ant

Yeah, I saw some of the posters dotted around the place. They're in the middle of a 16-day run of gigs at the moment with profits going towards the PST. Specifically didn't spend any money there that I didn't have to Very true about the Wedge - virtually all of the bands I used to see there are playing venues like the Joiners, Talking Heads, Brook and Cellar now.

That Basingstoke one's horrendous, but I reckon Hull might have it licked:

Though there's many valid points in the OP, that's nonsense. It was true some time back, but since our nPC season Adam has tracked back consistently and competently to offer support. Before his injury issues last year he was amongst our best in terms of tackle and interception totals/ratios. Still, I don't see an awful lot of point mulling this over now as pre-season's not the right sort of time to make bold judgements.

Plenty of Portsmouth bucket rattlers outside the We Are Scientists gig at the Wedgewood Rooms last night - I know they're back to their level but really, how tinpot can you get? More money to spend on player wages before paying creditors their fraction of a penny in the pound, I wouldn't wonder. Now and again I actually feel sorry for the way their fans are exploited. They're scrabbling around for a few quid in the misguided belief that it's a fan-owned club, all while the HNW individuals make a bob or two on their investment.

John Guidetti seems well down the pecking order after City's endless Summer of signing strikers. Rumours that Valencia are in for him but CHDAJFU?

Beyond the inherent flaws of the policies, this commences censorship by deception; they are using an emotional issue to wrestle governmental control over the Internet. As responsible adults we can all decide where legal pornography sits on our moral compass. Parents already have a multitude of tools available to protect children - if they choose not to use those, that's on them. Enforced restrictions will breed complacency and may ignorantly be assumed a catch-all, which is dangerous in itself. As a government, educate and inform such that your people are capable of making their own measured decisions. Oh, and consider properly regulating the media's output while you're at it. The Daily Mail heralds Cameron's policies a success - all the while continuing to sexualise teenage girls across its entire website. Do some proper research into what you are proposing. With regard to the exploitation of children, tackle the source of a problem by pursuing the criminals, not imposing ridiculous restrictions upon the public. All of this nonsense comes from the leader of the party that cut the budget of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre! Or as I've seen spectacularly mentioned elsewhere, this nothing but Tory-blue waffle.

It's an interesting idea to combat exploitation of specific players but the implementation will be key. Sadly unless EA fix the core gameplay, it'll likely only end up causing everybody to pick whichever chemistry style affords the biggest pace increase. Then you can watch in despair as your technically balanced side is torn apart time and again by a pace abuser that just uses diagonal through balls humped over the top. Fully agree that the handicapping system needs to go.

I don't think it's a case of whinging - more that most people have a finite supply of money and have to carefully choose how to distribute it.

Quite a chunk to pay for a friendly, especially if you've got kids over the age of 11. I'm always up for watching Saints play but am wavering on this one - the money would probably be better used towards an away day. I suppose the standard should be reasonable since this match is only a week before the new season starts.

After seeing the OP's tweet about this recently, I tried my luck in the club shop by asking for the discount on a home shirt (to no avail). Definitely seems wrong that a purchased 2013-14 season ticket isn't yet valid for discount on 2013-14 kit. I'm of the opinion that it's a deliberate tactic to make impatient people go "sod it, it's only a fiver extra" and just pay up. I've collected our shirts since I was old enough to know what football is but am tempted to give this one a miss now.

Given that the alternative company's coach travel was dirt cheap last year, I imagine the club wouldn't take much of a hit if they organised something like this. Good initiative.

Get paid to (anonymously) act the fool AND watch Saints? Sounds pretty good to me. Mind you, my season ticket's bought and paid for so there's not a lot of point in applying.

There's reports that Villa and Newcastle have expressed interest in Bafetimbi Gomis. Wouldn't say no if we moved in - only one year left on his contract and Lyon are definitely looking to sell. Slightly older than some of the players we've been looking at, though with similar attributes to Lukaku.

I can't wait for the U-turns on Ramirez.

Great stuff. Are you on Twitter by any chance?

I've just moved out to Hedge End but spent the best part of 7 or 8 years drinking at The Hobbit, The Shooting Star (formerly Kolebka), The Dungeon, The Alex and more recently The Rockstone. Overall I have to say I was happy enough. Between The Talking Heads, The Brook, The Joiners and The Cellar, Southampton is really picking up for gigs. When I moved down here you generally had to go to Southsea, Brighton or London for decent bands, but most of them are getting booked here now. Looking at my calendar, there's at least half a dozen Southampton gigs I want to go to in the next couple of months. I don't think the city's quite as bad as has been made out - really it's just disconnected. Random bits and pieces strewn across the place with little thought, not least the hastily-built parts in the areas that were worst affected by the war. With a concerted, focused effort over a few years I genuinely believe it'd be easy to inject some soul into Southampton. Still, at least there's some rhinos dotted about the place now.

Top article. Had a pull through some more stats and it looks like Cork only got one yellow card last season. Pretty remarkable given that he retrieved the ball more times than any other PL player. Also found this site quite interesting: http://www.whoscored.com/Teams/18/Show/-Southampton You can click on each individual player and it gives a breakdown of their characteristics (strengths/weaknesses) and playing style. It's not 100% accurate but overall is surprisingly insightful.

It's safer than driving on the roads so I presume you're going to ask the club to return that new coach as well? From now on we'll only play home games and just take the hit of defaulting away matches.

I'd say we need all three anyway; strength in depth is so important in the PL. Cork, Schneiderlin and Wanyama will all get plenty of playing time. We were found desperately short when Jack was injured at the start of last season and very lucky Morgan lasted the distance.

According to Transfermarkt, our playing staff's value is approximately £84,000,000. Seems inflated to me, but I would say a valuation of roughly £80m for the club's assets combined (including stadium, training facilities, land owned and so on) sounds perfectly reasonable. Even given the money the Liebherr estate has ploughed in and the loans they essentially wrote off, that's one hell of a return for four years of ownership. Assuming we don't inflate our wage bill too far, the bottom doesn't fall out of the subscription TV market and we can stay in the Premier League for a few years, there's every chance the profit margin will continue to rise (albeit at a much slower rate). That's without considering Academy products and the rising stock of our best young first team players.

The pricing's different per section and I did say Wings/Goals. For me the renewal price was £604 - the equivalent cost of separate tickets is £688.

On my Wings/Goals season ticket I save £84, getting around 2.5 games 'free'. Sounds about right, plus there's no faffing with buying individual tickets then.

Sorry Steve, I definitely can't make this one now.

Bleurgh, only available at 1600x900. I asked the club for 1920x1080 versions on Twitter and got no response. Had a look around Google a few weeks ago and there's nothing decent about. I'm going to design my own if I get chance, will post them here if I do.

As I've already said in this thread, I really don't mind the new kit. However it doesn't seem right that season ticket discount apparently doesn't apply in the club stores until the start of August. 2013/14 STs should surely be valid for a 10% deduction on the 2013/14 kit from the day they're issued?