SaintBobby

Can see the argument for Lovren and Boruc, but I might argue Lambert is the one player we don't want to see injured. I know some argue he doesn't quite fit into the new style of playing, but we have no other player quite like him and, given we haven't been scoring for fun, I think our attack would look quite toothless without him just at the moment.

Interesting to see comparisons with equivalent fixtures from last year. The projection for end-of-season points tally is absurd though. I think even if we won 15 games in a row, we'd still be projected to finish only 6th or 7th. If Man Utd lost their first 23 games, they'd still be projected to stay up comfortably.

Don't know the stats, but I'm always sceptical of these assertions about "starts", as the length of a "start" seems to be a movable feast. If you win your first game 5-0, it's your best "start" for 100 years. You then lose your next five games and it becomes your worst "start" for 25 years.

Corrected for you :-)

Good shout. I'm sure "we" agreed on just that point. Unanimous.

I'm going less this season. I live in London and a lot of games are on TV. This is (a) disruptive and (b) okayish even if I stay at home cos I can still watch the game. So, I skipped West Ham and will also skip Fulham.

Attendances have been very poor this season. Genuinely not sure why. Failure to sell out - even at pretty high prices - is concerning. Agree this puts any idea for stadium expansion on hold for a while at least.

He's rubbish. I'd rather have Paul Wotton up front. Sigh.

Right now, I'd be happy just to keep what we have. I still haven't given up on Ramirez, but if the club has then finding a suitable replacement should be the main piece of action.

Everton. I didn't expect Martinez to settle so quickly and thought the loss of Fellani would hurt them. Kind of expected them to end up mid table ish, but I think now they will be top 6 again and possibly Champs League. Sunderland. Didn't expect them to be so dire. Still furious we dropped two points to them. Arsenal. Potential champions.

No, it isn't. It's irreleavnt whether it's public or private. It is now illegal for a citizen to film the police for the purpose of filming the police. Can't remember the act of Parliament - c2008/9

If United are looking to loan him out in Jan for rest of the season and they are willing to pay 50%+ of his wages, then I'd be inclined to show some serious interest.

Saints for me all day long. England leave me pretty cold. I'd take a draw at Old Trafford and a Poland win if offered it right now.

I'm a Gaston fan....but if we can get £10m for him in January, I'd offload him. That said, if MP thinks he can mould him nin training, maybe it works out in the long-run...

It's just clear proof that policing is over-heavy at football. Obviously, police officers on over-time will disagree. To a man who only has a hammer, every problem is a nail. The ludicrous filming by the police should stop. They are like children playing video games. It's mental

I think that means 0.006% of people at football matches get arrested. (1762 out of 29m+) Practically a crime free zone.

yeah, ur right, was looking at the draw 11/2 on Saints to win is not bad.

I think we're only about 3/1 to win at Old Trafford, when were we ever such short odds at Old Trafford? Still, head says home win.

It will either be MIT or Wonga. I'm happy with either!

Well, I'd be surprised if that's down to MIT making a profit of £31,000 a student. In any event, even if you want to cap English univeristy fees at £9k pa, I'm assuming you wouldn't object to someone setting up their own university and charging £9k per student but only spending, say, £6K per student - i.e. making a £3K profit per student? People would only go if they thought it was worth it - otherwise they could go to a not-for-profit university where all £9K is spent on them. But maybe the profit-making uni has such brilliant dynamism, efficiency, imagination and creativity that their offering is still very attractive. If it is and they make a huge profit, good luck to them. I wouldn't say they were exploiting human misery or desperation ("young people being desperate for an education given the poor state of the job market" etc etc), I'd say they were providing a great service that people wanted to buy.

That seems like a specific complaint against some pharma companies. You wouldn't object to, say, Rocco Forte running a chain of brilliant schools and getting rich from it? It's not "profits before humanity", it's a profit for helping humanity. At the moment, if Rocco Forte's main aim is to get rich, but (say) his main ability would be running a chain of schools, he is going to decide to do something he is less good at (say, running hotels). So, people who enjoy nice hotels benefit from his decision. Rocco Forte also gets rich. And kids suffer because there's less talented people helping them to become numerate and literate. I think it's actually immoral NOT to allow people to make decent profits in services like health and education for just this reason. That's not to say I approve of the behaviour of all companies (we need to make sure they aren't incentivisied to e.g. make people sick only to then financially benefit from curing them for example!) but then the state isn't exactly a paragon of virtue either (see Mid Staffs causing 1,200+ needless deaths, terrible abuse in many state-run children's homes etc etc)

Never really got why we don't like people making a profit from "caring sharing stuff". It's okay to get rich by running a chain of hotels or singing pop songs, but if you're skill is nursing the sick back to health or helping kids become numerate and literate and helping people who have screwed up their finances, you're supposed to do this basically out of altruism and kindness. I think that's the wrong way round, I'd be very happy indeed for people to get stinking rich by, say, running a chain of brilliant schools or superb hospitals. That seems to me to easily as justfiable a way to become a multi-millionaire as, say, being a professional footballer.

I'm not really worried about Wonga profiting from a miserable situation - if they are doing something to try and relieve or mitigate the misery. I mean, doctors and nurses working in A&E are making a living from a miserable situation, trying to patch together people who have been beaten up, got injured or been in a car smash. Are they exploiting people too? I agree that financial mismanagement may be why some people turn to Wonga. Although I know other cases too (one mate is a jobbing actor, he does okay, but his income is VERY lumpy...he might even have already done a month's acting work, knowing the cheque is sure to arrive but hasn't yet...). Plus, like I said above, Wonga isn't the last resort - that would be a truly illegal and viscous loan shark. If Wonga are making a profit because some people are in miserable situations and Wonga make that misery just a little bit less miserable, good luck to them.

Sorry to hear that. But people do make ludicrous financial decisions all the time. Re-mortgaging their house to invest in their own idiotic businesses that would even make the first cut for Dragon's Den etc. You can't ask financial services companies to protect everyone. Someone who goes overdrawn on their standard current account to place a bet doesn't seem to blame Barclays when Northern ireland surprisingly win a football match. Short bridging loans also do a lot of good for a lot of people - especially the self-employed. E.g. knowing you've got, say, £1,000 coming into your bank account in seven days' time, but that you need £200 to tide you over for a week right now. This is the standard sort of reason for a pay day loan. Are we better to say "Sorry, best you go hungry for the next week?".

Nice to see people starting to worry about Saints players doing too well! Sign of very good times.