Legod Third Coming

Nor did I, but it's always best to quash these gags before they become fact. A bit like the Captain Pugwash rumours

No, and I'll tell you why... Barcelona have not been 'found out'. They have played possession football for over a decade and have a trophy cabinet full to the rafters to prove the merit of it. Even tonight the 'Barcelona way' was good enough to win. They hit the post twice, missed a penalty and missed a hatful of chances to win the game. On another night, penalty goes in, Barcelona would have won 3,4,5-1 and no-one in West London would be out celebrating. People forget that this is sport. Not every great team can win every game because sometimes you don't get the luck or you spurn the gilt edge chances you create. These are two facts about football - if you don't have the ball, you cannot score. If you have the ball, the opposition cannot score. And one other truism that I've learned in 25 years of racing - form is temporary, class is permanent. Hoddle is such an arse - "Messi did nothing" what, apart from the two defence splitting passes that created a goal and a miss and hitting the woodwork twice... And that was on a bad night.

This a nonsense statement. They will be but it doesn't mean that we will win does it? Since Nigel Adkins took over this team (in fact since Pardew took it over) I haven't once seen a side take the field and not look to win the game. We haven't won them all, but not for want of trying. We've made mistakes (people do), we've been unlucky (it happens), we've been tactically or professionally deficient in some areas (other teams also have good managers and good players) and occasionally, like Saturday, we have been outplayed. But let me re-iterate, not once in two seasons have I come away from a game questioning the team's attitude or conviction. So why the hell would they not be 'pumped' (whatever that really means) for the biggest game of all their careers??

This is right. No team has won every game. As it stands, Reading have won 27 games, we have won 25 and West Ham 23. After Saturday, if we go up, the two best teams in the league on wins will have been promoted. That's it. To say we should have won this or that game is immaterial. I would love us to have won all them. We didn't. Some we deserved to and didn't (Reading) some we didn't deserve to and did (Leeds) and some were unlucky (Pompey) and could have gone another way within a hair's breadth of luck. Over the season, if we go up, we'll have deserved it. It isn't stumbling across the line or undeserved, it's sport. When I look in my Rothman's Almanac it doesn't say that England got lucky with a Jonny Wilkinson dropped goal, it say World Cup Winners...

Here's the thing. Few years back I had us as 13/2 to win he JPT. When we got to the final I backed Carlisle to ensure the worst outcome was a healthy profit. I could never enjoy those winnings because a) I would have won a hell of a lot more if I hadn't hedged. b) the money was dirty.

Whatever the result, grown men will cry. That is a fact....

Without Chaplow that is the starting eleven. With Chaplow, Hammond in for Morgan would be a call. But without Chaplow, Morgan is our most effective midfielder at moving the ball forward.

Someone tells me this is the 28th anniversary of 8-2. I'll take that!

That is our only danger - complacency. No game is a gimme. Not for Goliath, not for us. Go out. Do the job professionally. Take no chances. Take no liberties. Do the job as you have for most of the season. As we did against Peterborough and Palace.

I have heard the term chokers banded about. Seems there are plenty of them on here. Luckily, none in our first eleven come Saturday. Two years, two promotions - that's all they'll be thinking. Win the game. Control the controllables. Could be 1-0 - we'll still clinch it. It won't. The team have never been up for a game like this one. I'll bet the same patsies who are wetting themselves today were doing the same down Wembley way before we demolihsed Carlisle....

Yep first half and second half and people will eat humble pie - plates of it.

Guly will score twice.

Every week I see about 8000 in fancy dress - Ben Sherman, Lacoste, River Island. You know who you are. Might as well tattoo 'gay' on your neck...

I hope not friend - Leeds and Leeds spring to mind. 3 games would do

How often has it come down to this. And how often between ourselves and Coventry, West Ham... a Hull, an Oldham, a Sheffield Wednesday, how about a Manchester City? This is what Southampton fans used to be made of. Don't let your forbears down by whining and patsying. Do what a thousand better men have done before. Get on your shirt, get on your scarf. Get behind your side and BE THERE. For the GREAT ESCAPE 2012 - when the team with the power of the Gods on their side, finally break the shackles of the lower leagues and return to their spiritual HOME! And look forward to another 27 years in the top flight. And hope you're there to see every one of them. UP THE FECKING SAINTS!!!!!!!

BIG difference. Boro were good!! Leicester tonight could not have won a one handed poker game...

Predictable but I wouldn't lose much sleep if someone went in knee high on Paul Konchesky on Saturday...

Beckford. There's a word for how good you are. It rhymes with grit.

I want an enquiry into how this lot beat us. TWICE. I am not sure what to believe. Maybe there is a God? Maybe UFOs. Maybe Elvis really is alive on the moon? Because if this lot beat us, anything is possible...

I don't care that this lost lose to west Ham but HOW HOW HOW did we lose to them??? They are terrible. Truly truly terrible.

No seriously we need an enquiry into how much Konshesky is still being paid by West Ham...

I actually think Konshcesky still thinks he's a West Ham player...

How poor is Paul Konchesky?

What the feck is that Safe Style advert??? Have I woken up in a parallel universe?!!!

How did this lot beat us? TWICE?!!!