JRM

that was my thought exactly, however we have such a bad injury record at the moment i think having a good break to build up the final will be better than Man United playing a 2 leg Europa league fixture just beforehand. Would be great to hear some good news regarding Van Dijk's injury in the next few days and / or a new signing before the window closes.

we may find we have even fewer games in March - Man United at home is same weekend as FA Cup 6th round so could well have to be postponed to a future date if they make it that far. Will be really strange having such few fixtures after the mad run we've had from September to now.

Obviously would love to win this and go on another cup run, having won 3 games in a row without conceding would help keep up our momentum. However if we do lose take consolation in the fact the next round is the week before the league cup final. It's quite possible we'll have a week off whereas United will play a 5th round game followed by a Europa league game on the Thursday before our final.

Virtually the entire United support upper and lower will be stood, it's what they do without even questioning it. Would imagine the lower tier corner flag to corner flag will be in our end. Definitely the place to head for if you want to stand and sing (although surely no one will need encouragement to sing at such a game )

This. Can't stand Vardy anyway but now he's responsible for this he could be added to the list of Saints fans most hated players of all time. If there's any justice Leicester will go down and stuck paying him 100k per week in the championship. The behaviour of Fonte and handling of the situation was disappointing and is about to be made even worse if Van Dijk is out. We're not having much luck at the moment, going into a semi final 2nd leg in the lead but without our top scorer who is out for months, our record signing who is injured as well but would have been at AFCON anyway and missing our best player in Van Dijk. I can't stand Liverpool so not looking forward to tonight now.

You completely miss the point. No one is having a go at individuals here, but as a collective fan base this is a f*cking abysmal effort. We've got 21k season ticket holders, 10k members and thousands more with a purchase history and out of all that we've barely managed to sell 3000 . A lot of that is due to apathy and not being bothered. Most teams with a decent support would have sold out easily for a game like this.

Looking forward to welcoming him back on 4th Feb, can someone more creative than me make up a song about Osvaldo smashing his face in? Could include a 2nd verse about Pardew and his wife. ....

The fact is our support base generally struggles to travel in any great numbers to anywhere that isn't London. With the odd exception that has been the case for the last 20 odd years, but this game has surprised me. We even took more than this to MK Dons in the JPT semi final 1st leg, and Sheff Utd in the 1/4 final a couple of years ago. As Steve says we can't have any complaints if Saints take smaller allocations in future games, and even if we made the final i think the league would be within their rights to give Man Utd a considerably bigger allocation than us, as clearly our fans are not that bothered about this competition..... Fingers crossed those of us who are travelling will make a decent noise and will be rewarded with one of the greatest nights in our club's history getting through.

Blocks 121-123 went on sale to Liverpool fans earlier in the week and sold out within a couple of days. That would have reduced our 5,646 allocation to about 3800. Out of that i think we have sold just over 3000 with about 700 left in the corner. I don't blame people for not travelling with the cost etc but it is a poor turn out from us as a fan base.

It's difficult to be critical of Saints as Norwich played with such negative tactics it reduced the game to Saints cautiously attacking a Norwich back 5 who were protected by deep central midfield. They offered nothing all game and were just hoping to catch is on the break. Freezing cold, where i was sat in Itchen centre there was even an old lady who turned around to complain that someone was shouting too loudly, ha f*ck sake what are these people doing at live football matches if they are going to complain about someone shouting encouragement to the team, should have just turned down her hearing aid. Interesting next couple of weeks, if we go out against Liverpool i think the pressure is on to still play a stronger team against Arsenal regardless of the Swansea game a few days later.

Not sure how many Norwich are bringing but as of yesterday we had only sold about 10k home end seats, really low turn out despite the "affordable football" £12 tickets. Not sure if it would have made much difference but should have just done £10 and £1 for kids. i'm sure we'll sell a few more today and walk up, 14k attendance i reckon with whole Kingsland and family stand closed. Norwich are putting on free coaches for their fans but doubt that will be a good enough incentive for them.

Any saints fan reading that could be forgiven for feeling complacent, Norwich sound like they're in disarray at the moment, sounds like the fans want the manager out and would take a defeat if it helps achieve that, loads of injuries / suspensions and have sold one of their better players. With all that in mind I fancy a few quid on a Norwich win! According to Puel Van Dijk, Bertrand and Davis are all out for us, Harry Lewis will be in goal so they will try and test him at every opportunity. I reckon; Lewis Martina Yoshida Stephens McQueen Reed Ward-Prowse Hojberg Sims Long Tadic

Agreed I think the Euro disappointment this season has made fans reluctant to pay for more expensive midweek trips just to be let down again. Even still I've been surprised by the lack of interest in both legs. If we do somehow get through to the final it would not surprise me if they give Man Utd a bigger allocation than us as they have x3 number of season ticket holders.

