ant

Decided this morning to lump in on renewing, being in the privileged position that I don't mind the money being sat in the club. With that said, thought I'd spread the payment across a few instalments since the option's there. But when you select this at the Checkout it says you can't apply your 2019/20 credit. Having scoured the initial sales emails and the season ticket FAQ on the OS, I can't see this mentioned anywhere. I guess it's possible to work around that by both selecting the instalment plan and requesting a refund on last season's credit. Just seems needlessly convoluted.

Guess that money ain't hitting our account "in pounds sterling" then - nor any other currency Gao would care to mention. 🙄 That he unambiguously stated his willingness for the club to accept money of 'unknown' origin (hmm...) probably says a fair amount about the man's moral fibre.

Nope. 😔 https://theathletic.co.uk/1922323/2020/07/13/ornstein-manchester-city-premier-league-chelsea-onana/ Massively missed opportunity.

Some of these are quite fun. Particularly surrounding Ward-Prowse (who I consistently hear being sarcastically referred to as a 'set-piece expert' at games) and Redmond, who apparently never takes anybody on.

Haven't seen it mentioned in this thread yet, but the xG on Ings' effort was 0.05. Which (regardless of what you feel about use of stats in analysis) boils down to 'he made something of nothing'. I think that's part of what makes Danny so potent - you don't have to feed it to him on a plate. Give him the ball around the box and he's more than capable of crafting it into a chance.

It's interesting how perspective frames things, though. In Puel's season, 46 points was seen by most, if not all, as abject failure - mostly because of the dreadful end to the season. This season we started horrendously, then have been in excellent form since the November international break. The positivity has grown across the campaign, rather than tailing off. Which is where we're at now. My initial feeling was to agree that Puel had a much better squad, although when you look at what we ended the final match of 2016-17 with, I'm not sure there's an awful lot of difference. Forster Cedric / Stephens / Yoshida / Bertrand Davis / Ward-Prowse / Romeu / Tadic Austin / Redmond Subs used: Boufal, Gabbiadini, Pied --- Anyway, looking at our Prem record against Brighton I was expecting it to be pretty mixed, but turns out it's 3W, 3D. Could've sworn there was a loss in there, but must just be that any time Murray scores against us it feels like a loss. 2-1 home win, for me.

But he doesn't smile much and phones in his performances... Yeah right. Consummate professional on the pitch and has been frustrated when previous managers/tactics haven't been up to snuff. As have many of us. We've been seriously lucky to have somebody of his standard 'phoning it in' for so long.

Here's one for you, then. Within a week of the 'lockdown' my employer made me redundant. In short, because they couldn't be arsed to run the basic, minimal admin to furlough me. And despite me offering to defer any wages until such time that the government portal was operational and paying out. I've been running on about £150/week since (not any form of benefits - from taking whatever part-time work I could). I support the current measures. I'm able to see that these were necessary to reduce transmission and to avoid overwhelming ICUs. To prevent other avoidable, indirect deaths that could've occurred due to lack of hospital capacity. My finances have taken a tremendous hit, and will take a long time to recover. It will affect future plans from the big (trying to save for a mortgage deposit) to the trivial (such as missing out on the next likely season ticket, for the first time in a decade). The nation's seen more than 30,000 deaths already. More than 30,000 in the space of a couple of months. More than 30,000, when - even if we are past the peak - we'll be living with this virus for a bloody good while yet. More than 30,000, despite the measures that were put in place. Given those factors, how is a projected 250,000+ deaths so implausible, had this action not been taken? Had we not shielded the most vulnerable. Had we not reduced transmission to a minimum. Had we not prevented emergency services from being overwhelmed. Your second and third paragraphs trip over themselves... If you're advocating easing lockdown measures and the economy magically recovering, then businesses would spin back up again; services would be required, purchases would be made and staff would be needed to facilitate that. There'd be a lot of turnover, and people shuffling between jobs, but mass unemployment would begin to settle down. Equally, I find it bizarre that some don't seem to think that deaths on a grand scale would have any effect on economics. Even for those so callous as to call for allowing the virus to ravage those most at risk. More realistically we're looking towards a measured, phased approach back to some semblance of what we're used to. I simply don't understand what's to fault with playing the percentages and safeguarding against a second spike? Anybody that thinks we're going to imminently return to 'normal' needs to give their head a wobble. There is no silver bullet to deal with the situation, and decisions made need to juggle an incredible number of factors. Yes, there must be some semblance of balance. Accordingly the likelihood is that we're going to see varying levels of restrictions placed upon us for many more months to come. Opening everything up again now simply places us right back where we were at the start of March. Measures will be loosened (and, if necessary, tightened) as required, per balancing on that tightrope. Which seems entirely logical and reasonable to me, so long as any adjustments are made in a timely manner. Without delving into the motivation, the papers and associated media have been incredibly irresponsible over the last couple of days in feeding messaging that's not simply not borne of the reality. Today you could already see the effects of that, with more and more people acting like this is coming to a close. It ain't. Not by a long straw.

