spyinthesky

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 This short term feeling of optimism has been replaced by the return of the familiar feeling of despondency magnified by the loss of our only true central striker.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.

Rally, I guess we see things a bit differently. Both Farage and Johnson make good television and, to my mind, have been dealt with on a reasonably even handed way on the political front, so much so that the BBC have been subjected to accusations of bias from all parties. On other non political programmes, such as 'Have I Got News For You' both Reform and Tories, in particular reference to their leaders, have been mercifully ridiculed. The fact of life nowadays, is that a good deal of the electorate obtains their political information from non terrestrial TV. And if there is any question of political bias on the TV, GB News is undoubtedly not a paragon of virtue,

Keep an eye out for Nige's senior adviser, a well connected and so called 'posh boy' by the name of George Cottrell, who describes dear old Nige as a father figure. At an early age George was expelled from Malvern School for illicit gambling. His Dad went to Gordonstoun with Prince Andrew and, apparently Mama once dated Prince Charles. After leaving school young Mr Cottrell served eight months in a US prison in 2016 for wire fraud but continued with his gambling habit boasting about taking £50k into a branch of William Hills and losing the lot.. His Mum is one of Reform's biggest donors sticking in £500,000 in the past year. Her son 'Posh' George now splits his time between advising Nige in the UK with part time residence in Montenegro, a country whose membership of the EU (really ????) has been delayed due to concerns about money laundering. This must be where George is researching facts for his new book....'How to Launder Money'...in your bookstores (possibly not that one in Petersfield!!) next February. Worrying times ahead dear friends and not only on the pitch at St Marys.

I have no time for Reform but the BBC was having to put up with a lot of criticism about not giving air time to the party at a time when the Polls were showing them registering highly with the electorate. From the BBC's position they are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

Stop the ...what..? One 'o' to many?? I wonder if Trump, turning up in his golf shoes may have suggested to the USA team that he wanted to take part as he is a born winner on the golf course and manages to find time to play most weekends in between managing the greatest cuntry on earth, since time began.

I enjoyed the game a bit more than the ones I have seen at St Marys and Hull so far this season bearing in mind that Middlesboro are a decent side. I was only thinking to myself that the Smoggies had taken off three of their more attacking players, which was a good sign, only to find that their replacements ended up causing us more problems. It may be that Saints are work in progress but then again quite a few Championship teams have quite a turnover of players this season so that is a bit of a poor excuse. I guess we have a strong squad which should be beneficial as the season progresses as really only Shea Charles would be a big miss if he was to miss games. I thought Ross Stewart did OK for his first full game and not only did he provide and aerial challenge but also dropped back into midfield to attend to defensive duties. All that said, with the way the team have performed so far this season, a top two spot is very unlikely and there will need to be a big upturn in form to make the playoffs. If we can only get 2 or 3 points from the next two games then the pressure will really be on Will Still

Indeed there are some good players out there. Bree at Charlton (scored yesterday). Brereton Diaz (scored a cracker for Derby) young prospect in League One (Ballard at L Orient scored) and another young defender, Thierry Small who is playing well at the back for Preston NE. Then there is a well regarded Manager at Charlton who is performing well in the Championship.

In all my years watching Saints I cant remember a worse striker performance than Downs tonight. What is it with our striker recruitment? Absolutely crap!!!!!!!!!!!!!