Blocks 121-123 are already on sale to home fans so they'll have the usual "away area" of the Anfield Rd lower. We've got a few left in block 127 but plenty left in 128/129 I think we're going to struggle to sell that regardless even with us sending back tickets. Quite a poor effort from us overall, not sure what blocks 124-129 = for capacity but hope we do have up there is proper and gets behind the team unlike the quiet away support we've had most of this season.

Having to play Arsenal in the next round is a shame , we've not had much luck with easy cup draws this season. I support making lots of changes, the youngsters haven't let us down this season (except for Lewis error at Norwich, shame Mccarthy has been injured for so long) . They won't fancy the game either, pressure on the club to get back into the play offs and a poor result yesterday losing at Rotherham and having a man sent off. I can see this being quite an entertaining open game. Almost certainly will be the smallest crowd of the season , apparently Norwich are putting on free coaches for their fans so might bring a few down.

Any forum that allows someone called Dalek to troll year after year posting exactly the same thing is going to end up degenerating into stupid irrational arguments. As for all being fans, I believe that to be true, however I think there is an element where people don't want to be proved wrong and having set their stall out as anti-Puel or Reed there is a small part of them who enjoys seeing us lose to further enhance their "look I was right" posts. We've had some real let downs this season but things are not as bad as many make out.

To be honest I think you're quite pleased when we lose at the moment, helps justify your standpoint on things and continue to be critical. Did you actually watch the match today? Very frustrating, but we were not poor.

If I ever find myself on mastermind the Southampton season 1989/90 will definitely be my specialist subject, a wonderful season which I watched many teams since on the CBS FOX goals of the season video. Another game worth a mention was the 4-1 home win against Norwich when they great Kevin Moore scored along with a Le Tissier hat trick (one of the best you'll ever see) the 4-4 draw at Carrow road was quite special as well. Forward line including Le Tissier, Rod Wallace, Shearer, Rideout was great to watch. Great memories and always remember Chris Nicholl fondly because of that. Signing USSR international players Alexi Chrednik and Gotsmanov a highlight as well. I remember being in Dnipro for the England game in 2009 and our cab driver claimed to be a saints the fan as his best mate was Chrednik.

Going to be a tough game, a real 6 pointer when looking at the table - I don't think there will be many goals but we'll need to be up for a battle if we are going to get anything. Could do with some of the wind up merchants on here provoking Gray to say something stupid on Twitter to get him banned again, that worked in our favour for the home game. Good luck to all those travelling, a proper away day especially on a freezing cold day in January, a few decent pubs around but cricket club is decent for away fans. Looks like we've only sold about 1100 tickets so plenty of room to spread out in the away end. Those travelling by train might be joined by some south coast friends with Championship leaders Brighton away at Preston.

i agree to some extent, but when you refer to them as one of the form teams a couple of their recent away results in the league are; Sunderland 2-2 Liverpool, Bournemouth 4-3 Liverpool. we need to build an underdog spirit within our fans and really be up for this, i wouldn't want to be in the trenches with some of you lot with the "what's the point we're going to lose anyway attitude". I still find it amazing that we haven't sold out , but if the attitude of fans on here is reflective of the general fan base i shouldn't be surprised really.

yeah but the difference with us is there isn't an army of people desperate for tickets, virtually every away game has gone on general sale this season, would be a costly and pointless task for Saints to start doing this , although nothing would surprise me with the way the club is run. Arsenal at least acknowledge that some people share season tickets or companies own them so for European away games where they have to collect they allow the purchaser to name the person who will be collecting, at least they acknowledge that not every fan can afford a season ticket on their own.

so you just need a junior customer number to buy a ticket? put a request on here, i am pretty sure someone will let you use their customer number, tickets are print at home so you wouldn't need to go down the ticket office and your lad would get to go.

Still about 1000 tickets left for this as of earlier today - think this is the final statement in any argument over whether we need to expand the ground. Hopefully we shift them otherwise the club will wonder why they didn't just give Liverpool a larger allocation. Fonte missing is a shame - but for the best as his head clearly isn't right and if he doesn't want to be here he shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the dressing room. If there is any truth in him going to Liverpool missing this game would make sense. Missing our captain in Fonte, top scorer Austin and record signing Boufal makes it look like we are under strength regardless of rotation. Plus ongoing question marks over Forster's fitness. when i watched the Plymouth press conference Klopp was asked more questions about next weekends "massive" game against Man United than anything else, really hope they have one eye on that fixture and we can benefit from that.

Obviously this is tempting fate and we'll lose the replay but I'd like Accrington Stanley away.

It's still a semi final, which we've got to by beating three other Premier League teams, I'd put the argument to you that a genuine Saints fans would be desperate to be there but perhaps we're better off without your negativity and that good money of yours remaining in your pocket.