ant

Boruc certainly played his part in doing England a favour then. Looks like Davis had a bit of a 'mare against Ronaldo:

Is it? We don't all have to hide behind a persona.

Not had any interest whatsoever. I guess few people collect them these days

For direct contact I believe Justin Gladdis is your man - http://www.twitter.com/justingladdis.

Hmm, bit of an odd turn of phrase, that.

I'd second The Alex. Depending on which direction you're approaching the ground from (and whether you can get into it), The Rockstone has a top selection of drinks. Viking Warrior - do you mean The Guide Dog? If so I'd agree. In fact you could quite easily do all three on the way to St. Mary's if you fancy turning up merry.

I’ve been eating a lot of Toblerone. I’ve eaten four and I’ve got two white ones left. I don’t like them as much as the dark ones. I’m not very happy.

I guess it's supposed to serve Alton, given that's the next reasonably-sized place along the A31. I grew up in Alton and played at the same sort of level Boa Morte will do now. Utterly bizarre.

That's just nonsense. The proof? I've had a PS+ subscription on and off since it was first implemented. Obviously if your subscription lapses the free games will no longer be accessible (though anything you've paid money for, even if discounted via PS+, is yours to keep). However as soon as you resubscribe the old free content will be bumped to the top of your downloads list and be playable again.

The tiered system is fine. If you go to lots of away games you get first dibs. ST holders still get a priority window before general sale.

Agree that loyalty should be rewarded. I'm a season ticket holder but can't justify many away days at the moment. Those that put in the miles supporting Saints deserve the first option to continue to do so. I really want to do Manchester - not so much because of the prestige, more because I've got mates up there that keep telling me the nightlife is awesome so my partner and I would make a weekend of it. However if I can't secure tickets that's my own fault for failing to make enough fixtures beforehand.

Nope, spot on. I'm reliably informed it's the Triumphal March from Aida by Giuseppe Verdi. I know almost nothing about classical music and yet am still aware of the tune so it must be pretty famous! Wanyama himself gave it the seal of approval after Celtic fans started using it.

I tried 4 or 5 times in Block 42 but not one voice joined in. Also attempts at the Wanyama chant were met with blank looks. Neither are particularly difficult. A bright spark piped up with "Osvaldo, wo-oah/Osvaldo, wo-oah/He comes from Italy..." before presumably realising that a) He doesn't really b) It's a poor chant and c) He had no idea what to say for the next line.

Some people pay to see the opposition, not Saints. Sad but true. Sunderland is not a glory fixture and we're at the start of the season, not the business end. Wasn't the pattern identical last year? Aside from the disappointing numbers I thought it was strange that we didn't make much fuss for Osvaldo. Home debut and he gets a polite ripple of applause. No attempt to get any chants going for him.

Some good points. Our system is very fluid and changeable, which it pretty much has to be if you're going to get anywhere in modern football. Today I thought we fell down a little on the pace of our buildup play - at times we looked surprisingly static which certainly didn't help. Expanding on the above - yes, attacking midfielders/CAMs line up on the left and right of the CF (who in turn is sometimes a third, more central CAM) and no, they are not traditional wingers. With a 4-2-3-1 the role of a CAM is to act as an outlet for their third of the pitch's width, often releasing the fullbacks thereafter. When we're on the attack they do not push especially wide; rather their job is to support the striker or to act as a backup striker/pack the box if the actual striker has dropped deeper to receive and distribute the ball. Instead of moving straight along the touchline, their attacking runs should be curved into the box or a diagonal interchange. Essentially it means there's a great deal more flexibility in the sort of the player that can be assigned to the CAM position. On his day Rodriguez does a fantastic job as a CAM because he likes to run at defenders and drifts centrally as he does so (especially effective if a teammate times their run to pull away a defender). With a flat 4-4-2 he'd have no ready-made place in the squad other than as a forward. Ramirez is another good example - on his day, 4-2-3-1 allows him to play a creative role anywhere along that attacking 3. The second half today also showed it may be how we look to fit both Lambert and Osvaldo into the same system - Dani played all the way across that line at various times.

An artist friend has done (what I believe to be) a pretty ace sketch of Lambert's celebration post-England goal. Link to see a scan of it is below: He's selling A4 prints at £7 for collection or £10 including P&P. Gordon Watson just popped 'round to his house to pick up 15 signed copies for a charity auction! Feel free to get in touch with the artist (Karl) via Twitter or send me a PM for other contact details.

Andrex, official... No, wait - Puncheon's gone.

Digging a little deeper I don't doubt the figures are a bit screwy and said as much in the OP. However it does lend some relativity to football money. Maybe it's just me but reams of zeros mean nothing. A few hundred thousand pounds seems to come across as pocket money to the clubs. Putting it in terms of what I earn is much more hard-hitting. Scarily enough the people that put this together are far from college kids: http://www.cleardebt.co.uk

Either way we're reasonably well positioned. Wages and debt no higher than average (assuming we've been sensible with Lovren/Wanyama/Osvaldo); young squad with decent resale value; academy setup that consistently churns out talent. No doubt we would have to make cutbacks if the TV money dried up, but they wouldn't be so severe as most of our peers. Although talk from jealous skates focuses on their hope that we'll go the same way as they did, in reality we couldn't be more different.

A couple of pages of note on this website. This one links to a list of the PL clubs: http://debt.co.uk/football/ You can click on each for a brief overview or go through to their full profile for a deeper run-down. The stats aren't 100% accurate as they state Schneiderlin didn't cost us anything. One of the sources is Sports Interactive (developers of Football Manager), heh. Still, worth a look as a rough guide. This one conveys footballer wages in relation to your own: http://debt.co.uk/football/wages/ May not be new information to some, but I thought I'd post the site anyway since it's quite a neat summary. The level of expenditure in the PL remains just about feasible due to the ever-expanding TV money, but how long until the bubble bursts?

Aren't there time restrictions there on matchdays?

Well I'll be chanting the 'Gimme Shelter' one on Saturday - far and away the best suggestion.

If people are worried about complexity or length, that in isolation could do the trick. It's slow, but then so is 'When the Saints Go Marching In' done properly. Most of the 'Another Brick in the Wall' efforts are pretty worthy too.

Apples and oranges. To make such a direct comparison you have to assume that both clubs are run in a similar manner (a fair wager says they're not). Not to mention that Green, Cesar, Bosingwa and Park are the wrong side of 30 and Remy/Taarabt have... well, 'reputations' that rather precede them. Also bear in mind that the remaining fringe players ('reserves' in old money) will almost all be released next Summer as the majority of their contracts expire in 2014.

If we hadn't bought more than two players, there'd be a dozen more threads before 2nd September moaning about our 'lack of movement in the transfer market' or saying that other teams have done better business than us. Cortese has spoken out enough times about clubs needing to be run sustainably. Of all the decisions made since Summer 2009 how many have given us reason to question his ability to balance the books? Yes, we've spent a lot of money. However all of the early signs point towards Wanyama and Lovren being with their fees. I have every faith that Osvaldo will deliver bang for buck too. In the main or expensive purchases have been players that will hold their stock well. If you believe that we have have been irresponsible (personally I don't), the worst case scenario is moving them on in a couple of years and recouping most of said money.