BotleySaint

No doubt if England do well tonight and Rickie scores the press will say that "it was only Scotland." If we lose, then he'll be blamed for any missed chances.

And I was just saying the other day how he will never get picked... Great news!

Hodgson will be looking to the future with his selections. As much as I'd like to see Rickie get a call up, he isn't exactly the future for the English national side at 31 years old. If he did get picked, it'd end up being a Kevin Davies situation. Once all the other strikers are available he'd be out of it whatever he does and likely never be called up again. Plus he hasn't exactly been on top form so far this pre-season (how many goals?) and what England need is a striker, on form. Hooper is at least much younger. But to say he's ready for a call up is a bit premature!

Yay! One went in !

Right, time to practise the pens for the upcoming season it seems.

One of the worst penalties ever taken :-)

Half Time

Lucky escape there!

On the subject of Simon Moore: Brentford are my local team and I saw perhaps 9-10 games last season with Moore in goal. He is a very accomplished goalkeeper, certainly has the potential to improve and does the basics well. He's a big loss for Brentford and really grew as a player last season which has drawn attention to him. He has an issue with distribution at times but what keeper doesn't? He'd have been a good signing for us. When it comes to performing at the top level, he played against Chelsea twice last year and I don't remember him doing much wrong.

http://www.livingoal.eu/ch2.html ?

Also possible. But we've not shifted anyone away yet .. we have Fonte, Lovran, Hooiveld, Yoshida and Forren. I think they could all fit in the team under the right circumstances. Guess we'll find out pre-season with regards to the formation. Probably stick to the traditional 4-4-2 :-)

I've always thought Fox would make a better left winger. Maybe he has a future there? With all these central defenders we now have, you wonder if we might be switching to a 5-3-2 formation. Maybe Fox can play that role out-wide. His main weakness is in defending really, but he has other positive attributes. Just in my opinion of course.

As someone who goes to Brentford games as well as supports Saints I think this striped shirt might a good investment for me! I'd probably never buy a Brentford shirt as I'm not really a fan but with this I could wear to support both.. cool.

Worrying really that no-one at the club is sufficiently in touch with the fans to know the majority wouldn't like it. And that historically we've played in red and white stripes for a number of years. If we were going to change for good I'd rather go back to the white with red sash kit!

It does look silly next to the similar strip from Bristol City. Not distinctive at all. The white arms look terrible against all that red. I'd rather last years kit at the moment.. maybe once we see it for real it won't be so bad.

Well, at least the goal has livened things up a bit.

All Pochettino is saying is that he feels he has Nicola's support and was made assurances by him. If he leaves he'll be left with none of those assurances. The only thing I'm not sure about is why he has to tell the media. Unless he's naive or Cortese put him up to it to apply some leverage to his side of the 'argument' he is having with the Trust.

Nice to know if we lose 5-0 next week we will still stay up.

My thoughts exactly.

But you can count on us to lose 10-0 to Stoke

Get in!!!

We have done well this season. Can't believe we'd throw it away with a crap 4 game losing streak at the end.

65% possession and losing 1-0. Story of the last few games. We need to dig in now and try to get that equalizer .. we need to mix it up in attack. The current setup isn't working and I don't know why the manager can't see that.

And there we have it. Next weekend is going to be very very uncomfortable.

Some great attacking play but as usual no end product. Leaving is open to a counter attacking goal and the inevitable 1-0 defeat probably.