SaintBobby

I'm still a mild pessimist, I think 8th is around about the best we can hope for.

Arsenal Liverpool Chelsea Man City (Saints about 8th)

18. West Ham (even though that's as likely as Man United to be relegated...or was that last year?) 19. Cardiff 20. Crystal Palace Hull will survive IMHO, they won;t be top ten, but I think they'll make it. Surprised that folk think Norwich might drop - I disagree. But maybe they were overrated at the start of the season.

Agreed. The worst draw we could have got. Brilliant spot. I doff my cap to you, sir. (cretin)

If folk are so adamant that we wouldn't decline and would be really keen for the extra games and revenue, why did we make it plain that we wouldn't accept a fair play slot last season? Because it would be unfair/unsporting?

I was intending to go. But I'm not sure I have enough loyalty points. I'm not even sure how to find out how many such points I have. Confused and disllusioned. Ah well...:-)

I'd prefer transfers to loans. But I'd make an exception for Zaha. He would bring a new ingredient to the side - blistering pace. Puncheon+++ basically.

Too true. If only we had Barry running the football side of things, just think how well we would have done in the last three or four years. I don't mind Cortese, but it's damend frustrating that he doesn't recognise and promote a football genius such as Barry. I, for one, am utterly gutted. An opportunity thrown away.

Don't have a strong opinion myself. But interesting that MP implied a couple of weeks back that he wasn't too keen on Europa League (although really just saying he'd prefer the CL, I guess). Additionally, didn't we say last season that we wouldn't take the fair play slot even if we'd won it?

I thought pitch sizes were all identical in the PL these days...or does that come in next season?

QPR at home last season was absolutely nowhere near our worst performance.

Thoughts on this (double) question? I can see that it might impede our forward progress in the league next year if we were to, say, come 6th and qualify and participate. On the other hand, could/should we basically just play our second string in Europe (Kelvin, Yoshida, Cork, Lee, Hoovield, Chambers, Fox, Guly, Ramirez (?!), Isgrove etc etc)? (Also, anyone know what the rules are? Would we be forced to take part? Would we be under any obligation to play our "strongest XI"?)

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.