ant

I got Juan Mata on both attempts. To be fair I'm quite happy with that.

He can speak a lot more English than he lets on. The guy's a perfectionist and won't settle for a ham-fisted grasp of what he wants to convey. It's clearly not affecting his ability to do the job and I'd be amazed if he doesn't speaky the lingo by August.

Why?

Whether or not they speak at the average person, I sincerely hope they never speak for us. I can't abide their beliefs on Europe, immigration, law, health, education, economics/tax, defence, energy/climate change, social issues... Does that cover it? I find their manifesto abhorrent. As much as politicians in this country have made a) a hash of things and b) by and large become rather disconnected, the pantomime villain portrayal has gone too far if it allows wretches like Farage to get a foothold.

No elections in Southampton city so I couldn't vote. Moving to Hedge End in July though so was glad to see the Botley and Hedge End seat remains Lib Dem and saddened that 3 of the 7 Eastleigh district seats are now UKIP. I don't really understand why people flip-flop between parties. For me, the left wing (or possibly centrist-left) values are so deeply ingrained that I could never support a right wing party with my vote. I'm not a fan of the Lib Dems nor how they've conducted themselves, but what they stand for is more closely aligned to me than the other candidates so I'm happy enough. Allegedly UKIP were the so-called protest vote, but doesn't that make it rather moronic to vote for them if they're diametrically opposed to your beliefs? Similarly this applies when judging a vote on the charisma of the person standing. So if they've got a nice smile you're prepared to overlook their proposals? Surely it's better to vote for what you believe and have the convictions to back it up. Several people I've spoken to on this have merely picked up soundbites, often originally reported with little basis in reality, and lacked the ability to articulate beyond this poorly sourced trash. They didn't have opinions of their own nor the ability to form a cohesive argument, it was all relayed 'information'. To UKIP's credit they've pounced upon an opportunity and found their niche, I just find it scary that there's such a dark undercurrent for them to tap into in the first place.

It's very easy to forget that he's only 23 years old. Tremendous attitude and his performances this season has spoken for themselves. If you believe in sports statistics he's one of the top 3 or 4 central midfielders in the division.

I agree. It probably wasn't the right time to sign Forren so another CB would've been handy, but overall it was probably better to let the squad settle.

We use the U2/Green Day version on matchdays don't we? Kicks in at about 1:41. I've got a cropped MP3 of it somewhere.

Interesting that Pochettino supposedly declined the chance to sign any more players in January. Puts a different spin on the flap some got into on here when it became clear we were sticking with what we had.

Uprising is correct. Probably the last song Muse released that I can tolerate (long time uber-fan, can't stand the newer material).

I'm up for this!

Well for one, if Lambert scores a single goal in our final matches his total will only have been beaten 4 times in the last 15 years of top flight football we've had. Two more and he'll only have been bettered 7 times in 22 seasons. Not bad for a player with no top flight experience prior to August.

Quite right, that man. The short-sleeved version was even worse.

You can do it on matchday if that's easier, although obviously the later you get there the longer it'll take to queue. I've been with a group where one had to upgrade from a kids ticket to a full adult and had no problems. Can't imagine policy will have changed as I'm sure the club would prefer you to pay more!

Funny how it took so long for people to catch onto the emergent standard of domestic German football. Jamie Redknapp stating that "Lewandowski has announced himself to the world" was particularly laughable. Agree with most of the OP but the 50+1 rule really doesn't relate to fan ownership and essentially removes the competitive nature from the league - in the long term Bayern will inevitably win out because nobody can compete financially. Ah, but Dortmund won the last two titles! Yep, so Bayern nick in and sign their best player. You have to bear in mind that their commercial revenue is roughly equal to United's and Liverpool's combined. No team can compete with that for more than a couple of seasons. You could argue that this gulf is little worse than what the PL has and I'd agree to an extent, but I'd rather see the 50+1 ruling's rough edges smoothed before we wholesale move to implement it here. Anybody that says The Yellow Wall isn't impressive has to be kidding themselves.

Can't believe a pitch invasion would even be mooted for a mid-table finish! Sounds incredibly tinpot, definitely stay in the stands.

A couple of years ago I found an interesting article discussing 'relative age effect' i.e. kids born in September to December often have an advantage over those that came into the world closer to the end of the academic year. Given that they're nearly a year older they're often bigger, more physically able and shade out the more technically skillful types. Ah, here it is: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/jun/19/fa-plans-age-group-football Supposedly the FA were looking to initiate a shake-up and Spurs seem to have their share of Summer babies, but I'd be willing to bet many academies still fall prey to simple fallacies. There's plenty of reasons why players could be worth taking another look at. So long as this initiative doesn't cost the earth and we don't end up with too many 'Nile Ranger' types at the club, I can't see how it's anything other than a positive step. 16 is no age to throw a player onto the scrapheap.

Thought attendances would drop off now that we're safe, why has it gone so mad? Ah well, season ticket.

So roughly what percentage do we think the fans actually own? I see there's a few media outlets starting to trot out the skates' self-perpetuated 'biggest supporter-owned club' nonsense. No point concluding this thread - they'll surely be back in trouble in the blink of an eye. You have to wonder what sort of antics they'll get up to this weekend... They'll burn through that trust money before you can "parachute payment" at this rate.

Ohhh, the holy goalie! Ohhh, the holy goalie! Ohhh, the holy goalie! Artur Boruc - Saint for life? Cracking news. Feels pretty good to be a Saints fan right now.

I'll see if I get a bit of time at lunch...

Was a fan of the current kit from the day it was announced and it's only grown on me more as I've watched us play in it. The photo of Lambert's celebration after scoring at The Etihad has become quite iconic, if we'd held them at bay it'd rank as an all-time classic.

Didn't think it was possible to feel much better today but this'll do it. Forever in our shadow.

After P*mpey's FA Cup win I was sat on a train to Fratton because my girlfriend was at P*rtsmouth uni and lived in Southsea. Saints had just had a rather undignified season in Championship, staying up by the skin of our teeth in that match against Sheffield United. It was one that I'll never forget, but not because it filled us with hope. All of the warning signs suggested that we were heading for ruin. I had to sit in a carriage full of joyous blue-clad inbreds and squirm. Stupidly we went shopping the next day and got stuck behind the open top bus and a sea of skates. Funny how they seem to have rather less fans than that now. It hurt. Why them? How had they been able to get to that level? Well now we know. Some may say that we should remember where we were a few short years ago and take a more pragmatic approach in how we react to P*mpey's latest relegation. NEVER. Our administration situation was different; our debts were paid for a start! A friend called me out this morning for celebrating P*mpey's demise, saying that we'd be nowhere without the Liebherr money. As a matter of a fact from the time of our takeover to promotion to the PL, by balancing departures against purchases we made a £2.57m profit on players. Any sales were assets at the time of admin or academy players, nothing to do with the Liebherr money. P*mpey did not learn their lesson and at no time have they cut their cloth to fit. They point to the 'crooks' that mismanaged and ransacked the club, yet at no point has their philosophy changed: 'punch above our weight to sign players, we'll deal with the fallout later.' Well now is the time to deal with it. You can cry to the Football League and the PFA and the Court of Human Rights for all I care. You have reaped what you have sewn and I for one am ecstatic.

Can't get much more in depth than that blog post - the statistics in isolation don't tell the whole story and the final paragraph is especially poignant. All in all it's a very good website, been tracking it all season. Is it run by anybody on here?