Lighthouse

I think you’re massively overestimating how much other club’s fans actually care about Saints.

What’s that, four against zero? I’m done, good night.

TBH so could we, it’s like watching two teams playing themselves. I think both teams will be up there this season, on what I’ve seen so far. We need a settled defence, which will take time, but when we get there we’re going to give a few teams a proper pasting. The most important thing for me is the players look like they have a plan and some ideas. There are still far too many mistakes but we do at least look like we know what we’re trying to do.

That’s not what I said though, is it? We’ve had Stephens injured, Charles dropping in occasionally and a nightmarish debut for Holgate, plus something of a tombola in front of them between JWP, Smallbone, Charles, Downes and Stu. We need stability, starting from now; the transfer window has closed, we know who’s staying and who we’ve brought in.

And with very good reason. We’re five games into the season with a new manager, new league and we’re doing alright with ten points. It’s far too early to be binning off players like Manning and just chucking someone like Larios in for the sake of change. I want at least six consecutive games, injury permitting, of Baz, KWP, THB, Bednarek and Manning, before I pass any real judgement.

I can’t help but wonder whether or not they did actually both fail or if the RC135 has some countermeasures we aren’t admitting to. Either way a close call, I wonder if the Flanker would still have fired if there had been Typhoons in the vicinity.

They’re losing a surprising number of ships for a three day land ‘operation’ against a country without a navy.

The first one was alright, I went mega f**king Titchmarsh on the garden. The subsequent ones were really tedious though and omicron nearly ruined my ski trip.

Or perhaps, bearing in mind that the doctors can apparently find nothing physically wrong with you, it's psychogenic pain brought on by continually reading and believing all this anti-vax fear mongering. In short, you are suffering side effects because you convinced yourself you were going to suffer side effects.

I know right. It’s almost as if we’ve had a war in Ukraine, a cost of living crisis, a rugby World Cup, a heatwave, an escaped terrorist, an air traffic control failure, some dodgy concrete, a coup in Niger, wildfires in Greece, a missing submarine, a new iPhone, a court trial of a US president, Eurovision and a whole bunch of celebrities either dying or shagging each other, which people seem more interested in that a virus we stopped giving a sh*t about 18 months ago.

New strains of interest/concern/whatever are being documented continuously. Here is a list of variants so long I can’t be arsed to scroll through it. https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/covid-19/variants-concern I would be surprised if at any given time there wasn’t some new variant going around.

Since this thread was bumped, I thought I’d check in with what the Volvic Whisperer was retweeting. Another absolute belter from that fruitcake who told him about the alien spaceships.

Which is how VAR started and then they bizarrely changed it, so that every decision now involves the ref jogging over to the monitor to also watch the replay 12 times and takes twice as long. Why a professional referee, in the peace and quiet of the VAR room, with multiple replays and angles available can’t decide for himself, "the keeper pulled out a machete and cut the players head off, it’s a definite penalty," I have no idea.

I wouldn’t be adverse to changing the offside rule so that it’s done purely on feet position. None of these drop down lines from the shoulders, just one straight line across the ground in line with the furthest back foot of the last defender. If an attackers foot clearly breaks that line, in a way which can be deduced in ten seconds or less, then he’s offside. It’d be a really straight forward way of implementing a rule which was only ever intended to prevent goal hanging. Like I said, it’s the rules and the people who are at fault, as they always have been. The technology works fine.

What!?!? A booster programme being brought out to coincide with literally that exact thing it was developed in anticipation of!? That’s too much of a coincidence for me. Have you ever noticed how in May/June every year supermarkets start selling sun cream and it mysteriously starts getting sunny outside? Those devious bastards at Nivea are controlling the weather and the brainwashed sheeple are to gullible to see what’s happening.

So where are you drawing the line, personally. If we score a goal, but it only crosses the line by an inch, it shouldn’t be given right? It’s only just crossed the line, so it’s a bit harsh to give that against the other team. VAR doesn’t make decisions, it’s just a piece of technology. The problem is it’s being used very badly and very slowly by the gimps in charge. The fact that a professional referee looked at the Onana foul against Wolves for about five minutes and decided no penalty is what is wrong with the game, not the actual technology.

It's a completely nonsense comparison and you know it. One is a sport in which two teams are competing, any unfair advantage you give one will impact the other directly. The other is a motoring offence, so I'll happily accept that I've broken the speed limit but driving at 31mph is an error any person could reasonably be expected to make, so no I wouldn't be fined. If there was a national 'driving just under 30mph' championship, I'd be willing to accept disqualification.

I don't believe footballers are given a fine for being an inch offside. If they are, I expect to see Walcott working in McDonald's in Totton fairly soon.

A rule is a rule, doesn’t matter if it’s an inch offside or a millimetre off the edge of a bat. I can honestly say I never stopped or changed the way I celebrated scoring goals (not that we’ve had many) since VAR came in.

I’m watching the cricket, two NZ batsmen have been wrongly given out on field by decisions which were then reviewed. No controversy, no bias, no injustice. People only talk about the decisions video referees get wrong. We’re far better off having it than not.

I distinctly remember ‘it’ happened during the rugby WC, as well as being on a Friday night in autumn.

This has to be the worst example, which still sticks in my mind eight years later. Let’s take a classic rugby WC hymn and get some random bloke to rap over it. Christ knows who signed off on this and why but it was horrendous.

Not really.

It's a risky game going after BMW and Mercedes. That's not going to fly with a certain subsection of Russian society.

Those three don't really fit into that category. They were relatively cheap, if not free and 'worth a punt' at the time. Dia may have been our worst ever player but he was also our cheapest; signed on a free on a one month deal, he probably cost the same as bringing in an extra dinner lady to cover the Xmas party. Forren was no different to Gazza or Mayuka that season really. We needed bodies for our PL squad, they were all worth a punt.