Millbrook Saint

Stephens should no way play, he is a complete liability with no positional sense when the ball is crossed in, off the top of my head I can think of an instance against Fulham where he was running back next to their striker as their winger raced down the side, by the time the ball was crossed in he'd drifted 5 yards from the striker, leaving him a free header from the penalty spot, luckily for us Fulham are crap and it went over, we won't be so lucky against West Ham. Would much prefer Salisu get his chance, don't care if it's his first game, if he's good enough to be on the bench, he should be good enough to start, Stephens is such a liability he should be no where near starting for us.

I do agree with the PPE contracts, though playing devils advocate I'm not sure if they'd of had time to go through the whole procurement procedure, I'd say when you're desperate for something you tend to go to your contacts first as you know they'll react quickest, bit like if you've got a leak at home, you'd call your mate before going through Chekatrade getting a load of quotes, meanwhile your house is flooding.

Debate, don't make me laugh, there is no such thing as debate, anyone who doesn't hold the correct opinion is just not given a platform, easy debate won.

Completely agree and the EU continue to try and bully us, all they have to do is agree that our fishing waters are ours and we're in control of them and that any rules and laws we wish to make are made by us and not them, you know like any other democratic country in the world. But no like some Stalinist era bloc they continue with the belief that they control countries around them. Good for Johnson I say, we've had enough of the grandstanding by the French and Barnier

I recently had my flu jab, got a letter from my doc telling me to go to the health centre between 0830 and 1100. Got there at 1030, massive queue snaking round the block and to a row of shops, I joined the queue thinking I'd be there for hours, turned out is was no longer than 15 minutes, they had 4 or 5 nurses doing the jabs, all well organised in and out in no time, I'm sure it will be scaled up and thought it will be tough it is well doable

This grown man has faced on onslaught for almost a year of journalists trying to catch him out with their ridiculous whataboutery, politicians who haven't had to face this responsibility telling him he's doing it wrong and he's an idiot without offering a solution, other than we could do it better, on top of that, 1000s of people have died, which him and his colleagues are getting the blame for (China seems to have escaped all the blame, it's all down to the nasty tories), even though no one else would have faired any better, which, I imagine weighs pretty heavily on your shoulders. So yeah, he reacted with a bit of triumphalism, and yeah he does sound like a bit of a helmet, but you know what, I bet him and his colleagues are feeling absolute relief, like a massive boot being took off your shoulders knowing that this is happening and I suspect it got the better of him. He should be given a break and a bit of understanding. I suspect politicians from other countries would have done similar.

And what do you think the EU would have said if their regulators approved it first, something along the lines of 'due to having the best clinicians in the world the EU has managed to get this through the regulators quicker than anyone else, proving above all else our expertise in immunology. If Britain was still part of the EU the vaccine would be on its way to them now, unfortunately they decided to go it alone' I suspect. And the Americans would have probably said something along the lines of 'due to our clinicians leading the way, we have managed to regulate this before any other country, giving the American people the first opportunity of any other country to use this ground breaking breakthrough' So, yes he does sound like a bit of a helmet, but no more than any other politician in the world would have sounded, maybe people should actually feel a bit of pride in their country for once instead of the continual bashing of it.

wow, I actually agree with most of what you say, though I don't think Biden will last his full term, illness or death will do for him, which is a little scary as I feel Kamala Harris is much further left than he ever was. As for running the country, I don't think he'll be doing much of that, he's a mouth piece and the strings will be pulled behind him. Not sure how he'll stabalise the country though, there's so much hatred been brewed up on both sides it could take years to get over it and it's far too easy to 'win' an argument by cancelling people who don't agree/vote for the 'right' people. Both the Republicans and Democrats will have to up their game in 2024, it'll be good to actually have an election which centres around policies and not this identity politics where one party screams you're racist if you vote for the other party.