Speaking of Twitter, I see Le Tiss has been covering himself in glory again. Appears about one stage away from retweeting David Icke.

By and large this thread nails what the club's getting wrong. They would learn far more from taking on board the gist here than through a hundred surveys. With that said there does seem to be one significant element of hypocrisy. Wherein the club's berated for forgetting it's community status, yet also criticised for demonstrating and extolling social values. Like it or not, Southampton's a diverse city, and football isn't just for white men. I don't see that the club having an awareness of the local makeup really detracts from the footballing element in any way. If we're ringfencing football then who are we saying it's being ringfenced for? Are we equating those of other faiths, LGBT fans etc. to being casuals or tourists? Saying that those people aren't already present within our hardcore support? Many are quick to pick up on the supposed failings of minority groups to integrate, yet also criticise attempts to facilitate such integration. Which is a shame, and gives rise to something of a paradox. I don't see any value in failing to welcome anybody that wishes to support us. Our hardcore support of tomorrow - the ones ultimately holding the same ethos as shown in this thread - will come from the Southampton city of today. Written here, you'd think that the majority of our marketing output was aimed at minority groups. When really it's a tiny percentage, with other output perhaps having a general vibe of "all are welcome". TL;DR, I think the thread raises important points about the club's lack of identity and lack of identifiability, but can't equate that with them welcoming all. It's not virtue signalling to be inclusionary.

The concentration of current-player chants was very low. Frankly this shower can get to **** - but it's our club to the death, and the vocal support of that was the only enjoyable part of the evening. It's starting to feel like gutting the lot and going back to square one may be the only way to proceed.

The support was far, far better once half our fans had found the exit. Bearing in mind that this was still prior to half time. I do find it a bit odd that it works like that; it wasn't like those that stayed and sang weren't still physically spread out. Would be interesting to see a breakdown of the motivations for leaving. There's a few I know that follow the club here, there and everywhere, and you couldn't question their dedication. But I bet there was a significant portion that wouldn't come to games if we weren't in the PL.

Yep, will be there. Was initially annoyed at having been moved from Block 46 to Block 15 - though it looks like a benefit now, as I've just realised it's the 'home' end.

Less than 2 pages of posts for a hard-earned point against United, having come from a goal down, and keeping them at bay for 20 minutes with a man less. How many more contributions would this thread have had if we'd crumbled and lost? Having read through, many of the posts here fairly highlight the positives and negatives of the game. Just find it baffling that so many more people are willing to lend their opinions after a loss.

After seeing the OP, was gonna pipe in with a comment along the lines of 'new player, same ****ing thread'. But it appears there's actually a pretty sane contingent here that are willing to give him time. Just hope that translates to attitudes displayed by our fans in the grounds.

