stevegrant

They could try, when Moyes eventually gets bored of banging his head against that glass ceiling (get money on him being the next Spurs manager, by the way), but other than Premier League football - which we might have ourselves in the medium-term - we've probably got better resources at our disposal than Everton at the moment. They were that desperate for cash that they sold their top scorer to a club in the division below them.

According to a Preston-supporting mate of mine, they're bringing about 150 down tonight. Can't say I'm surprised with the low turnout, £14 to watch what is effectively reserve team football is a hell of a lot of money.

That's the one

As I said above, it was a freebie last night, a bloke at work had a spare ticket. Face value was only a tenner anyway.

To be fair, it was free And their pies are ****

I went to the game last night and my reaction to that was simply "hmmmm". Very strange. He played a slightly odd role last night, almost as a defensive right-midfielder, allowing Carl Dickinson to overlap on a regular basis and slotting in at right-back to cover for him, when his strength would be playing high up the pitch and attacking the opposing full-back. When he got on the ball he did look dangerous, as you'd expect against a League Two side, but that didn't really happen enough.

It is. The point of it last time was a) for forum members to have a chance of winning those benefits, and b) some free publicity for the site in the programme and on the big screens - the more people we have using the site, the more diverse and interesting it becomes, IMO.

I thought this thread was going to be a dig at Gus Poyet and Brighton. How disappointing I think the big clubs will ultimately end up ****ing off to some breakaway league in the next 10-20 years, which will leave those who have prepared for such an eventuality (like ourselves) in a very strong position. However, in the meantime, we'll probably have to accept that a lot of players will fall through the system because the biggest clubs will hoover up all the best talent, tell them they've already made it and then act surprised when it turns out they can't handle the pressure at the age of 15.

SaintsWeb doesn't have a kit, the long-standing Southampton IFC team has a kit, which I have possession of.

I've been contacted by the manager of the Watford internet supporters' team asking if we can raise a team to play them in the morning before the Saints v Watford game on Saturday 1st October. No venue has been arranged yet (although most likely to be Fleming Park in Eastleigh) but will be done as soon as I get confirmation that we've got enough players. The cost will be £5 per player to cover pitch fees and washing the kit. Likely to be a 10.30 or 11.00 kick-off, if you fancy playing (it'll be rolling subs, so you won't necessarily need to be able to last a full 90 minutes!), please let me know.

I always thought that £10 was refundable on production of the match voucher at a later date?

Lallana seems to be just in front, but I didn't think he did an awful lot yesterday, especially in the first half where everything went through Guly and Richardson. Rather than that be a criticism of him, I think it's a compliment to how key he's been that Birmingham saw nullifying him as their most important tactic, and it also shows that we can still play in the way we want without him being the focal point. Of course, we won't be fortunate enough to come up against a left-back as crap as Liam Ridgwell every week, but you can only beat what's in front of you.

CB40 draw has already been done for next year, we've got Scotland again GROUP A Netherlands, Leicestershire, Worcestershire, Lancashire, Middlesex, Essex, Gloucestershire. GROUP B Scotland, Durham, Hampshire, Surrey, Glamorgan, Somerset, Nottinghamshire. GROUP C Unicorns, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Kent, Warwickshire, Sussex, Northants.

*breathes huge sigh of relief*

Thoroughly looking forward to this one, hoping to see it some time next week.

Following a bit of a balls-up on my part, I have two spare seats on the Megabus from Cardiff back to London Victoria for the Thursday, leaving Cardiff at 12.30pm.

I don't get the hate for him, to be honest. Managed double figures in the worst Saints team in living memory.

If Newcastle were to bid £5m for Lambert, I'd think we'd have to seriously consider it. However, I'll stick my neck out and say there's absolutely no way they'll be paying £5m for anyone, least of all a nearly-30-year-old striker who's only ever played 6 games in the Championship.

Entirely unbothered, to be honest. Actually, I'm quite pleased. He's been holding back the development of Bates (and, to a lesser extent, Rouse) for the last year or so, when he was fit he still played even in the T20 when Bates is clearly a much better keeper. Why did he complain about that last night when the captain who he's presumably talking about (Cork) won't be here next year? Very odd. On that particular issue, I can kind-of see his point, but does someone with the influence, experience and know-how *really* need to get on a coach to have the respect of other senior players? Good news on both fronts. I'm loathe to say we should be strong next year, as we've been saying that every year for the last decade, but the last 5 games have shown that we can compete in the longer form of the game, we just need to do it more consistently rather than in a desperate last-ditch attempt to save our arses. Make a decent start and we could be looking at a short stay in division two.

Lumb and Mascarenhas have had IPL stints which has kept them out for the first few games, which clearly can't help when they're generally key first XI players (Lumb less so in the 4-day game). I've not been able to see much of us in the 4-day game (saw a day against Durham at the start of the season when Stokes hit Dawson for 5 sixes in an over), but if the current game is anything of a guide then we've simply let teams off the hook with poor catching. Chopra was dropped on 5 and made 109 and Chanderpaul was dropped on 32 and made 171. Take those extra runs out of the equation and Warwickshire only make 250 in their first innings, which probably puts us in the driving seat for the game. 324 wasn't that bad a score, IMO, but we'd given them so many extra runs that it was made to look a below-par score. Apparently Nick Knight mentioned yesterday that Nic Pothas is either leaving or retiring at the end of the year, which I think is probably a good thing as it now gives Michael Bates a chance to play on a consistent basis in all forms of the game. Adams should get the captaincy full-time, he's done pretty well in the last 5 games, I think. We still have the nucleus of a very good side, we just need to make sure we've got the right men in the right fielding positions relative to their catching ability. As good a fielder as Michael Carberry is, he's crap at catching (backed up by his former captain Rob Key on commentary), so why are we putting him in at first slip? Ervine and McKenzie are decent catchers, Adams as well. Get shot of de Wet, Myburgh, maybe even Kabir Ali and Simon Jones if they're either not fit enough or we're not going to pick them anyway.

We have a batting bonus point Vince's innings was a microcosm of his career so far, accumulating runs quickly, looking in good touch, and then gets ahead of himself and tosses his wicket away

We'd actually stay up on fewest defeats rather than most wins - would have 4 wins each, but 6 defeats to their 10. It was an interesting point that Nick Knight made on commentary this morning that Worcestershire have had an all-or-nothing approach to their games this year and that it might ultimately mean they stay up. However, if they go down, it'll almost certainly be the main reason, as they were unable to see games out to a stalemate. Three points for a draw might not seem much, but it's likely to be the difference between relegation and survival. Of course, we wouldn't even be having this discussion had it not been for that ****ing ridiculous 8-point deduction.

Saints team: Bialkowski, Racine, Martin, Dean, Dickson, de Ridder, Moore, Chaplow, Holmes, Reeves, Seidi. Reeves up front (assumption based on where he's been named in the lineup and presence of Dickson/Holmes) is an interesting one, considering he played left-back in Switzerland

You never said that, or even gave the faintest hint of it. How's that spoonful of your own ****ing tedious medicine tasting?