Lighthouse

Hmmmm. My usual eggnog Sambuca is not on there.

Whiling away a bit of time watching Octopussy and waiting for the exit poll. Not sure I’ll stay up that late TBH, it’s like the Super Bowl, depends how tired I am and what mood I’m in.

‘Extremely average’ is a big upgrade on two players we’ve given contracts to this summer, so I wouldn’t use that as a yardstick.

A halfway competent agent would negotiate back pay so I wouldn’t read too much into that, assuming something hasn’t been signed privately already.

There’s a club in town where a woman dressed in leather will chain you up and you vote Tory together. So I’m told by a friend.

If Ox makes sense to anyone they need an MRI scan. Ox makes Darren Anderton look as fit as… well, an ox.

I don’t think there’s anything here which can’t/isn’t being covered on the other thread.

Well, I voted. I also rewired the electrics in the roof and didn’t blow up, so I’ve had a moderately productive day.

So how is that our use of the loan system being abysmal? If a young player does nothing here, has little impact on loan in a lesser league, then gets released and signs for someone much lower down the pyramid, it points almost unequivocally towards that player not being Saints standard. We loan these young players out to a variety of different clubs at lower levels, what else is it that you expect a good club to do that we’re so ‘abysmal’ at?

😂😂 Scott McTominay starts every game for Man Utd, get a grip you lot.

So we’ve got to win a T30, if there was such a thing, with a target of 179. Just lost two quick wickets, 92/3.

Seems a decent, low risk signing on the face of it.

That really isn’t true though. In the last few years some very okay players have had first team opportunities at Saints. Never in a million years would Smallbone get first team football at 3/4 of PL clubs. Tella made about 30 odd first team appearances for us, having been released by Arsenal. SAA played a few games for us, when he clearly wasn’t ready, even for Championship football. AGR has just turned 16, so to say your pathway is being blocked would be absolute horse sh*t.

178 needed before the end of the day then.

Don't let the general election distract you from the fact that in 2001 Kurt Angle hosed the Alliance with milk on Monday Night Raw.

You’re looking at the whole thing the wrong way around. Man City and Chelsea youngsters are more likely to play for Saints because the top 5% of their youngsters are generally much better than anything we produce. They have to take a step down in order to play first team football because competition there is so high. Edozie would never have had a whiff of first team football at City, here he’s a first team regular. Smallbone made 20 first team appearances before he went to Stoke. If he’d managed to achieve mediocrity, he wouldn’t have been loaned out at all but he needed at least a season at a lower level to develop.

Yes they did. SAA looked a long way off being ready, Dibling I didn’t see enough of but he had a few chances in the cups and the coaches clearly decided he (aged 17/18) isn’t ready for more yet. You have to be as good as Mudryk or Jackson to get a chance at Chelsea, you have to be as good as Sekou Mara to get a chance here.

You can’t really be saying that when you’re 16. They would have had plenty of opportunities at Saints if they’d stuck around and been good enough. I can’t imagine Will Smallbone playing 30 plus games at Chelsea.

We would indeed. However, the fact that he's already been here about seven years and we've had the pleasure of watching almost all of those 154 appearances leads me to believe that in reality Bednarek is a substandard PL player, whose many mistakes cost us a lot of goals at this level.

As much as I wanted Slovenia to pull it off, Portugal will probably make for some more entertaining games in the latter stages. I can't sit through many more of these cagey bore draws.

Let’s not write Wood off just because Swansea fans don’t rate him, after all Torino fans said Lyanco was crap and he….erm…. Yeah, sorry, as you were guys.

I'm not sure I'm buying that. If it was a charity or a mate starting up his own business then fair enough but we're talking about Puma and a PL football club. I'll pay what I think is a reasonable price for a T-shirt, same as a match ticket.

If anything I’d say our record of signing young players is better than that with experienced ones. In the last two years Manning, Onuachu, Orsic, AMN and Stewart have been something of a disaster.

He played 90% of the season and we got promoted. He was good enough, you’re going to have to let it go.

I don’t mind spending money but not £55 on a T-shirt which cost £1 to make.