The trouble with playing the man and not the policies is that when you have a character like Trump, who, it has to be said is a total helmet, the other party's policies don't really get examined, the loudest argument I've heard is 'vote for us, Trump's a racist'. The problem then is you never really get to hear their policies so any old nonsense could be put up as a policy and no one really notices as they're too busy hating the other guy.

I'd put money on Biden not lasting a full term, his head seems to have already gone, the conspiracy theorist in me thinks the Democrats plan was always to get Kamala Harris as president through the backdoor

I'm not really sure what to say about that, this attitude is exactly what I'm talking about, it's irrelevant what you, or I think of the bloke, it's what the people who vote for him think about him, accusing them all of being dumb, racist and how they should feel ashamed isn't going to suddenly make them go, oh wait you're right, how stupid of me I'll vote for Biden right now. What it will do is give them a quiet determination, they'll keep their heads down, not say anything about who they support, then they'll get in the voting booth and put their x under Trump's name. So it's just right wing governments who lie and cheat is it, think you'll find there are plenty of people who lie, race bait on both side of the fence. Surely the best way to win these people over is to say, 'you know what, I can see how previous democrats have let you down, I understand how you feel left behind, lost your jobs, vote for us and we'll do the following to try and right the wrongs you feel' but no what they say is 'you're an ignorant, dumb racist, unless you vote for us.

There are whole swathes of Americans unhappy with their lot, feeling neglected by their own government, rightly or wrongly. Trump has tapped in to this which is where his core votes comes from, the Democrats, instead of addressing the issue have just gone with playing the man, their biggest selling point, as far as I can see is 'vote for us, we aint Trump'. They had 4 years to look at why people voted for Trump and try and address it, but all they could come up with is 'vote us or you're racist' You then have halfwit celebrities, the twitter and facebook woke brigade bullying anyone who dares say they support Trump or anything he says, brandishing them racists and trying to close them down, even going as far as ruining their careers. You get idiot pundits such as that CNN bloke condemning people for voting for Trump. All this in a free and democratic country.... apparently. Why would anyone put their head above the parapet and admit to being a Trump supporter, but when you're in the privacy of that booth, that's when their voice is heard. The sooner the Democrats try and address the issues the Trump supporters feel they have instead of ignoring them, the sooner they might get voted in with a majority. The way the democrats, twitter, facebook and the celebrities over there act, I kind of think they deserve having Trump for another 4 years.

so what's with Tyrone Mings, did someone from Southampton shag his mother, last week he was slating the club and saying black players might not sign for us because we haven't signed up to this diversity initiative, though in the same article he admitted to not having read the Southampton statement as to why. This week he's saying going down 4-0 to Southampton shows there's a lot of work to do, as if villa are some high and mighty club who look down and scoff at us. Seems like this idiot has a bit of a chip on his shoulder

Look at the top 6 right now, the only 'top' club in there is liverpool, this is exactly why the big teams want a super league, to make the league placings irrelevant to playing in the champions league, they don't want upstarts like Southampton, Villa or Everton getting their hands on 'their money'

Do you really think keeping the big 6 in the premier league will keep things the way they are, what will happen is sky will focus it's coverage on the super league, it will be slow at first, gradual steps so it's less noticeable, the premier league money will end up diverted to the super league, the big 6 will treat the premier league as a training league to blood their players, who cares if they come 1st or 15th, they'll still be in Europe. Interest in the premier league will wain as sky push the super league whilst the premier ends up being like the championship. Tv income will drop as the super league will be promoted around the world. New fans who watch sky will only see the super league games on the prime tv slots, whilst the premier league will get less coverage. No. the FA and Premier League absolutely need to grow some balls, they have the opportunity to do that now whilst their product is the most popular in the world, fans of the big 6 won't allow them to be expelled from the league, give it a few years of the super league coverage, the clubs won't care about a few hardcore local fans as the 'new' fan will have been brought up on the super league

