Lighthouse

And we ended up one whole point worse off than we did in 2012, which we'd probably have had if we hadn't rotated the squad against Stoke.

I'd wager his value will go up playing a season of PL and CL football, rather than playing for us in the Champ. He'll still have two years on his deal at the end of the season, which is a reasonably healthy position from which to negotiate. Getting his wages off the books is a no-brainer financially and the loan fee could probably cover two decent Championship players, on loan from somewhere else. Whether or not we'd sign another keeper, I don't know. Like it or not, the club don't view Bazunu with anywhere near the disdain being exhibited on this message board. Ramsdale out, Bazunu in goal and a couple of decent loans in other positions, all for a net financial gain makes an awful lot of sense to the accountants.

Agreed, I do hate it when people post about fantasy signings nobody else has heard of.

I highly doubt most of the lioness squad would get into a men’s National League side, it’s a non-starter. Anyone saying one of them could get a PL game is either delusional or trying to be edgy/controversial for attention and clicks.

Nope, we're all done with the horse puns. Anvilla can f**k off, with their £20m.

TBH I normally have a tug over stuff which is so niche and obscure that it doesn’t actually register as porn. So far I haven’t had to put any personal details in order to watch Delia Smith basting a four bird roast.

Is that a website for piste conditions in Verbier? Seriously though, it appears to quote a doctor, who has no involvement with Dibling, saying that a minor ankle injury is unlikely to derail any potential transfer. No actual news or facts in it at all.

What makes you think we haven’t? If we got £15m+ for Sully, I doubt we’re donating one of our best players to Oxfam.

I’m hearing from my sources that Isak wants out.

Eight years here, over 200 appearances and yet I don’t feel any warmth towards him. I think it’s a combination of things which go against him, the main one being that such a poor footballer has been a mainstay of our team for so long. I think his loan to Villa just about sums him up; five months in a proper squad with some actually decent players and he didn’t get a sniff. They immediately realised how crap he was and sent him back early. Then there’s the fact that he was in both 9-0s, both relegations, a couple of stroppy tantrums and the dubious honour of having the worse game week in the history of Fantasy Football. Yeah, thanks Jan but in all honesty… meh.

No. Those two batsmen earned the right to complete their centuries, it’s in poor spirit to expect them to forego that, just so we can p*ss off home half an hour earlier.

We aren't going to sell Bednarek and THB (Our two first choice CBs from our last promotion) and replace them with just Quarshie. If they do both go (probably for something not far off £35-40m) we'll be bringing in a new first choice player.

If we sell him, who are we going to rely on to score in a 3-2 defeat this season!?

Why? He seems like the kind of player who would get easily wound up and sent off for something rash.

Which would have left him with two players to play in preseason. Like it or not, we’re going to have to build a team which is 75% last season’s sh*te so most of the players we haven’t sold are going to get a run out. If Stephens wasn’t playing yesterday it’d only be Wood at CB, or Suga or Bree at RB coming in and lord knows they’re none of them are an improvement.

Not Saints related but this reminded me of a similar interview with a Mr A. Lallana in 2014. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c860l3d10j6o

Fairly obviously to intercept the through ball and if he'd got his foot out another two inches to the side he'd have done it very well. Fine margins but this wasn't some sort of howler.

Clearly I'm not as upset as some people about an unfortunate deflection by our (most likely) third choice CB in a pre-season friendly. If he ends up starting every game despite making regulary howlers, then I'll start to get more concerned about him and Still.

I don't particularly rate Stephens, even at this level, but I can't in all honesty slate him for those two goals. That penalty was soft for starters. It probably was a foul but it wasn't exactly some reckless lunge (or even another hair pull). The first goal was somewhat fortunate on their part as it bounced of Stephens' heel, right into the gap between him and Manning, which wrong footed both of them and also fell extremely fortunately for the attacker. Not a great game for Jack but he looked pretty decent two years ago, before he got injured, then played his part when he game back. There's plenty of competition at CB and Still is no mug. If Jack doesn't deliver, we've still got the likes of THB, JQ, RE and in an emergency NW to choose from.

By ‘over’ do you mean promotion is already assured? A lot of that happened two years ago and we got promoted.

As I said, an obvious difference in quality, but yes he was basically the one being expected to make the key passes.

Whenever we’ve played the 4-2-3-1 successfully in the past, we’ve relied on four different types of player, each with defined roles. The focal point, front and centre - Lambert or Pelle A mobile, supporting striker out wide - J Rod or Mané A creative player who can make the key passes - Lallana or Tadic An industrial player to link attack and defence - Davis We didn’t have that today, we basically had a not very physical focal point, with two J Rods and a Tadic. Aside from the obvious difference in quality, the balance just wasn’t there, hence we had three strikers not doing much.

Great ball from Q and a decent run from BBD. Well blocked in the end.

Glad it's not just me. When they're stood side-on with the white socks and shoulders and the sun behind them, this is a hard watch.

Do you have to register and log in with age-verified I.D. like you do on porn websites now, apparently, so I'm told by a friend?