benjii

Good point! Pat Nevin was on Radio 5 the other night saying that "managers can't win" because we demend honesty in press conferences and criticise bland responses but then when they are honest they get clobbered by the FA. I think there is a point in there somewhere in a wider context but he was talking specifically about Mourinho and his sanction which would me up because Mourinho was clearly not being honest at all in his post-match comments after we tonked them. He has been moaning about a penalty which has correctly not been given and when he was asked his opinion on our two clear penalty shouts he refused to talk about them. Honest.... don't think so. I think most likely is that something really isn't right behind the scenes (the whole Dr episode was very odd) and he is trying to get sacked.

Lallana can go and mince around at Spurs with his bromance buddy. Walrus nosed ****.

http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/documents/ticket-terms-and-conditions148-2730631.pdf 3.15 Season Ticket refunds will only be granted in extenuating circumstances, to be decided by the Club. 3.16 Requests for refunds must be made in writing to the Club. 3.17 Refunds for Season Tickets will be calculated on a pro rata basis and will incur a £20 cancellation fee. [....] 3.26 Refunds will be made within 28 days of receipt of the refund application and relevant unused ticket. --------------------------------- So, basically, they have agreed to the request and actioned much quicker than I would have expected and much quicker than they have committed to. Did they charge a £20 fee or waive that as well? Ok, a nice letter would be, well, "nice" but this is hardly an example of corporate evil.

Virgil's had a bit of a 'mare but that Dutch midfield is non-existent both in defence and on the ball. Might be a better second half now Czechs are down to ten and Van Perdue is on. I hope Virgil gets a goal because this has been horrible for him so far!

TBF he is better than Ryan Mason and probably more deserving than Delli Alle. I could say the same about Jack Cork. No doubt the world class midfield maestros of Henderson, Delph, Milner and Wilshere will lead us to glory next summer in any event so it's a moot point.

Bull****.

There are no outstanding charges registered against Southampton Football Club Limited or St Mary's Football Group Limited (the holding company formerly known as DMWSL 613 LIMITED that Markus used to buy the club). There was a loan with Vibrac Corporation which was secured but that's been repaid. So if there is a Macquarie Bank loan (which I've never heard of - what are you referring to?) it is not secured against the football club or its holding company. There was talk previously about some loans being secured against the "estate of the shareholder" - ie. secured by Katharina herself but I'm not sure what the nature of those loans was/is.

The football club is a limited company owned by another limited company. That second limited company is wholly owned by Katrina Liebherr. Whether it is owed directly to her or some other company she owns, the point is that it's under her control and is just an efficient way of injecting money into the business. I would imagine the terms of the debt are favourable. That's not to say she won't hope to get a decent return one day but she's not a "lender" in the way that a bank (or some weird offshore thing like Vibrac) is. There is no security registered against the group, for example. No business lender in their right mind would lend £50million without security. So, although it is "debt" for accounting purposes, it is more akin to "investment" in practical terms.

Out. Undemocratic and dangerous.

That was written off. The current debt appears to be loans from Kat for the training ground, loans for paying off the Vibrac debt that was taken out before Cortese left (£19million!) and other exceptional costs (Osvaldo etc.) and future transfer payments, which are debts. So its probably about 45 or 50 million in owner loans and ten or fifteen million in future transfer payments.

If we assume that is absolutely true, by its own frames of reference I'm not sure how it translates to "screwed by this government"

I'm actually quite tempted by a trip to France next summer. With N Ireland, Wales, possibly Rep Ireland and England out there and it being ****-easy to get to it could be a right laugh. I'm glad these countries are qualifying. The Republic provided great entertainment at Italia 90 and USA 94. I went to a match at Sampdoria's stadium a few years ago and I vividly recalled watching the ROI / Romania pelanty shoutout there on the box when I was a kid.

Looks like team was: ---------------------Gazarrniggarr-------------------------- Mugabi---------Martina-----Caulker--------------Debayo -----------------Romeu-----Classie----------------------- Gaston-----------------Juanmi---------------Rodriguez -------------------------Seager------------------------- And the pen was a good tackle by Martina. I found it judicious.

