Lighthouse

Fair enough but we were talking about transfers. Kat hasn't been proven wrong on that yet, I mean if Gao takes us to a 5th place finish in 5 years, she can say she was correct. Anyway, that's a different topic. I never believed the 'next level' stuff anyway and I don't think I've met anyone else who did. Ralph did get personnel, I don't know what you mean. We signed Adams, Danso and Djenepo, when the squad was already bloated with players hard to shift. You can't just say Danso doesn't count, just because you don't rate him. Ralph would have known when he was appointed that we could only bring in what we can sell and get off the wage bill.

Vague and meaningless. Also that’s a separate issue to player transfers.

I’d would say that’s more often the players agents and selling clubs trying to push up prices. Half the ‘ITK’s are just bog standard trolls and people repeating nonsense they’ve read on twitter. I don’t really see how the club benefits by making fans think we’re signing three or four great players, then disappointing everyone by not.

I went to that, second round I think. From what I can recall it was a cold and damp and we were making fun of the sizable Ade Akinfenwe. Parking was pretty easy though. Well I don't. It wont get better than 4-0 at Fratton, so we've little to gain. On the other hand if we go down because they injure Ings, we'd never hear the end of it. Let them stew on the 4-0 for a couple of years, I'll take a nice easy, low key tie, so we can rest players for league games.

When have Saints ever promised anything? Most of the disappointment I’ve seen in January has come from people dreaming that we’re going to sell about five surplus players and bring in three.

I'm not sure loyal is the word. Loyalty to me implies that you don't go and support another club, no matter how poor Saints are. I think 'committed' would be a better word for people who make the most effort to travel the furthest.

At home to someone sh*t and the big teams draw each other, as I usually hope for.

Absolutely this. His movement is good, we just need the rest of the team on the same wavelength. I'm willing to persevere.

Afraid not. I’m also part of a Methodist sect, which celebrates the birthday of every member of Bachman-Turner overdrive. Between that, Diwali and everything else, I only work five days a year.

Good point, Romeu got away with a stonewall yellow stopping a break on the halfway line. There were a couple of others but he did at least give the foul, so I’m not too upset.

I don’t choose to believe 1+1=2. I take it as a certainty because it’s a fundamental principle I’ve told to believe since birth. Religion is like this for a lot of people.

I’m sure they were looked at but nothing credible enough to stop the cake popped up on the screen. I can only remember the supposed push on Vestergaard from an early free kick and Boufal going down like a sack of spuds after running into any other tackle. Some bloke behind me was fuming about the officiating but I can’t remember anything particularly wrong. Long was offside and neither supposed penalty looked convincing to me.

Any more posts on here about Redmond are getting deleted, it’s a bizarre and pointless argument which seems to be going round in circles. Good game from JWP today. Keep it up lad.

A clean sheet and through into the next round without a replay, can’t argue with that. Hardly a dazzling spectacle but you can’t really expect to cobble 11 fringe players together and play beautiful flowing football. Vokins goal was superb though, worth £12 on its own. I don’t think many of the performances were as bad as some make out. JWP covered a lot of ground and played well, Yoshida was fine as far as I’m concerned and I actually thought Danso looked comfortable enough at RB. Not much going forward but he is a CB. Decent game and goal from Smallbone. Romeu broke up play well, Vest made a few errors. I wanted Adams to score but I don’t think he had any decent service all game. Long was Long, runs around, is offside, doesn’t do much else. Boufal - everything I don’t like about him. He’s got all the skills and no brain. He’ll beat a defender with a neat trick, then try and do exactly the same to the next two instead of playing the ball. Second half he just seemed to lose interest. Oh well, a day out and into the pot on Monday.

Can only recall seeing 20 minutes in a pre-season friendly. He was atrocious. Having said that, I think he did get an assist for Stoke against us by putting a corner in for Parkin.

I already take Buddhist new year, Jewish Halloween and Sikh pancake day off, he thinks I'm taking the p*ss.

Not that anyone had any choice in the first three. Also if my boss said I could have three days off over Eid and would pay me £1,000 'Islamic bonus', I'd go along with it TBH.

So the first one wasn't a lady (not that I have a problem with that)?

Spurs game aside, I always thought we looked weaker last season when he was on the pitch. Like that awful Newcastle game when he was dragged off at HT or against Watford and Liverpool when we were immediately overrun when he came on. Even the win over Wolves, which was decent, we played better as a team after he went off. He was in and out of a poor Reading team too. I just don’t see him being consistently close to the level we’re looking for.

Whatever he said, it was said in private and should never have been used against him. If he was daft enough to post it on social media or a work email account I’d get it but he didn’t, it was a private message to a mate. I assume the Premier League will be confiscating the phones of all players, checking the private messages of Salah, De Bruyne, Kane, Sterling etc. for any similar content and immediately banning them for life if they find any... no thought not. Hypocrisy and virtue signalling at its finest. P.s. that mate should sleep with one eye open. If you maliciously wreck someone’s life like that, that’s how murder-suicides happen.

I’d pretty much go with Dazza’s selection. Even our second choice XI should have enough to get past Udders. There’s a good mix of fringe players and promising youth in that line up. Adams to get off the mark, follow it up with consecutive hat tricks against Leicester and Liverpool, then be sold to the latter for £50m. All in the next three weeks.

Actually, Mané, Pellè and Tadič were, "not always perfect." The players you have listed were all consistently substandard for most of the season. If you can’t criticise the likes of Cédric and PEH for the performances they’ve put in until very recently, there’s little point in having a discussion forum. Also a ’clan’ just means large numbers of people are in agreement. Back in the day we had an ‘anti-Ollie Lancashire’ clan too.

So in a couple of weeks we’ll have played Liverpool, Leicester, Spurs and Chelsea twice and almost certainly be out of the drop zone? That’ll do.

Split thread, as I feel the supernatural in general is worthy of its own topic.