Lighthouse

Really? Hasn’t worked with anything I’ve been sh*gging.

Those dolls seem to have understood social distancing far better than half the muppets in this country. I suppose when your mouth’s open all the time you’re more likely to catch Covid 19.

Premier League clubs vote unanimously to return to training. https://www.southamptonfc.com/news/2020-05-18/southampton-football-club-premier-league-statement-training-restart

Manbearpig?

Obviously you can't not include politics in a topic like this but discussions about Brown and Labour budgets from 10 years ago are a bit of a stretch and not particularly interesting. By all means carry on the debate on the numerous Lounge threads, like this one https://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?54675-All-things-Labour-Party#.XsG9f2hKiUk

As a player, I rate Hoedt slightly higher than Stephens, who as far as Saints is concerned is the lesser of six evils. With hindsight and going purely by their respective abilities, Vest was a pointless signing. Basically, Hoedt apparently being a complete helmet has cost the club £17m. Oh well.

Okay, so what exactly does this 'spreading rumours' entail which is so difficult for a player to live with? Fonte, his family and friends would obviously stick by him and not believe such 'rumours'. Probably most of the dressing room too, not that they'd care as they've all got their own agents badgering for better deals themselves. If he's not worried about paper talk and social media then who does that leave? Who is out there, believing all of Reed's scandalous lies and making Fonte's life so difficult that he was forced to leave the club?

So you're saying he uprooted his life and moved away from the club and the area against his will AND took a pay cut, because a couple of Echo articles and internet weirdos were saying he was aggravating for a new contract? If that's true I mean genuinely, wow! Everyone thought Les was a bumbling idiot and here he is running the club like some sort of Mafiosi, driving his enemies out of town with the Twitter equivalent of a horses head in the bed. I wish he was still here. He could say Carillo supports Pompey, Lemina eats raw bats and Elyonoussi was responsible for the Bhopal chemical disaster. They'd be gone within a week. Look, I liked Fonte as a player and a captain and I'm certainly no fan of Reed but his versions of events don't add up; and they are differing versions. He said at the time he/his family wanted to be nearer other family in London. Now he's saying he didn't want to leave and was forced out. Those two stories are mutually exclusive.

Have you ever been to Luton? They were doing the world a massive favour, trust me.

So why did he? I think he came back from winning the Euros, with Mendes as his agent, hoping he’d be able to get one last, decent contract for two years. Saints were happy to give him an extra year, which would have taken him halfway to his 35th birthday but anything beyond that starts getting risky with injuries and performance. After negotiations stalled over this, an offer came in from West Ham which met both Fonte’s demands of a two year deal and what we would consider a reasonable asking price. With 6 months left to run and little fear of relegation, we decided to accept, pocket the £8m and move on. None of that is unreasonable from either party. Not having a replacement sorted was stupid on our part and Fonte has acted a bit of a plank with his varying versions of events in the media. If he had just said, "I’m getting on and I want a two year contract to secure my family’s future," everything would probably have been less of a mess.

I thought the two Koeman veho shirts were alright, as was the Air Florida throwback from a couple of years ago. The others have been largely crap though I agree.

I agree. You can either believe that testing will ensure nobody in the stadium had the virus, in which case there’s no need for any of the masks, social distancing etc. Or you’ve accepted that some people will get into the stadium with the virus, in which case it’s likely to be spread significantly by breath and close contact. It’s a meaningless compromise, which as you say is just paying lip service. They should have some conviction, one way or another.

Got me thinking about our least injured players. I can’t remember Pellè missing a game through injury and Lambert was pretty decent in that regard.

Can’t believe it’s taken six posts to say it but HCDAJFU.

I can’t imagine Mendes phoning Reed up and saying, "he’s your captain, he’s just won Euro 2016, we have other parties interested... we want to be paid LESS than (at least) three other players in the squad." They’d be demanding top dollar, no shadow of a doubt, so I don’t believe that bit either. I don’t really care if it’s Reed. In fact I wouldn’t care if our DoF was the b*stard love child of John Westwood and the child snatcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Fonte’s version of events has more holes than a rusty colander.

I don’t buy any of that. Not that I’m in any way a fan of Reed but the idea that he told Fonte he had to leave AND take a pay cut, to which Fonte and his agent kindly obliged makes no sense. You can’t just tell a contracted player he has to leave, that’s the exact problem we’ve had for years with Clasie, Carrillo, Hoedt etc. Why would we force our captain and starting CB out of the club, mid-season, when we didn’t have a replacement? Anyway, I remember numerous interviews and sources at the time saying that he ‘wanted to be nearer family in London’. Why say that if you’ve just been forced out of the club (if that were possible)? https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38694821

Can’t be arsed trawling four hours of radio, what did he say?

Former World Snooker champion, Peter Ebdon going full on fruitcake on Five Live. You know it's going to be good when someone uses the phrase, "wake up people!" And this was shortly followed by the phrase, "greatest psychological operation in history." If nothing else this virus is helping to highlight which of celebrities are the biggest crackpots out there. Sadly Tiss is one of them too.

You think secondary school kids are going to socially distance? You’ll have half of a dozen of them getting stoned together behind the bike sheds and another three fingering some girl called Kayla.

Seriously? They’re teachers, not drill sergeants. Trying to keep them in order is like herding cats.

It’s about the money. Nobody moves clubs because they’ve got a bigger stadium and more fans. ‘Ambition’ doesn’t mean much when they’re now about 12 clubs aiming for the Champions League. The manager, maybe but anyone moving from us to them is going to want a pretty decent pay rise to go with it. If you don’t believe me, let’s compare the players who’ve signed for Leeds and Bournemouth in recent years.

I like it but it's far to straight forward and good for a Saints shirt. You need to add a large pink square on one of the shoulders for no reason, some sort of pointless collar and buttons combination and a cheap plastic sponsor's logo, off centre for some reason, which starts to tear and peel after two washes.

Is that the woman who used to present Homes Under the Hammer, in an open marriage? I wonder if Dion is involved.

I've moved as much as I can be arsed, the Starmer stuff is all in the Labour thread.

All in all he’s decidedly average but would be a big loss. I think that pretty much summarises Saints.