JRM

Exactly. My biggest gripe is the fact the Saturday slot was available all along they could have put the game there from the start and avoided any doubt at all. Cass Pennant and the ICF are pleased with the change as they can take advantage of the reduced train fares instead of needing to get the official bingo bus.

It is a pain but there are at least direct trains so the subject header here isn't strictly accurate, the 23.05 train gets back to Southampton Central at 01.01. Train goes via Havant and adds about 40 mins to the usual journey time, chance to catch up on some sleep or enjoy a few beers to celebrate the win. the train might be a bit busier than usual with Bournemouth fans getting on at Clapham Junction. Pompey are also away tomorrow night but to Morecambe so they'd struggle to make that train. South West Trains are currently doing £15 off peak return special price to London Waterloo.

That's quite a funny read and consistent with the Arsenal fans i know in real life, they seem so despondent for a team that are so close to the top of the league, still in the Champions league and a chance of winning the FA Cup for the 3rd year in a row, they are utterly convinced they'll throw away the best chance to win the title for years. 2 points from the last 9 and struggling to score goals, tough games coming up... because of all that i reckon they'll beat us tomorrow now! Looking forward to tomorrow night, hope we can recreate the league cup win from last season, we've had screamers from Clyne and Martina, so whoever is playing right back will need to step up.

considering tickets are still on general sale in their end this seems like a very stupid thing to do. With any luck they'll be outed and chucked out and you'll have your season tickets revoked with no refund.

Ask around your friends and family , Saturday 5.30 kick off time is ideal for many more people than a Monday night you may even find people on here willing to pay for your tickets. Being a bit of a loser I have a look at ticket sales online when having a quiet day at work, this game had been selling badly and is more expensive cat B prices I'm sure many fans had held off and will now buy. West Ham will probably sell out now as well for a jolly boys outing to the coast (they are offering free coaches for the game but that sort of thing probably doesn't appeal to most cheeky cockney hammers)

Palace v Stoke also of interest for us as I think Stoke away is scheduled for 6th round weekend in March so would be handy to know about that one for travel arrangements.

Schneiderlin being criticised for his sloppy passing. Haha. Games we're interested in are the Arsenal v Burnley and Liverpool v West Ham really , Arsenal as we play them 3 days later, Liverpool game I personally want to be a draw so we get to play West Ham on a Saturday

As it is only 2 days after Palace at home they might struggle a bit to get a big crowd, having said that a few posters up around the city announcing the return of Guly and Tadanari Lee and it should generate interest. I hope we get to see Lee's celebration again

Our allocation is now showing as sold out, good effort over 2k sold over a fortnight before the game, good vibes around the club again.

That seems a fair enough method, we have had 13 away games this season inc Arsenal so if you've been to half of those you'll get a ticket. Shame it is on a Tuesday, could have been a good day out for an all dayer.

No i don't think Rodriguez was a waste of money, we bought him from the Championship for £7M, he scored a load of goals for us in the top flight (top scorer wasn't he?) and got himself an England cap, that is exactly the sort of signing we should make when "taking a gamble", the poster "Winchester Red" above states that every signing is a gamble, sure i appreciate there is no formula for guaranteeing a player will succeed, however if you through most of your chips in at the table hoping your big bets come off and then they don't it doesn't leave us with much to play with. The fact is Cortese was happy to gamble big and then needed the Liebherr's to step in with more cash when those failed. The fact is Koeman had the amount of money available to him restricted as income from the club was still needed to pay off the bets of the previous manager / chairman.

:mcinnes: I assume you don't have a ticket for the match? Anyone know if Saints have taken advantage of the extended break by going away? We'll have a two week break from Feb 13th to 27th as well good chance for warm weather training camp or a trip to Switzerland like they did last season.

That brings to a close a sad chapter of money wasted by our football club. 60k per week !! just think how many ticket sales have gone just towards paying him for not playing, and as someone has pointed out above that is in addition to the vast sums wasted on Osvaldo and the legend Mayuka! During our barren run of results there were quite a few posters criticising Saints lack of spending, just stop and think how much better we could have been if Koeman had that money to spend instead of having the highest salaries at the club tied up in contracts for players who were not good enough to play.

A mate of mine who is an Arsenal fan is convinced they are going to choke and miss out on the title , funny old club who can look amazing but also capable of some shocking performances. The next month will go someway to deciding their season but I think we're capable of going there and making it uncomfortable for them in front of a restless home crowd. 30th Jan Burnley H - FA Cup 02nd Feb Southampton H - league 07th Feb Bournemouth A - league 14th Feb Leicester H league 20th Feb FA Cup 5th round 23rd Feb - Barcelona A - Champs League 28th Feb - Man Utd A 2nd Mar - Swansea H For any Saints fans making the journey up by train South West Trains are doing a £15 off peak return promotion at the moment but the trains are delayed heading home due to engineering works between Basingstoke and Eastleigh. Would be good to have Steven Davis back for this one, we were very unlucky to lose to a late goal last season, I'm going for 1-1. Would be nice if our fans make a bit more noise this season rather than saving their voices for singing Theo's name at the end of the match as he comes over to clap the away end despite having only played a few games for us.

you're a f*cking weirdo anyway, you'll be back to trolling this site after our next defeat. Great result today, 3 points of 6th now, 4 off 5th. i'm not very good at quoting but someone posted this on the build up thread - good insight : "Been reading the match preview pull out in today's Echo and really struck me how United just don't concede at home (and likewise we don't score away) this game looks set to be 0-0 or 1-0 either way, unfortunately De Gea often seems to have a match winning performance against us. What is promising is the teams United have failed to beat at home gives us confidence, drawing 0-0 with Newcastle , West Ham and losing 2-1 at home to Norwich. If it comes down to a game of few chances let's hope for once we take ours, Austin on for last 30 mins to win the game would be the script for me"

Give me players like Austin and Long ahead of mercenaries like Osvaldo any day.

