's determined to play in Europa, this may incline him to stay at Celtic - but my understanding was that he wouldn't be eligible to play for Saints in that competition anyway.

It's certainly been a very poor start to the season. Worries that we are going to be involved in a relegation battle have started to enter my mind.

I'd merge the Europa League and the Champions League. You could do so by adding just one more round of games. The benefit would be that relatively smaller teams such as Saints, Fulham, West Ham etc could strive to regularly get into the top European competition. Having an A-list and a B-list competition means that middling teams can't ever really hope to get beyond the B-list. Since the European Cup became the Champions League, the UEFA/Europa League has become enormously devalued. When the European Cup just included the actual Champions, a case could be made that the UEFA Cup was actually more competitive than the European Cup. Surely, the latter included a handful of truly excellent teams. But the former included a vast swathe of very,very good teams.

I thought Everton were excellent. We were mediocre to slightly poor. If the rub of the green had gone the other way, we might have snatched something. But the truth is we were beaten by a very good team who played exceptionally.

Adequate start. We do need some better defensive players though, let's hope we get 1 or 2 in shortly.

Not worried about West Ham. They will probably lose. Even if they don't, I'm sure we will be given the nod (on 22 v 23) if that's decisive. Am worried we won't be in the top 22 though. That is a (potentially) nasty gig. And I really want group stage.

Make sure you guys can all sing your hearts out tomorrow night. Then you're allowed 2 hangovers :-)

Why is that clear cut? Saints are paying a hugely underperforming member of staff £70K a week. So the club should extend this lunatic inability to pay people their productive worth to waiters, bar staff, cleaners and toilet attendants? Or is it better to just say, heck, Ramirez isn't worth £70k a week? Rather than spreading the underperform/overpay meme through out the club?

I haven't checked the employee details, but let's say there are 50 full time equivalents on the minimum wage. The club could hand over an additional c £2,500 per annum in salaries or, instead, say donate an additional £2,500 to a worthy charity. It's not obvious to me that the former is the morally proper thing to do.

I don't understand why this applies within a specific company rather than, say, across a city or country. Why should a cleaner at a football club get more money for exactly the same job as a cleaner in a Southampton department store? It seems to me pretty irrelevant that the former employs some highly expensive staff. We have progressive tax to even out poverty/inequality. Saints players on £60,000 a week should be handing over about £25,000 a week in income tax (plus, no doubt, other taxes such as stamp duty when they buy expensive houses). It's this cash that should be used to relieve poverty, not an attempt to fix prices or wages.

UK GDP is measured in real terms. Average income per capita (which isn't quite the same as average wages, of course) is now the highest in history in real terms, I understand (well, if the last quarter's growth stats are accurate).

It's unlikely you'd be held responsible for a sub-contractor murdering babies. If someone from your company buys a coffee and claims it back on expenses, what steps should the employer take to make sure that the café and all it's contractors and sub-contractors pay the living wage (or aren't murdering babies etc)?

It seems to me very difficult to ask employers to make sure al their contractors pay the living wage. Even if you thought this was a good idea (I don't), it's devilishly hard to know where to draw the line. What if your contractors sub-contract, for example? And why not extend the principle to all economic activity? If the company pays to put up some of its staff in a hotel for a night for some work-related matter, does it need to be sure the hotel is a living wage employer? (the company has effectively contracted the hotel to provide a service, after all). Or that the cleaning company employed by the hotel is a living wage employer? Or that the various companies providing the hotel with food, drink, toiletries etc are all living wage employers?

Hmmm. Well, were to start? And apologies to take ages to reply. The economy isn't in recession and hasn't been for some time. There is growth of about 2-3% per annum, which is good in historical terms and there is also real wage growth. UK GDP per capita is now higher than at any time in history. Negotiating power to push wages up to the actual level of productivity is pretty good. Especially so, actually, in relatively low-skilled, generic jobs. If you're a cleaner and your cleaning is actually worth £10 an hour to your company, your employer might begin by offering you £7, but would be foolish to let you leave and suffer a net loss of £3 an hour by doing so. There is a widespread market for cleaners, bar staff etc. If you're worth £10 an hour, there will be dozens of employers willing to offer u more than £7. (It's trickier if you're in a highly specialised area of work with only one or a very small number of possible employers). The morals are ambiguous. A profitable company could choose to pay employees more than their labour is worth as an act of benevolence, but this carries an opportunity cost. For example, if a company chooses to reduce or cancel dividend payments in order to increase its payroll, this is likely to reduce the value of pension funds. It's not necessarily wrong to give workers more money and pensioners less money, but neither is it obviously the right thing to do. Similarly, a company could decide it can realistically increase its prices to pay higher salaries, thereby impoverishing its customers to the benefit of its workforce. Again not obviously morally wrong, but not necessarily the most benevolent strategy either. On your last point, I think you misunderstand the concept entirely. It's not that employers should pay someone who has seven kids more for exactly the same job/performance as a single person, that would be grossly unfair. Rather, the prevailing market rate for the job (and its terms and conditions) will probably attract different demographics. So, you will tend to find that lowly paid, junior bar work is often undertaken by young people or students. Paper rounds are usually carried out by the very young etc. Doing many hours of charity work is quite a rarity for those in their 30s and 40s (who tend to be time poor) but more common amongst relatively affluent retirees etc. I don't know if you think volunteering should be banned altogether. After all, paying an hourly wage of £0 to someone who is doing something useful and productive for your organisation must be the height of exploitation, no?

It's all good. It's damned hard for us to finish higher than 7th tbh....the six teams who finished above us last season will all expect to do so again. And we have a few teams maybe snapping at our heels. Everton? Stoke? Swansea? I think we will probably finish somewhere around 7th - 10th. To answer the OP's protracted question - That is where the club is now.

Not a punch the air/amazing signing. But pretty damned good cover. I'd still like us to sign another CB. At about the £10m mark. But Caulker as 3rd/4th choice is fine by me.

Is it true that Saints have now scored 16 goals without reply for the first time in our history? (MLG must know?)

It is true that we could play anything from just two games to about a dozen or so matches in the Europa League. But, we could also play anywhere from 2 to about a dozen games in the domestic cups, so I don't think the level of uncertainty is enormously greater this season. We're likely to play 6 or 7 additional games this season. It could be a bit more than this, or a bit less. Obviously, as the season unfolds, we will prioritise or deprioritise different competitions. If we're are knocked out of the Europa League at the group stage with two games to go, we aren't likely to field strong teams in those last two games. In contrast, if we have made it to the Europa League quarter finals and are clearly going to finish between 9th and 12th in the premier league, we may rest key players rather than field them in increasingly less important league matches. Overall, I think we have greater opportunities to bleed through some youth players as a result as qualifying for Europe. Not necessarily in European matches themselves, but in other matches (3rd or 4th round of the Capital One Cup) as part of a squad rotation strategy.

Paul Wotton. Legend.

Dell-sized mentality.

Me neither

I think Google covered the story. That's where I got my info from, anyway....

Having weighed it all up, I don't think this match is going to happen. It's just more internet rumours and mongs, sadly.