Broadly agree with the overarching message and sentiment here, but from what I've quoted it does appear you're comparing apples and oranges. Anybody know what the lowest priced kids ticket was for the match?

That's one hell of an assumption. On exactly the same site as you've linked, there's a case study on those 'cool burn' smoke bombs which explicitly states that they can still cause fires. And that's if it was bought from a reputable source... Other examples burn at tremendous temperatures. Regardless, I maintain it's problematic (and leaves significant room for future escalation) if away fans believe that they're untouchable.

Surprised not to see any mention of this. After the second goal yesterday, a Liverpool fan threw a smoke bomb into Block 42. I caught most of the aftermath, as a rush of enraged Saints fans headed over towards the segregation. Also heard somebody say "he's hit a kid!" One guy in particular properly lost his head. Had to be restrained/escorted away by multiple officers (and didn't cool down in the slightest as he was dragged away). Though I can't 100% verify this tweet, it does tally with my account. Their lot have form with this sort of thing. Obviously they're not specifically targeting minors - but it's pretty ****ing thick behaviour regardless.

Half of this stuff is unenforceable. It's a public front; appeasement. "Look what we're doing". Given the ground's always been all-seater, I don't remember the last time I didn't stand to watch a match. Even in League One when the stewards painstakingly sat down row per row, the first sign of forward play was taken as an excuse for the entire stand to be on their feet again. Does anybody seriously think they're going to eject the entire Northam end, person by person?

Distinctly remember feeling quite chuffed if an evening cup match went to extra time - since I was allowed to stay up until games finished, it was essentially a bedtime extension! Plus it was the beginning of properly falling for football and Saints, so getting bonus time listening to both was a treat. Simpler times and simpler motivations. My strongest single memory was following the final game of the 98/99 'Great Escape' season. I was pre-teen, lived well outside Southampton and my parents didn't give a damn about football - so Solent was a godsend. Despite the anxiety of it all the day sticks with me. I celebrated both of Pahars' goals like we'd won the league (for the second, heading out of the house and sprinting down the street!)

Bednarek simply calms everything down. The formation also seems to afford the centre backs more protection from the midfield. Bit of an odd thing to notice, but it struck me on Saturday that both Jan's stature and the way he runs are really quite reminiscent of (how I remember) Fonte.

Crux.

Mildly wary of anybody that feels their voice is important enough to be delivered directly to the club. 12 people to speak for the entire fanbase... Hmm. Still, from what they've said previously it'll only be trivial off-pitch matters that will be discussed. The whole thing seems like an exercise in appeasement.

The strangest thing for me is this excuse of needing excitement on the pitch in order to vocalise support. For one, that never used to be the case as a Saints fan. If you enjoy chanting then why wait for a supposedly suitable juncture? And if the team is struggling/toiling, that's the perfect time to attempt to lift them! I respect everybody's choice to support how they please and claim no superiority - I'm merely questioning the logic. It's possible too that I'm simply becoming a relic (though being in my early 30s it'd seem odd for that to be the case). But simply put if footballing fanbases can't (in the main) rouse themselves for a FA Cup semi-final then - for my money - a significant appeal of matchday attendance has seeped from the game. The other thing normally said at this point is "well if you don't like it, get it going by making some noise yourself". I do. I did. Not expletive-filled songs. Nothing P*mpey-focused. Normal, well-known examples of the Saints oeuvre. Yet some of the looks I got for piping up...

With the way we played in the Championship we were rarely on the back foot enough to need to defend with the regularity that you face in the top division. Not least when the defence was shielded by two of Scheiderlin, Cork and Hammond. It wasn't just on the left that our full backs played a key part as Richardson got 8 assists that season and Butterfield chipped in with a couple in his cameos. The whole point being that that squad was set up for the full backs to play as secondary wingers. A luxury which paid dividends and was exactly what they were charged with doing. I don't think anybody's defending (fnar) all of his attributes. But to claim he was anywhere near the worst left back we've seen is revisionist crap.