chuz

Not a popular opinion perhaps but I'd rather see Downes leave if it meant we could keep either Charles or Jander...

Currently known as Newcastle syndrome....

“The club have decided to recruit a new FAB over the summer, but now may not be the best time to go out for candidates. The current FAB are happy to continue to work as normal until such time as the new Board is appointed." Selflessly offering to extend their tenure instead of appointing new people too….🙈😩

As above (but with a bit more detail)... The tickets are loaded to the Saints Ticket App - just like for normal home games - and will turn up with the barcode eitehr the day before or the day of the game. \ If it is the same as the semi final there will be no printed tickets, but you can load two tickets onto one phone, so you can have yours and your wife's tickets on one phone. My mate has a physical season ticket still as he has no smartphone and for the semi final they sent both tickets to my email to get him in... Hope this helps

I thought that at the time. They showed it in real time and then one replay on the stream I was watching and thought ‘he’s off here, not for the afters but for the elbow’. Then TV focussed on the afters not the (what to call it…) ‘tackle’… Ref must have missed it and thought the afters was worth a yellow…

Pretty much the same for me. Although I know I was not logged in when I joined queue. I suspect theres glitches around the F&F that means they are sometimes greyed out. First time (on phone - around an hour after sales started today) 30 minute queue, got in, tickets allocated but only half F&F can buy - despite all being ST holders. Second time (PC) 8 minute queue, got in, tickets allocated - same again. Tried logging out of account - error message Third time (PC) same as second but 6 minute queue... Fourth time (PC) - 3 minute queue - nobody greyed out but me (and I'm logged in on my accout). Allocated all tickets to others apart from one and clicked BUY. That then worked....received confirmation and all good... I'd advise avoiding the first hour of the sales window and being patient..

Looks like even more teams with something to play for from next season. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c4g00mr00zdo

Not sure why SR cannot see the risks associated with younger players, as well as the upsides... The youngsters we've bough have been valued way too highly and we've typically paid way too much for them... Bazunu, £12 million/Larios £6 million/Edozie £10 million/Charles up to £15 million - and that's just Man City... Wasn't Charles one of the highest transfer fees ever paid by a Championship side when we signed him? With a career total appearances of ONE. (And of course it's true that we got all that back from the sale of Lavia. But in the last three seasons he's played 30 games for Chelsea. Imagine if he'd not gone when he did, and was still here now with an injury record to rival Ross Stewart.....) The other risk that occurs to me (I don't know for sure but I'm sure someone will) is that I suspect youth football places far more emphasis on skill than physicality. Younger buys may be talented but can be out-muscled really easily. Then there's the issue that - assuming they sign 4 year contracts and take a year or two to settle - which is not surprising at that age and potentially living away from home for the first time - then contracts are running down just at the point they might be able to add some value (Shea Charles being the latest example). It's not like we've not made these mistakes before, with the likes of Angus Gunn and others...

This was mentioned in the Sky commentary today, but first time it’s been referenced to my knowledge. Perhaps the commentators was speculating…

Anthony Pulis

And one he is used to by now. I hadn't realised until a few months ago that he's basically been second choice pretty much everywhere he's been as a keeper. In 7 years at Reading he played 70 games. On his various loan spells as a Reading player he only had one season (at Yeovil) as first choice. He's played pretty much as many games for us since 2016 than he has for the rest of his entire career. He's a serial backup...until us Apparently he wasn't on the bench during the last championship season because he was paid a huge weekly bonus for being in the matchday squad. He came in when Bazunu was injured because he was so much better than Lumley..

So I got 2 x tickets for this and these were supposed to be delivered to the ticketing app...nothing so far. Anyone else not got theirs yet...? Or is this another glorious moment for the ticketing department??

Alan McLoughlin - record signing, absolutely crap, went to the Skates - suddenly turned into a footballer.

Like many others met Matty at various times in an around Southampton: bookies on Bedford Place before a game at the Dell (he was injured); M3 Services petrol station (Southbound); outside the Dell before the last home game before 1988 World Cup... Mrs C is a big Newcastle fan and we were once in Malmaison Newcastle when Shearer, Given and Rob Lee walked in for a pint...Mrs C too nervous to speak to them... Lawrie Mac last summer in the back garden of the Three Cups pub in Stockbridge Sorry to take this threat a little off piste but two of my former colleagues bumped repeatedly into two footballers with Saints connections. The first met Kevin Davies in Ibiza and apparently had a wonderful evening's entertainment with him...The second was regularly dating our old friend Nathan Jones when he was right back at Yeovil (circa 2006-7). This was before he was born again as a Christian I'm led to believe. She popped into work one morning with a £10K IWC watch on that he'd lent her...

Clubs usually continue to pay managers as if they were still employed (ie monthly) until a settlement is reached, which is usually a lump sum to terminate enabling the past manager to seek new roles… In the case of Juric I’m led to believe that, on relegation, there was a break clause that either party could invoke…and we did. So he’ll be paid till 30th June, unless Atalanta want him before that… With Martin I’m pretty sure a settlement must have been agreed early March. That’s when he started appearing on Linekar’s podcast/MNF. Before that he’d have been contracted not to do media without the club’s permission, so when the settlement was done, that would have lifted…