Minty

As in he's not very good at it, or it's a bit more harsh than just 'banter' and it's actually abuse or criticism rather than banter?!

Van Gaal reckons it'll take three years - a perfect illustration of why our club infrastructure is so much better than theirs... he's rebuilding almost from scratch it seems, whereas we are able to bring a new manager and players into our existing structure and 'rebuild' almost immediately. And he's a c*nt.

Excellent post bletch. And personally I have no issue with immigration and I DO live in an area where there are lots of immigrants living and working.

I fear you may be right, although I desperately hope not.

Question - given the exposure that our new facilities have had this week, especially the analyst suite, and the staff analysing all those games - do the FA have anything similar for looking at potential England players? Do they analyse all the players week in/week out, or do they just rely on scouts and staff and Woy watching games first hand? You'd think a progressive FA would look at how we do things (and other clubs to a lesser degree I'm sure) and want to introduce the best possible technology to ensure they're getting the best possible players to fit their squad and tactics etc. Or is that too much like common sense for the FA to implement? So what analysis do they do, do you think? Anyone got any insight?

The one that bugs me the most, like, is when people, like, use the word like all the time, like. If that makes its way into print, I'll stop reading altogether (like).

I'm honoured you save one of your rare posts for me.

Think I'll make this my first live game of the season.

Sorry. Take it out on Sky Headline writers instead...?

Thing is, when you actually watch the video, he is asked about any weaknesses or areas to improve and he actually struggles to come up with that... he praises us loads and then says something like 'if i really had to criticise something, they could've scored a couple more' but only after initially saying we had no weaknesses. The Sky headline on that video is rather misleading.

Ex-Saint Matt Mills got one of the goals in that last game... I remember watching it in a pub in Winchester, where I have never seen Saints win. Haven't been back for awhile.

http://www.espnfc.co.uk/video/espn-fc-tv/86/video/2126352? More of the same kind of stuff, and then Craig Burley's one-word analysis at the end!

Not that simple (not simple at all!!!) according to whoever edited the Wikipedia page: So the Champions of Switzerland are the biggest benefactors, whilst the the Northern Irish and Welsh champions just lose more heavily to someone a round later than normal!

Ifs, buts and maybes. I'm just enjoying it.

Apologies, however I'm sure you can see that your post... ... suggested to me that other alternatives for coping with the workload peaks *would* make the business non-viable.

Although he's still a shadow of his former self and longs for the old days when he and Essruu would team up and farm bites by the dozen.

Some would say that your business is already non-viable if it can't cope or adapt to peaks in demand without extra unpaid labour. I recognise the problem because I have dealt with it in many roles, and it's not easy to overcome, however IF we are to allow businesses to make use of unemployed people in a way such as this, then the business should, IMO, commit to paying for that labour at a point in the future when it gains the income for the work that they have done. That's a whole other discussion though.

I presume that graphic was from Monday Night Football? What else did they have to say?

Austin over Ings on recent evidence, no question.

I'd rather Charlie Austin than Ings - far better suited to the Pelle role IMO, and he is at least scoring some Premier League goals, even in a poor QPR side.

I've never been bothered about the specific players and seeing how they do, however I am far more interested in the wider dynamic of how players integrate into their teams (or not) and how much of that is down to the player, and how much the club they join. Along with some of our players, there are other high profile examples down the years - Fernando Torres one of the best - of clearly good players simply not delivering at new clubs - and indeed whole clubs failing to perform despite supposedly good signings. Hence why I think what we've got at Southampton at present - irrespective of specific manager or players - is quite special, and rare.

They only recently recruited a new Head of Customer Services I believe... they may not even have started yet. Anyway, I'm sure in this new era for the club they would want to engage with supporters and get this right, so perhaps a decently written letter to the club would perhaps get them to look into it and shed some light? It certainly needs some constructive conversation at least...

Tried phoning or emailing the ticket office? Suspect that might yield better results than posting on here...

IMO, we currently have an almost perfect mentality. We have confidence in our ability, knowing that we have a good defence, a dynamic midfield and a creative and potent attack that is capable of beating most, if not all teams in the league. That brings some pressure and healthy expectation to beat the likes of Leicester, but because we are very grounded and respectful of our opponents, and the players are so focused only on the next game, we are less likely to be distracted or allow complacency to set in. The best thing about that, as evidenced by Fonte's quote above, is that it is not the manager or coaching staff who are having to keep the players grounded... it is ingrained in the players themselves. If someone asked me what mentality and culture I would try to instil in my team if I could make it happen with a magic wand, that would be it. It's great. So - we should beat Leicester. We should not take them for granted at all as they can hurt teams, but we are more than capable of doing so so we should be confident of getting the right result. We go out and earn it and then move on to the next.

They bought the player, but they can't buy the team spirit, the cohesion, or the belief of the team that helped him become such a good player. Chambers is the only player who looks anywhere near as good as last season so far, and I think that our team spirit and cohesion plays a huge part in that. A good team is way more than the sum of its parts. Teams buying our 'parts' are finding that out. They can (and in Shaw's case, I'm sure will) still be excellent players, but unless you've got a free role up front, most players need to work with their teammates to get the best out of each other and themselves. We've clearly got a fantastic culture and belief in our club that helps that... others have tried to buy it from us, without realising what the real source of our success is.