spyinthesky

People sometimes complain about bias at the BBC but Matt Goodwin, the GB News Presenter on last night's 'Question Time' was so Far Right Wing, he nearly fell off the end of the Flat Earth. Personally I do have a sliver of understanding for some of Reforms policies but am truly horrified by some of the ne'er do well's the party attracts. That said, what is the option? Tories are in complete disarray after Boris & Truss, Greens have a radical left wing leader, Lib Dems have a weak leader only noticeable by his political stunts and Labour are floundering and about to introduce a Labour Relations Act which will allow the Unions to flex their muscles again and make businesses even more difficult to operate.

He played well. Hopefully that increases his transfer value.

Worrying thing from the Blackburn game is the report from my mate who is a long suffering Blackburn fan who reckoned Rovers were nailed on for relegation. He still thinks is the case but was amazed how poor Saints were after spending so much money on new players. In his opinion it was a game between two poor sides who both missed decent chances. This is a big concern.

And all three promoted clubs from League 1

But to be fair Shea Charles also played a couple of games for N Ireland during this time

There are a number of clubs with worse owners than Solak Our upcoming opponents, Blackburn, are one example. All very well shouting for Sports Republic to go but future owners may be even worse, as we had a few. Perhaps Barry the Briefcase will be back in the frame?

Seven years ago, 7,000 of us were in Milan watching us throw away a game we should have won. At least we beat them in the return fixture. We were an established Premier League club then, now languishing in the depths of the Championship. Booo!!!

Drew 3-3 at Aldershot tonight but won 4-2 on pens.

We do seem to be having some bad breaks to be fair. Robinson hitting the post twice, Boro's flukey goal, hitting the post v Swansea and I think there have been others. I still think we have enough decent players to make a go of things but spending around £30+ on Downs (!!!) Brereton Diaz, and Archer (probably £100k on wages) plus the £8m wasted on Ross Stewart would have bought us a decent striker. I dont necessarily blame Sports Republic as they have spent money but the recruitment, particularly on strikers, has been woeful.

Most of us felt a warm, muzzy feeling after the influx of supposedly decent players in the recent transfer window after a long winter of abject failure. This short term feeling of optimism has been replaced by the return of the familiar feeling of despondency magnified by the loss of our only true central striker. Hopefully we are too good to go down but who knows? At the moment we are unlikely to overhaul Pompey. The only very small glimmer of light is that all three relegated clubs lost tonight. Not much of a consolation though.

West Ham fans not at all happy with owners, players, manager and team performances. So we are not the only ones!!!

I remember going down to Ashton Gate for an Easter game in our first promotion year in 1966. We were fortunate to get a 1-0 win which propelled us towards promotion. I think if we play as we did against Swansea, but bearing in mind that Brizzle City are a much better side, and actually convert our chances, we might snatch the three points. Fingers crossed and be prepare for further disappointment.

With his stunning start to his Saints career, surprising to see he wasnt included in the squad to play Australia today.

I am no fan of Trump but, I guess, he has contributed positively to the freeing of the Israeli hostages. That said his description of finding a solution to a 3,000 year conflict is in line with his many other ridiculous boasts. And, of course, this initial part of the peace plan has a number of other tricky issues to resolve before he and his family and business associates can start developing the Gaza wastelands. Meantime, anyone noticed that his tie is really starting to descend further towards his crotch?

Is there a reliable source that Donny (and his family) have been vaccinated? Hope so.

I wish Dom the best of luck at Orient and beyond. That said I dont think he would have added anything to our Championship squad going forward. To my mind we need a physical main striker in the Lambert/Pelle mould. If Dom proves me wrong, I think we have a sell on clause inserted in his contract.

I think he was one of our stand out players for a while but think that ship may have sailed now unfortunately. Will be interesting to see where he ends up post West Ham

Had a chat with someone who keeps a close eye on football finances and reckons that football club revenue may have hit the ceiling based on: 1. Revenues from the bigger clubs, apart from Real Madrid who have extended their stadium capacity, only rose by around an average of 1% last season, probably 5% overall if Real Madrid's 26% was added in. 2. Revenues from sponsorship has more or less been exhausted as can be seen by the number of corporate logos on shirts. ManUtd, for example, have 41 brand partnerships and perhaps a few more could be added but this is likely to be at the expense of the main sponsors. 3. Broadcasters are not bidding crazy amounts for live TV games. The Premier League is the most valuable with a record £6.7b for 2025-29 rights but whilst sounding good it was only a small increase over the previous round. If inflation is factored in the Premier League is actually earning 31% less that the 2016-2019 package. 4. Viewing numbers for live games are falling with the subscription market highly competitive. 5. The big hope that one of the streaming giants would wade into the market has not transpired despite Amazon testing the market by buying a few games. 6. Perhaps the biggest challenge is that there are too many matches especially with the beefed up European competitions and the Club World Cup. Fans are satiated and players forced to play too many games, despite being very well renumerated. When you think that most of our more established players were earning between £40k - £120k per week to win 12 points and more than 20,000 of us paid out an average of around £600 for our season tickets, it is not difficult to see how many people get disillusioned with the game. That said, it is testament to the loyalty of Saints fans that attendances home and away have been good.

But didnt Pochettino recommend Downs to us?

Perhaps there is the chance of a points deduction that has been priced in

I have a fair bit of affection for JWP. Never let us down and an average 7/10 performance a bit like like Steven Davis and then add on bit for his free kick goals. A regular 100% performer. That said, I think he is now past his prime and cant see us meeting his wages aspirations even now. A true Saint in my opinion but cant see him meeting Sports Republic's business plan which is fair enough.

Nice place to live is Harrogate. When I was a student in Leeds we used to drive over to Harrogate for a Saturday Night out at the Intercon Club in the centre of the town. Decent looking girls there and the music mainly Northern Soul and rarer Motown tunes. Fond memories of the place.

Me too. I know a few Sunderland fans and they, without exception, raved about him both from a goalscoring perspective but also his ability to defend, especially from opponents corners.

And they will be without their main attacking forward on loan from a team on the South Coast!!

The unfortunate fact of life is that rightly or wrongly, we tend to parrot what goes on across the pond. All the right wing shit that Donald J Trump and his MGA acolytes have been spouting is being recreated over here by Farage and his motley crew. I must move in the wrong circles but more or less all the people I know are centre right/centre left in their views on politics and we all seem to be without reasonable representation as reflected in recent polls.