Saint Fan CaM

Mmm, not a great draw TBH unless we can strengthen the squad beforehand. Would have rather had a lowly Prem team than a CCC team.

BTW, anyone who think we will get Beckford forget it. On todays showing at OT he will have won himself a Prem deal in the near future I would imagine.

I wish he would go - not needed, not good enough, not enough heart. We need his wage to pay a proper striker who can score.

True actually - that would be a great day out. Can you imagine the songs that would ring out?! lol

Apologies, did not mean to offend in previous post. Perhaps someone was trying out a new procedure yesterday then?

I have been saying this for some time on here and therefore completely agree. I have to say however, that I thought Schneiderlin made more of an effort to move forward and close down today which was good to see. The problem though is we do not have any kind of cutting edge through the central midfield and I think Lallana (while capable in attack) is too lightweight when it comes to tracking back and assisting defensively in midfield...i.e. he is not a true midfielder really IMO. Lallana at RW always seems to do better when there is balance on the right flank in the form of Waigo and a striker with some movement (like Connolly) IMO.

Good description - I agree.

I don't believe you, sorry - you must have arrived 10 minutes before I did, however the queue for collections when we arrived trailed back to the Ted Bates statue...i.e. at least 30 minutes away from the windows. It is true to say that about 10 minutes after we joined the queue a steward walked along the line and asked people if they were there for sales or collection and at that point some people peeled off to join the sales queue. Now if that was repeated all the way to the windows, then that might explain part of the problem. Fact is, there were far too many people waiting for collection (and for sales) when I arrived 15-20 before the match started for blame to be apportioned anywhere other than the ticket office. I expected a wait, but not one that lasted 35 minutes FFS.

Leeds were great today I thought and ManUre poor value. We would not have come away with a result like that because we ship too many goals from not closing down players. Leeds did that in abundance all over the pitch.

Yep and I have to say Leeds played really, really well. They didn't give ManUre any time on the ball, fought for everything. Great game of footie - Beckford and Hughes were immense for Leeds. We would not have given such a performance IMO - not yet...as AP says, we're not up there with Leeds just yet.

I will agree with you that Wright would have been a good player at this level, however he was not good enough to meet the needs of a team trying to push away from relegation. Having said that, the double dutch management of the team was responsible for 90% of the problem. Pearson would have had us high enough up the league to be able to take the admin hit without invoking relegation IMO.

I agree that on this occasion we were held up by incredibly congested traffic coming into the west of the City (I usually come in over the bridge) and so could not get there as early as I planned. However, this is about the relative number of windows apportioned to collections versus new sales. Surely if you've taken the trouble to pre-book seats you should expect to be able to walk up and have just a short wait to get your tickets? The new sales queues were moving a lot quicker and one guy on the other thread on this said he bought a ticket at the window for the same price as pre-book which makes a mockery of the system (if true).

And the worst ones are those that whinge about the complainers! :wink:

I don't think Lines would be AP's first choice otherwise a firm offer would have been placed by now. I would not expect to see one go in until the end of the week depending on the outcome of the two firm offers AP has already eluded to.

I take it you've never gambled atall then? Anyways, not a pointless guess as such - just a feeling in me water.

Perhaps thats because they had many more windows open for new ticket sales? The queue for new ticket sales was moving much quicker than that for collections only which makes pre-sales a complete joke (especially if there was no price difference). The customer service and ticket office management ****ed up big time for this game.

Anyone calling for Pimpley must be daft - even with their rubbish team at the moment the chances are they would still have too much about them and we would get spanked and embarrised. Too soon. And why face a big name Prem team like Arsenal when there are lesser teams still in the competition that we could beat and go through to the next round? More prestige and more money for the club. I think we'll either draw Brighton or Burnley.

Keep up - he's already been denounced as a fool on another thread.

Notts Co. I think were after him last Nov. but he refused the loan move at which time Coleman did say something might happen in January. I guess if the money is right this rumour might have some legs. Exciting if true.

Well it would be a clear intent signing by AP/NC if true and it comes off. Just difficult to believe we have that kind of pulling power just yet. Is he out of contract then?

Well you wouldn't know would you, however the traffic into Southampton from the west of the city was horrendous for some reason and gridlock. I had to divert. I can tell you that there was a very large number of people behind us when we eventually got to the collection window. Two windows open? I could say the ticket office were lazy by clearly having prior knowledge of the numbers who would be collecting and only putting on two windows!

Hang on - as I said originally, I paid for the tickets days before the match but chose to collect the tickets. In all the years going to SMS have I ever seen such a huge queue just to collect tickets - whatever system they employ seems to have changed and today it did not work - it was rubbish.

Sounds a bit unlikely to me. About to enter his prime playing time and dropping down a division? Unless the money is too tempting then I cannot see this happening.

We won and I thought AP got the tactics right too. I thought Hammond and Schneiderlin worked better together today, with the latter getting forward a little bit more and chasing/pressing in central mid. Lamberts goal was superb, however his all round game is lacking still and I remember Rasiak getting slated on here for similar displays. We need another Connolly type striker (inc. quality) as this player makes up for Ricky's shortcomings (Paterson is not good enough). I thought once they settled Perry and Thomas did OK, but the defence in general is need of repair and improvement. Antonio was not great, but Lallana was a bit 'blunt' today also. We need RB, CB, CAM, RW, LW and ST to complete the squad IMO. Please let's be ambitious and get some quality signings in and then push for that play-off spot in earnest.

After the shambles at the ticket office prior to todays match, I would actually now like to see some basic level of customer service from the ticket planning team at SMS. E.g.... (1) When you write to ST holders and tell them that a perk of buying an ST is that their seat will be made available to them, please keep to that promise. I and many others in the Kingsland (for example) were not offered that opportunity. (2) Invest in a better ticketing system that can handle a modest walk-up at least for collections - that's people that have bought in advance of the game - rather making them queue for 35 minutes missing a significant portion of the match!