stevegrant

Not surprised we've only taken the smaller allocation based on those prices, and a midweek game. Wigan away is 3 days later, which will be half the price, a Saturday 3pm kickoff, a new ground for most Saints fans and a much bigger game for us.

80 so far, Wigan in February will be 81. Almost certain to lose two at the end of the season, I've been to each of the bottom 6 of League Two.

Can I suggest we don't link to them?

The fact nobody else has signed him since he left us in the summer suggests that perhaps there isn't a better option. For now, at least. I'm highly amused that they've forced out their leading scorer (well done, boo-boys ) and replaced him with someone who will take his month's contract period to get fit

The Pompey Way. Get rid of your leading scorer, replace him with someone who will take that entire month to get fit

The higher up the football pyramid you go, the greater the need seems to be to have experience and strength in the heart of the defence, which are obviously two assets a player coming through the youth system is unlikely to possess at that time. Teams feel they can "get away with" (probably the wrong choice of words) blooding a youngster at full-back, on the wing or up front because raw ability and a good temperament can help bridge the gap, and in those positions they're not likely to cost a team goals or points. There are clearly some decent young defenders coming through the system, but I'd be amazed if any of them were given league experience in our first team at this level. Other than the odd outing in the League Cup, they're more likely to have to rely on loan spells in lower leagues in order to get the experience and strengthening they require.

McLeish in at Forest

There's not necessarily any reason why SFC will follow suit, each club's stadium safety licence is awarded and policed by the local council, so it's entirely possible that this situation has arisen because of pressure applied by Sunderland/Tyne and Wear council. Southampton City Council seem to have left us alone since around 2003/4. I remember they forced the closure of two rows of seats at the back of block 41 for one game in the 2002/3 season but that was as far as they ever went and seemed to stop caring after then as it was a fairly pointless exercise.

Much like the rest of the team, he has learned a lot since the start of the season. Of course he'll continue to make mistakes, nobody's perfect, even Sir Alex Ferguson continues to make mistakes with his team selections despite being the most successful manager in British history. At the start of the season, we'd go into games attempting to win them by playing our "normal" way, and then ended up looking clueless when that didn't work. 3-4 months on, you can clearly see differences in how we're set up on a game-by-game basis. For example, against Sunderland we put pace into the team having seen that they play a high defensive line to apply pressure to their opponents, so we utilised the long ball into channels with Mayuka's pace. Sunderland countered that in the second half of that game by dropping 20 yards deeper, so we then brought De Ridder on to attack the full-back. Yesterday, when I saw the lineup it looked like we were going for 3 central midfielders in an attempt to outnumber them, but then it became clear that Steven Davis was in there to play just behind Lambert. The system made sense but I probably would have put Guly in that position instead, and Davis was pretty ineffective there really.

We're experimenting with a few things over the next month or so to see whether the returns they produce outweigh the mild annoyance factor. At this stage I wouldn't expect them to be a permanent feature.

A word of warning to those who were still planning on using the tube to get to the game... TFL have announced which services they expect to be running on Boxing Day, and the Wimbledon branch of the District line (which includes Putney Bridge, the closest station to Craven Cottage) will NOT be running. The only stretch of the District line in operation will be from Ealing Broadway to High Street Kensington, which does include Hammersmith, which is at the opposite end of Fulham Palace Road to Putney Bridge, probably a 20-minute walk to the ground from there.

The effort of that advent calendar

Not much left at all in the Putney end, only single seats in covered sections (think the front 5 rows are uncovered)

I'm guessing that a lot of people who thought they'd only have a marginal chance of getting a ticket will have taken any SFC priority system out of the equation by buying a ticket in the "neutral" section.

I think I'd rather he was picked in the squad but didn't play, so his fitness levels took a beating.

From what I read, it wasn't that Taarabt particularly wants to go - he's not getting a game, so he'd just be sat on the bench for the whole time - but that if he didn't go he'd get a load of grief whenever he went back home on holiday.

19th January to 10th February. I'd imagine the players will need to be released by clubs up to 2 weeks in advance, but then when a team is eliminated (potentially as early as 27th January), they'll immediately be available for their clubs again.

A good point well made

Are you two done? Good.

Gunter doesn't even get in the team now, which is a massively damning indictment on his ability when he's being kept on the bench by Shaun Cummings.

Now is as good a time as ever to play Fulham, while Bryan Ruiz is out injured. In the seven PL games he's started this season, Fulham scored 16 goals. In the five games since he got injured a month ago, they've only scored 3.

Nolan was £45-50k, I think.

Er, it's blank... or perhaps that's intentional, because for "legal reasons", that's all they can say

Pavel Pogrebnyak will set a new record next season as the highest-paid player in Championship history, just edging out Nikola Zigic's £55k a week

To be fair, Neville's point was that 4-4-2 as a weaker side against a team that keeps possession as well as Arsenal is absolute suicide, not that the formation itself isn't suitable under certain circumstances. We've utilised it a few times this season with varying results.