stevegrant

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Won't be many of those

Apparently it's a minor traffic thing, appealing against a fine for using unsuitable tyres or something along those lines.

Tbf, Barker was sacked by Crawley.

We "rested" them all in that game to avoid injuries and yet they've all got injured anyway, so as it turned out we might as well have played them in that game for all the good the rest did them.

Away at a ground I've not been to.

And this couldn't be posted in the match reaction thread because...?

He's got a valid point with his sarcasm about "Sky Sources", they've basically just nicked the "news" (easily obtained from oddschecker or reading reports and tweets from any of the local reporters) and claimed it as their own.

Interesting... this screenshot from 2 minutes ago: Around 85 tickets left in the family section as well, albeit all single tickets so not entirely sure if they're actually able to sell them.

It would be interesting to see how many ticket purchases are made for just one ticket. I'd expect the rate to be much higher at somewhere like the Mayflower where, realistically, you're not going to go on your own, whereas it's not particularly unusual to do so at a game. Considering there are a number of flaws in the system already, adding a feature like that (that's potentially pretty complex to implement) to the mix seems unlikely, sadly.

First time for everything...

Referring to yourself in the third person is a bit weird, to be honest.

Oxford have bizarrely given Chris Wilder permission to talk to Pompey. Genuinely baffled by that.

Next news story will be Pompey making an approach to Bristol City to enquire about Cotterill's availability...

For the Villa game, they've only released a small block of around 300-350 tickets which goes back as far as row V and across 17 of the 28 seats in the block. I believe 17 is the maximum number of seats allowed from an exit for health and safety, so the segregation netting will presumably start next to that. Quite surprised they even released those tickets considering there's still around 1200 seats available elsewhere in the ground. One of the problems the club suffers from since they brought in the new ticketing system which allows you to pick your own individual seat rather than being automatically assigned them is that people instinctively want space between them and strangers, so if they're buying 3 or 4 tickets and they see a section of 7 or 8, they'll pick the seats in the middle of that available section rather than at the edge, which then prevents someone else who wants 4 tickets from buying next to them. It's particularly problematic in the family section, not one block in the family section (blocks 20-27) has completely sold out this season because there has always been odd seats dotted around all over the place which can't be sold.

It was particularly strange that they approached Newport to speak to Edinburgh yesterday when he made it pretty clear in the press a week ago that he wasn't interested.

Saints will get blocks P5, P6 and P7, so obviously P4 will be the closest to the main away section.

The lower part of block 43 is now available, an extra 350-odd seats. Would expect the upper part to be available for any walk-ups, although there are still loads of seats in the Chapel end.

Agreed, and suspect this is why we saw very little speculation about the futures of the likes of Schneiderlin, Lambert, Lallana, etc during the summer. I do fully expect Shaw to eventually go to Chelsea (two reasons: firstly, he and his family are massive Chelsea fans; secondly, they're one of the very few clubs who could afford him), but with the transfer fees we're able to demand these days, I don't see anyone being prepared to pay. While we are able to offer the players first team football and have the team competing at a high level which gives them international (and possibly continental club) experience, and can also ensure they are suitably well-rewarded for doing so, I think we'll be able to keep hold of the vast majority of them. Also agree with what's been written about our summer transfer business - we clearly identified three areas of the pitch we wanted to strengthen, and signed players who were clearly better than other players in the existing first-team. At this level, you generally have to pay a good price for that. I'd far rather this strategy than fall into the trap of bulking up the squad with players who are no better than we already have, as that breeds complacency and a lack of competition for places. Osvaldo has come in as the marquee attacking signing, and yet Lambert and Rodriguez have (with the occasional crap game every now and then) stepped up their game and largely kept him out of the side, taking advantage of the settling-in period he probably needs. Lovren's arrival made Fonte up his game, which has resulted in Yoshida not playing a single league game this season, when many would probably have expected it to be the other way around. Of course, having started from a relatively low base at the start of last season, you could argue that only signing three players at the start of this term has meant that we're a little light in terms of squad depth, which is a fair point. We were relatively fortunate last season in that I think we only had Cork (at the start of the season) and then Lallana (over Christmas) out injured for any length of time - all of a sudden we're starting to pick up a few knocks at a time when the games come thick and fast, and against superior opposition we've looked a little bit jaded. To be expected, and I don't see any reason to panic after narrow defeats to two of the title favourites. If Villa were to beat us on Wednesday without us mustering a shot on target then I'd be a bit concerned, but I see no reason for that to happen.

The fixture list for that round of games is: Arsenal v Crystal Palace Cardiff v Norwich Everton v Aston Villa Fulham v Saints Hull v Tottenham Man City v Chelsea Newcastle v Sunderland Stoke v Man United West Brom v Liverpool West Ham v Swansea Man City v Chelsea and Newcastle v Sunderland are certainties to be televised, which leaves a potential 3 further televised games.

Fulham is a slightly odd club in that they have a "neutral" section which is in the same stand (Putney End) as the away allocation, and is not segregated from the away section, so it basically merges into one big away end when the visiting team has a big support. Register on the Fulham online ticket site (Link) and then you'll be able to buy tickets in the Putney End when they go on sale to home/neutral fans. Their site currently has all of their home games up to the one immediately before our game there on sale, so I would imagine they'll put those tickets on sale in the next couple of weeks.

With two home games in 4 days, the other against one of the title favourites, I can't say I'm particularly surprised. If you're going to pick one or the other, City would be the one most would pick, I imagine. I think it's quite telling that a third of the tickets remaining for the Villa game are in the family section. Midweek at the beginning of December isn't ideal if you want to take your kids along to a game - it's the sort of situation I suspect many would pay the extra few quid and watch the higher-profile game on the Saturday instead.

Er, I did.

Still loads available elsewhere in the ground so no point opening that section up yet. It's much cheaper for the club to have a whole block of segregation than to employ extra stewards etc.

Where did you get that from? It's absolute nonsense. Still more than 1500 tickets remaining, and that's from a total of around 6500 available on a match-by-match basis (essentially, we've still got around a quarter of the tickets left to sell). Worth noting that Villa have only taken an allocation of 2200 (and haven't sold out), so there's a reasonable chance this'll be our lowest league attendance of the season. Less than 300 left for Man City, half of which are in block 43 in the allocation returned by Man City.