Lighthouse

I’ve seen commercials which say, “Buy Pompey season tickets, out now!” What’s your point?

What are we up to now, nine out of eleven opening day fixtures away from home, since promotion? I can only remember a 1-1 with Watford in Puel’s first game and a 0-0 with Swansea, at home.

Looking at that I’d say it was a tough August and relatively winnable post World Cup, new year period. Of course with Saints that’s…. Well, just word salad really.

I beg to differ.

If we can’t find a striker who will only score single figures, without Ings’ massive wages, dubious fitness and age, for £15m then our scoutings dept should all be sacked. It’s one thing to aim that low because we’re skint, it’s quite another to be talking about offering him a three year contract as our best paid player. All of this is based on nothing other than nostalgia and baseless hope. Hope that he’ll replicate the 22 goal season when he’s not managed double figures in two of the last four seasons.

But he’s only zero seasons away from when he scored seven goals, one season away from scoring twelve goals and three seasons away from scoring seven goals again. Why is the 22 goal Danny Ings going to be the one we get back, if he returns, out of his four most recent seasons? We spend a lot of money and employ a fair few people to see things the rest of us don’t and research players we’ve never heard of. We rely on taking a risk on undiscovered players to try and gain some sort of edge. If we’re signing an established PL regular, that’s generally because someone were competing with has deemed him surplus to requirements and he’s not good enough to generate interest elsewhere. This is just Walcott all over again, nostalgia based on mediocre past glories.

Only an absolute sandwich would turn down a 30 year old with dodgy knees, who’s just scored 7 goals in a season? If his name was Fred Bloggs and he had no prior connection to Saints, would you still be raving about his calibre of player?

Managing England is basically the Eurovision of football. No top manager is really going to take that job seriously, it's almost become a sort of gimmick.

Nobody told Johnny Bairstow we’re playing cricket, not golf. Incredible last day.

I don't see what we'd need to be humble about. We offered him our biggest ever contract to stay and he declined, not much more to it than that on our part. It's hardly as if he came begging for a new contract and we told him, "f**k off, we're getting Haaland next summer!"

Turks, we’ve got the Shining. Here’s a gif which is both incorrect and unfunny to go with it.

Surprised they didn’t do a league table of house prices in each clubs catchment area.

Just checked their forum and Matteo il Dio is going off one one. Must be part of a franchise.

Surely it’s time for the annual ‘guy on Twitter leaks completely made up set of opening fixtures’ posts? My source tells me it’s definitely Leicester at home.

Just play off the boards, like in five a side. Same behind the goals.

More likely it’ll just be a long, drawn out stalemate. A negotiated settlement basically just means Ukraine signs a piece of paper which says everything Russia has done is fine and gives them a breather for a few years to regroup for their next assault. I don’t see what they stand to gain from that.

And yet 14th placed Villa with 45 points are happy to let him go.

No revision on my part, I thought it was daft then and haven’t really changed my mind. Rasiak scored over 20 goals the year before, between him, Saga, BWP and a young DMG we easily had enough fire power to stay up. If we’d actually focused on the immediate need to replace Baird, Powell and Claus and not wasted money on John, Euell a half arsed loan for Bennett and panic buying Thomas, we’d have been nowhere near the relegation fight. Two decent CBs with the Pele/Baird/Jones/Bale money and we’d have been comfortably top half.

He's only just managed 12 in the Championship, so no I don't think he's worth £20m or that he'd replicate his form if he made the step back up. It's not definitely too cheap either, Swansea incurred the risk of investing in him they might also stand to profit if he improves and they sell him. That's just football, you can't just sell every player at the maximum price of what they might be worth, otherwise Hoedt would have set us back £80m.

I feel like this thread will always be geared towards defensive players because their nightmares are more memorable. Nobody remembers when an attacking player just has an anonymous game in a 0-0. Any of the 10 players who played in the front four for us this season could have been nominated for a handful of their individual performances.

He’s a substandard player at this level, with a questionable attitude to boot. He’s found his level in the Championship, there’s no remorse from me on this.

What are the penalties for fly tipping in Turkiye?

Little blonde children in uniforms singing patriotic songs. How subtle.

I literally only care about the price, for £200m we could sell him to Bradford for all I care.

I do wonder if it’s actually some sort of ritual sacrifice carried out by an isolated island community, like the Wicker Man. They invite mainlanders over who are then killed ahead of the harvest.