Lighthouse

If we're going to sell anyone this summer for me it should be Long. Why? Because I know Pelle and Mane can be good and at times brilliant. I know both have been inconsistent but if we can find a way to get the best out of them, the goals are there. Long on the other hand has never been anything other than a 5-8 goal a season man. A hard worker but lacking in ability at this level and better suited to teams like Hull or West Brom.

You don't get loaned out FROM Sutton Utd because you are unlucky. He looked like a star in the making for the youth team but is a classic example of throwing someone who isn't ready in at the deep end. Even our brightest young talents like Lallana and Morgan struggled in the 'Totaal Voetbal' season under portaloo. I trust Ron, Erwin and our academy coaches far more than Delldays when it comes to judging if a youth player is ready yet. Hesketh's nightmare debut at Burnley should be proof enough of that.

I remember 7 years ago people were talking about replacing 'useless' players like Saganowski, BWP and Rasiak with our youth team players. Afterall players like Jamie White and DMG were young and exciting and couldn't be any worse...

But you've only been to watch a them play in youth games this season (You've obviously been to a lot of youth games to form such a strong opinion). You haven't seen our youth team play against Premier League opposition, so how can you make that judgement?

Because we don't have a continuous stream of teenagers better than the Dutch national side? You do drive a hard bargain.

I'd pretty much agree with that, except for Targett, Long, Pelle and Mane. Targett I'd say par, he looked decent when he played but hasn't really moved any mountains. Mane has loooked threatening in patches but has also had some poor games, likewise Pelle. I would say par for both. Long, however you try and dress it up, has scored 3 goals against relegation fodder. It's a miss for me.

What would you expect from our resident Adkins fan-boy.

I seem to remember a few years ago Fulham were top of the fair play league and must have decided they didn't want to play in Europe as they kicked the sh*t out of the other team on the last day of the season.

Because we aren't chucking 5 new kids into the first team every season? You can only play the youth players when they're good enough. Targett (Taggert?) and Reed have shown glimpses of potential but at the moment the likes of Bertrand, Wanyama and Alderweireld are far superior players. The youth player who were good enough for regular football, were so good that they were bought for massive transfer fees. The next batch of youth players will get their chance, don't overreact just because they're not first team regulars by the time they are 19.

Please can we just not lose to them for once.

Reed is more of a defensive player, so saying Tadic and Davis were poor isn't particularly relevant. The choice was more likely between Reed and Yoshida. For a tough away game like this I'm pretty happy with the decision to go with the experience and reliability of Yoshi and pushing Toby into midfield. I think it was a good call personally. Overall we looked solid at the back and ran the midfield I though, it was just sloppy individual errors which cost us the game. Poor finishing, mistakes by Fonte, Kelvin and some poor officiating. Tactically, I though we were decent enough.

Don't engage him, he is just getting an early start on next season's hilarious '40 point mark' comedy routine.

As painful as it is to find myself on Fry's side, he is right. How bitter are some of you if you would willingly throw away our second chance at European football in 3 decades, just to annoy the Scousers for a couple of days? I love watching the hilarious misfortunes of Rodgers, Lovren, Lallana et. al. as much as the next Saints fan but we come first surely. I'd even tolerate Pompey winning the cup if some perverse twist of fate gave Saints a trip to Europe. Luckily it's immaterial now and I will happily watch a tearful Lallana clapping off the greatest fans in the world and kissing his badge after a 5-0 spanking by Arsenal.

That only counts if it is a deliberate back pass. Crouch was offside when the original ball was played and therefore should have been flagged when he became 'active'. That goal was just an absolute slapstick though. Fonte should have left it for a g/k and I can only assume wasn't aware of the players around him and didn't get a call. He should have booted it into the stands, rather than the tame clearance 20 yards to a Stoke defender. Then Crouch was offside and it wasn't give, everyone watched the ball, nobody picked up Mane and Davis really should have saved the shot. I know he always gets beaten low at the near post but this was chest height and almost in the middle of the goal.

Going by what I know from property in my area, a £170k house rents for about £1kpm. £600k after tax, buy 3 houses, live in one and rent out two others. That leaves £90k spare, £18k a year or £1500 a month to pay the bills throughout his 5 year contract. Then £2kpm minus tax after his contract expires. Baring in mind he wouldn't be paying any rent or mortgage, it's doable although hardly a luxurious lifestyle. I think the reality is more likely to be spending £150k on a super car which will depreciate by £100k over 5 years, booze, women, luxury holidays, 1st class flights, a messy divorce from an 18 y/o page 3 girl who turned out not to be his soul mate and a couple of super injunctions. As for his sporting career, he played against me in a 5 a side game last Monday for a team called Brian Munich. We scored 8, despite only having 5 actual shots.

It was at the company I used to work for.

Saints 2-3 Villa Having lead 2-0 at half time, Jakobsson went off injured and was replaced with Davenport. Villa sent on Nobby Solano at the same time and those two subs changed the game. The winner was scored by our very on Steven Davis. That was one of those 'I think we're probably going down' games.

Now we wait...

Only Wednesday, Bolton and Charlton in their way now. 2 of them at home and none of them with anything to play for. Strange to think that 2 years ago we were battling Wigan to avoid the drop. It's looking likely that next season we will be in Europe and they in League 1.

Don't know. Maybe we should add tubgirl to this thread and find out.

Mike spends most of his time dogging in Hedge End. Sorry to hear about Mrs Spuds though. Still, at least you can now laugh along with the rest of us at Newcastle's expense, without getting a stiletto in the John-Thomas.

Boro comfortably in front at home to Wolves. Leeds could do them a favour by holding Norwich.

Bompey 1-0 up already

You don't see 200 bobbies hanging around outside the local baptist Church every Sunday morning to keep them separate from the Buddhists. Statistically (Aaagh f**k I sound like MLG) I bet there is far higher amount of violence per follower in football compared to religion.

I honestly don't want RVP, not that he'd come here. I remember when Pires signed for Villa a couple of years ago and some posters were saying he was world class and only a moron wouldn't want him at Saints. The guy has glass knees. He had 18 decent months at Arsenal, then one decent season at Man Utd and has spent the rest of his career in the physio room.