Jesus christ does everything have to boil down to this, I've never heard such nonsense, I have no doubt the owners have little interest in football and are completely detached, but don't try and turn it into a class war. The americans who own liverpool and man u are probably not 'posh boys', the owners of west ham are probably not that posh. It has nothing to do with people being posh, it has all to do with people being greedy, posh or not people can be greedy. I hate this black and white view where posh = horrible and uncaring, whereas working class = caring and nice, the same as tory = horrible, labour = nice. I've met people on both sides of the spectrum and they both have their equal share of good and bad. Painting everyone in stereotypes is nothing but devisive. Anyway rant over, pretty much everything else you write is spot on. The premier league and fa need to grow a pair and warn the big clubs off doing this.

The premier league and fa need to grow some balls here and tell all members that any team playing in this so called super league will be expelled from all domestic competitions and any players in those teams will no longer be eligible for the national team. Doubt they will though, they'll be scratching around, begging the big teams not to leave, trying to protect their little fiefdoms.

So, let me get this straight, one of the proposals was that they could decide if a takeover at a club could happen? So in theory if Jeff Bezos got bored at Amazon and decided he wanted to buy Saints and make them a global power, they could get together, decide amongst themselves that it wouldn't be in their interest and veto it? If that is the case, what fucking arrogance of them to think they should hold that much power over everyone else. I almost think that those 2 disgusting clubs should be penalised for suggesting such a thing, maybe a 60 point deduction, a transfer ban for 5 years and the owners banned from owning any football club in the UK.

So after a big defeat when fans are kicking off on social media about lack of players etc. Suddenly a load of stories appear stating how we're in for this player or that quieting down the dissenting voices, then after a week or 2 nothing happens, or stories of bids rejected, players going elsewhere. The club get some loans in telling us all how hard it is to get deals over the line. When the intention all along was for loans.

The thing is, as fans we're too nice, you wouldn't get any other clubs' fans being so accepting, it almost feels like we accept of the club cuckolding us. As much as west ham fans are dislikeable, they wouldn't be sat around agreeing with the clubs lack of ambition, saying well we are trying to be run sustainably. As fans we should be making it as uncomfortable as possible for the owners to get away with the continual lack of investment, what other premier league teams have to sell before they buy? Any potential owners, now or in the future should know that the fans won't accept a lack of investment from them, at least this may help chancers like Gao understand they can't just buy us to run sustainably (read not investing at all)

oh what a surprise https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2020/09/22/report-southampton-must-pay-record-fee-for-25m-target-saints-have-bid-rejected/ What did we do offer £10m or something ridiculous knowing full well it would be rejected, gut a message out to fans that we're looking for players though, even though we're not offering serious money.

Fresh after getting battered at the weekend, reports appearing in various outlets about us being in for players, I have no doubt none of these are true and probably planted by the club by feigning interest to various clubs/agents for their players, who promptly release details to the press before we don't follow up and the player moves elsewhere before the club report how difficult it has been to buy players and we end up with someone like Danso on loan. Me, cynical? never

I don't think that it's playing a high line which is the problem, it's more knowing when to employ it, it'll be more suited to some teams than others. The manager should be flexible enough to notice this, he should have seen what they were doing yesterday and got the players to retreat 30 yards, giving them no space to get in behind, this would then force Hojberg and co to come more in to the game and we all know how well he gets the ball forward. The players should be drilled how to play as a team when employing a high line and how to play as a team when sitting back more, the manager can then adjust how they play during the game. To just play a high line no matter what, like we did yesterday is ridiculous and the manager should know better

Not sure it is really, why not do the same as this year and give credit next season. Or a refund if preferred, only sorted at the end of the season once all payments are completed

Thing is for me and my 16 year old daughter the payments will be 329, 375 and 150, totally out of reach considering I have a mortgage to pay, so after 12 years of going to the football with my daughter that's it, no more, not impressed at all. I know I could get a credit card but that's not the point