Been reading the match preview pull out in today's Echo and really struck me how United just don't concede at home (and likewise we don't score away) this game looks set to be 0-0 or 1-0 either way, unfortunately De Gea often seems to have a match winning performance against us. What is promising is the teams United have failed to beat at home gives us confidence, drawing 0-0 with Newcastle , West Ham and losing 2-1 at home to Norwich. If it comes down to a game of few chances let's hope for once we take ours, Austin on for last 30 mins to win the game would be the script for me

Still more than likely the Liverpool game will be on the Sunday, the 2nd leg of the Europa league "round of 16" is on the 17th March. They just need to get through against Augsburg for that to happen, then we'll play on Sunday 20th March at 1.30 or 4pm.

of course it shows it's a joke you kn0bjockey, if they were "good at planning" as you like to compliment them with they would have stuck the game on the Saturday evening at the first attempt and saved themselves the hassle of requiring a plan B at all.

So we now know it is Liverpool v West Ham in the 4th round of the cup, good chance of it ending in a draw and I for one hope it does. Saturday 5.30pm game much better than a Monday night. The fact sky have built in a plan B of a Saturday game shows what a joke this is, why not just schedule it for the Saturday now and remove all element of doubt. That would no doubt help ticket and hospitality sales rather than have to make re-arrangements at short notice. I can't see West Ham bringing the full allocation on a Monday.

yes i agree with this, as a club we are extremely lucky to have got to see some great players come through over the years back in the early 90s golden era with Le Tiss / Wallaces / Shearer, and in the 00s with Walcott, Bale, Lallana. Even now I think the fact that some of the academy have left at a young age has hidden the fact that we have only just had an incredible batch of youngsters, if they were all still at the club we could technically still field a u21 line up including Callum Chambers - England Full cap Luke Shaw - England full cap and world cup squad Jack Stephens - England U21 cap Matt Targett - England u21 caps Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (think he is 22 now but anyway) - England full cap James Ward-Prowse - England u21 captain Harrison Reed - England u20 caps Sam Gallagher - England u19 caps i might have missed one or two. That is still an incredible production line that most clubs would be envious of. On the subject of Wanyama i would not be sorry to see him go, he's been disruptive more than once and has cost us points while damaging the spirit within the dressing room. Will be interesting to see if he plays on Saturday as one of the show-piece games he tends to play well in.

Having viewed the ticket office website couple of times today i'm surprised how quickly each block has been selling for this, i'd estimate nearly half the allocation has sold , but then as they put them straight on sale to any season ticket holder with 1 away game it did mean thousands of fans would have been eligible to buy today. Chatting to a couple of mates about this at the weekend and had thought we'd struggle to fill the whole end especially with engineering works on the route through Salisbury that weekend meaning any fans going by train would be better off going the more expensive route via Reading, but having thought about it i can see why this is so popular, a good trip somewhere a bit "different" (the road signs are in a different language for a start allowing us to put on the Southampton in Europa CD) and now we are out of the cups there aren't that many away trips for a while. Man Utd sold out, Arsenal sold out, then after Swansea we have Bournemouth midweek with a small allocation , then we're into mid-March with Stoke away followed by Leicester in April.

yeah 2060 is the allocation, and they clearly are not expecting it to be in huge demand as they've gone straight on sale to season ticket holders with 1 away game on record and will be on general sale by the end of the week. no free sausage and chips either this year.

Similar to last season really, we should never have lost to them at St Marys, but can see us getting something at Old Trafford. Amazing what difference a week can make and i can sense a better atmosphere within the camp watching the team on Saturday, there is certainly more confidence visible throughout the team. the fact a win could potentially move us up to 7th in the table (which could be a European spot again this season) shows that there is still a lot to play for and the hysterical panicing on this forum a week ago was completely unnecessary. I don't think we have been playing badly even during our bad run we were only losing by the odd goal with poor finishing costing us. My prediction - 1-1 with Austin to get the equaliser for us.

It is a massive pain with bus replacement between Eastleigh and Basingstoke, they are running one direct train at 11pm going via Havant and Guildford but that gets back to Waterloo after the tubes have stopped running. The London train after night games is always busy with plenty going to Winchester / Basingstoke / Woking / London so this will affect a number of fans. Railwork going on until March 31st so will also be a problem for West Ham at home being a Monday night (unless West Ham draw with Liverpool in the cup in which case it'll be back on the Saturday! ) Our away game with Arsenal will also be affected so anyone planning to get the train to that should check their opinions. Coming back from Bournemouth away also looks difficult for fans living north of Southampton