Lighthouse

£58m signings don’t go on loan to the Championship, even if you chop one if their legs off. He will 90% likely stay at Chelsea and ease his way into the side there, the 10% being a loan to a lower mid table team.

Probably just chilling out with his feet up, rent free in your head.

We’ll need to play a bit better than yesterday to keep the pressure on the three above. Hoping Leicester can turn the screw on Ipswich in the late k/o.

Finished article? The guy has done absolutely naff all in 18 months. I would expect the players with genuine potential to be taking the p*ss in this league. The likes of Bazunu, THB and Charles will need patience to become PL players, either with us or elsewhere, but they’re at least doing it at this level. Mara is not in that category, his only goal was a non-event in a game that was already over and he can’t seem to force his way into a team badly needing a decent striker.

I was hoping dropping down a division might help SM get a foothold in English football but so far he’s managed one goal, in the 96th minute, against a team 2-0 down, with ten men, who were mentally already halfway back up the A34. No reasonable offer refused IMO.

Mario Lemina turning it on against Chelsea. Better late than never. 🙄

Pleased with that, looking like a good winter for batsmen so far.

One from three.

Xmas/NY opening hours. Thankfully this year Xmas eve and NYE are both on a Sunday, so they’re out the way on a day which is sh*t and irritating the other 50 weeks of the year anyway.

He is right though. Our record signing in the PL was around £25m on Sully, I think a few people need to seriously readjust their expectations. All this chat around £30m signings and £80-100kpw wages… half it and you’re at the top end of what we might be spending. More realistically, divide by three.

What do you mean? That's literally what he's already done. Villa sold him to West Ham, for less than half what they paid for him, and he hasn't managed to turn it on at either club.

Cardiff fans probably said the same thing about Rickie Lambert. He scored four goals. I get that people are willing to take a punt on him but ‘unbelievable’? I don’t think so.

Nobody is doubting Ings finishing ability, it's his fitness and motivation to come here which is the problem. And yes, Theo DID do bad in the end, he was pretty much terrible for about 90% of his time here.

It pretty much is for a new signing who wasn’t relegated with the team originally. You may well be happy with Ings on £80kpw but the rest of the dressing room and our accountants won’t be. That’s triple the wages of the highest earner at about 18 of the 23 clubs in this league.

We’re not going to be offering any player half of £100kpw in the Championship, let alone one with as dubious a fitness record as Ings. Also, I wouldn’t be hoping for anything from Mara or Stewart at all TBH.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/football/67256899 At this point I think we just need to officially rename Birmingham City.

His goal scoring record in the last 4 seasons: 1-6-1-1

Correction, it has apparently been revised to 1,200, not that that makes much difference to the actual point being discussed. Except that’s quite obviously not what’s happening, that England game was about three days after the 7/10 attacks and before anything of note had happened in Gaza.

Literally nobody I’ve seen is supporting or encouraging this. It’s a war of two religions, both convinced they have a divine right to the same peace of land, who are prepared to fight and die for it. The whole thing is just a tragic mess but for Hamas to be telling the world’s media, “oh please, won’t someone think of the children!” After what they did is just laughable.

If only there was some way Hamas could have not started the whole thing by murdering 1400 innocent civilians in an unprovoked terrorist atrocity. It’s not their fault, they couldn’t possibly have predicted Israel would react like this.

I agree, I think our hangover from last year’s dreadful second half was much shorter and less severe than I expected. We’re still hampered by a lack of creativity and a proper number nine but dealing with it relatively well and getting results. As for the thread title, I think a lot of fans (not just at saints) hugely overestimate how much the other 91 sets of supporters care about their club. There are probably fans in League 1 convinced they’re a laughing stock for scoring two points in five games, when really nobody else in the country gives two sh*ts.

It’s like a bottle of Scouse wine, very strange reaction.

Alcaraz’s performance have been nowhere near the level of what Tadic used to do for us, even at this level. He gets criticised because his performances are regularly substandard. He’s young and clearly has talent but it remains to be seen whether he can deliver on that or just be another Mayuka, Juanmi or Griffit.

Not really, if something like that happens it’s obviously going to be upsetting for his teammates. It would have been like that Denmark - Finland game when Eriksen collapsed, which should never have been continued.

Nobody hates him but he has been far from a consistent performer this season.