Last time I went we actually stayed on Murano. It's a short ferry trip and there was a stop right outside the hotel. We stayed here: http://www.mgallery.com/gb/hotel-7353-lagare-hotel-venezia-mgallery-collection/index.shtml Very nice and new hotel. The restaurant and bar isn't cheap but is commensurate with hotel prices in London, for example. They will send their own water taxi to pick you up from Marco Polo if you're flying into there. There were a couple of decent places to eat on Murano (it is small); a small local restaurant and a nice pizzeria. As you note, tourist prices can be a joke around St Mark's Square... 10+ euros for a coffee, anyone? Look round the square and the basillica but take a short walk for your refreshments! That said, you don't have to go far to find "normal" prices. For eating, places where locals go will be best and won't take the **** like the tourist-aimed places will. Obviously if you want to go somewhere high-end then have a look on Tripadvisor and see what you like the look of. We went to a restaurant called Osteria Alle Testierre (I think). Nice but v small and quite expensive. Don't bother if you don't like fish or haven't booked ahead! The Doge's palace is worth a visit, along with the Murano glass factories and some of the other smaller islands but, as others have said, it is an interesting enough place to just wander around in and hop on and off the water busses from time to time. Gondola's are expensive and, frankly, I wouldn't relax on it enough to enjoy it any more than a water-bus ride. You should definitely check if flooding is likely when you are there and if it is take some wellington boots. I'm not joking, you don't want to be tetering around on the little tables they lay out and if you buy the plastic shoe covers then your feet will stay dry but you will become rather hot and sweaty and may knacker your shoes from the humidity anyway. Ugg boots beware. We went at the end of January and there was a good 18 inches or more of water in St Mark's square. I would suggest the chances of finding a noisy nightclub are slim to non-existent! It's a unique and atmoshpheric place. Enjoy!

I think he is just as good as, if not better than, Forster. I would be delighted if we signed him and Forster got back to fitness - we'd have two decent GKs for the first time in donkey's years.

He's not as good as Bale but apart from that he is probably as good as anyone since MLT.

Agreed. Long is a much better option. And Jay Rod deserves a fine/rest for that stupid haircut as well.

The Falco/Stek incident wasn't even a foul anyway; the ref got that one right. So Mourinho's a double ****.

Eamonn Holmes is an ignorant, obese ****. I thought everyone knew that.

I was one of the early users of Facebook I think. Back then, you needed an email address with a higher education suffix to register (.ac.uk, for example). It was a social network, not a dumping ground for the empty minds of the great unwashed. I no longer use it. If I was single I would though, for accessing flange.

Really? I reckon she seems filthy. Lovely stuff.

If only I was 35 years older, I could have watched.

I understood fully his use of the advantage rule and it's nice to see refs doing it properly. However he gave a lot of fouls incorrectly and the penalty, ironically, was a complete failure to consider advantage. His main saving grace was that he was conservative with the cards or we could have ended up in a spot of bother with the amount of dodgy free-kicks he gave against us.

Yes, that's correct. His body shape was wrong for a tackle. It was a block. Poor decision by the ref, especially as they scored about one and a half seconds later!

Our corners are interesting. Some matches we constantly hit outswingers (with the odd short one) and other matches we constantly hit inswingers. I'm not sure if this is designed to keep the oppo guessing or if we adjust based on the oppo's perceived weaknesses. All I do know is that if JWP is on the pitch and we have a left-sided corner, the inswinger always looks dangerous. We should have had a penalty from a corner yesterday as well. I voted Bertrand for MotM. To play near the top of his game following his injury was very impressive. The way he manipulates the ball and creates angles with running and passes is streets ahead of Targett. I hope Targett is watching him closely because Targett will need to add these skills to his game. I thought our pressing was good yesterday. We let them have the ball in the last 30 minutes or so but the game was basically won by then. In the first half we were aggressive with Davis, Tadic, Mane and JWP closing down well. You can see why Koeman us slightly loathe to deploy Romeu and Wanyama simultaneously because their tendency to play deeper means we lose that ability to hunt in packs - to press you need to work together. It's going to be intriguing to see how we set up when Classie is fit. Pelle had another good game. He won the ball so easily and normally used it well. Onwards and upwards!