Lighthouse

Harding is better IMO and always fully comitted. I'd play him at Pompey.

Nice to see were writing players off after 1 game again. I thought we'd give that up after Jos' debut, but with Bart and Barnard my faith in you lot has been restored.

Being pedantic here, but they were a good 3 years out of date with the name on that.

I don't really think you can generalise either country as being rude or friendly. I've worked with some top blokes from France and Germany, as well as some complete R-souls. Generally though I think I prefer the German ethic towards life and in particular work. None of the bullsh*t striking for the sake of it and brining the country to a standstill every summer. They seem to just get on with it was a good degree of efficiency. If only some of the Southern European countries had a similar attitude to work, we might not be in such a big ecconomic mess.

About 30 odd I think. Not sure why that's funny, I'd say that's a fairly average number. I wouldn't have said Adam's Park and Glanford Park looked that new when I was there. Maybe it's just because they were the old school 4 seperate stands style, as opposed to the large bowls Saints, Coventry, Boro, Cardiff etc have. I suppose it depends on which game you went to for the individual atmosphere. I went to Swindon in the league cup this season and it was pretty quiet. Having no roof on the away stand behind the goal didn't help for accoustics, but even so it wasn't great. Went to Oldham under Pardew, when Connolly scored on his debut. There was a pocket of 40 odd Saints fans singing with maybe 100 Oldham fans accross the segregation but it was nothing to write home about. Maybe the 6-0 was better last year,

I think architectually places like St Marys, The Walkers, The Riverside etc. are a bit dull, but I find I care very little about that come match day. For me atmosphere is all about the crowd, who we're playing, what's riding on the game etc and the actual ground doesn't really come into it. I've been to some proper old school grounds like Swindon, Wycombe, Burnley, Oldham and Scunny and sat there in silence for 2 hours. On the other hand I've been to games at St Marys which were absolutely rocking. Personally old buildings with dated facilities don't do anything for me. I agree many of them are more unique than places like SMS and The Richo, but I wouldn't say they have more 'character' as such.

This is an outrage. Hetrosexual military intercourse should only be allowed in tanks, hovercraft and the obsolete Type II destroyer.

Think it happens quite a lot actually. In 2005 when Liverpool won, they had 10 points but still needed Gerrard's late goal (and associated insufferable Andy Gray commentary) to get them through on goal difference. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004%E2%80%9305_UEFA_Champions_League Olympiakos went out of the competition with 10 points. So did Dynamo Kiev in Group B.

Just to clarify this once and for all Chance of City vs United = 1/63 Chance of City at home to Utd = 1/126 = 1/2 x 1/63 Chance of City vs Utd being first match drawn = 1/2016 = 2(1/64 x 1/63) Chance of City at home to Utd being first match drawn = 1/4032 = 1/64 x 1/63

I think Butters at RM would be good away from home, much better defensively than SDR or Guly. At home I'd be tempted to give SDR a shot though.

Jermaine Wright

I think a more short term solution to electric cars is having quick change batteries, which can be universally fitted into all models. Basically at petrol garages, they will just have a large stash of charged up batteries, which can be charged on site in X amount of time. A driver comes in and for say £15, he swaps his flat battery for a fully charged one (the best of which can do around 300 miles at the moment). I see no reason why you can't change a battery in pretty much the same time it takes to fill up a petrol tank. I personally think the best solution is electric cars, not alternative fuels. We have to produce loads of electricity anyway, it make more sense to generate cleaner electricity and power cars with that, rather than pumping billions into hydrogen fuel cells etc. The other good thing about electric cars is zero emissions, making urban areas a much healthier place. I'm all in favour of nuclear power too. Incidents like Fukushima and Chernobyl are isolated arose from pretty negligent opperation IMO. If we built modern nuclear reactors, they wouldn't be built to 1950's specification, opperated by opressed Soviet engineers on Tsunami prone fault lines.

If I may attempt to clear the issue up; Losing to Donny - Not a problem Losing to teams in the relegation zone in consecutive weeks - Not a problem Being top of the league - Not a problem. Having much better home form than away form - Not a problem Consistently putting in poor performances away from home, not getting results and if anything we are getting worse - That's the problem. Can people please stop talking about table toppers getting beaten by relegation candidates as if it's the norm. WE KNOW, that isn't the issue. The problem is the big picture.

mish

If the away league games I've been to are anything to go by (Cardiff, Derby, Burnley, Coventry, Barnsley) our problem away from home has been more of a general attitude problem, rather than missing tallent in our team. Burnley and Cardiff were almost identical, we just plane didn't turn up for 70 minutes. Plenty of tallent on the pitch, but nobody seemed to get in gear. Derby and Barnsley we played better and created chances, but really didn't kill them off when we should have. Coventry we did the hard work first half, then switched off for a good 30 minutes after the break. There were a couple of wins in that lot and maybe I'm being a bit too picky, but none of those were by any means comprehensive performances. If we go to West Ham, Boro or Leeds and play like we did in ANY of those games, we wont win. It's not about having better players (although we badly need someone to cover for/compete with/completement Lambert) it's about getting the right attitude on the road.

Well they boycotted the last one. The official attendance when we went up there was 15,000, but I'd eat my car if there were more than 10,000 actually in the Ricoh. Needless to say, I wont be bothering with this one.

You can dress it up however you like, our away form is dreadful and we need to improve it if we are serious about automatic promotion. Look how awesome we were at home last season and we still got pushed all the way by Huddersfield. If someone like Leeds, Cardiff or Boro turns it on in the second half of the season, even winning every home game (practically impossible) may not be enough. It's not doom and gloom at the moment. We're top of the league because of our home form and winning those first two away games at Ipswich and Barnsley. Our away form NEEDS to improve if we are to stay at the top.

It's not the league possition people are concerned about, it our relegation form away from home. 1 win in 7 I think now Donny - Lost Bristol - Lost Coventry - Won Reading - Drew Derby - Drew Cardiff - Lost Burnley - Drew Leicester - Lost This isn't a knee jerk reaction, we've been poor away from home since we beat Ipswich way back in August.

It doesn't matter who you have out wide if the only striker is Guly. I wouldn't blame todays performance on them as such, but I don't think Lallana has been the same since his injury. Give Holmes a shot, see if he can prove himself and have Guly and Lallana coming off the bench. If we're going to judge De Ridder on games he has started, lets at least judge him on games when the whole teams wasn't complete sh*t, i.e. Donny and Palace.

Let's hope Rickie is fit for this one. We miss him badly every time he is out. I'll be bold and go with: Davis Richardson - Fonte - Hooiveld - Fox De Ridder - Cork - Morgan - Holmes Barnard - Lambert

Are you suggesting this one goal proves his worth? It's his 2nd league goal this season.

That thought did cross my mind, although it's pretty trivial really. We just need someone who can hold the ball up well and win it in the air. Guly cannot play as the lone striker. Anyone who was at Swindon would have seen he just can't hold the ball up and do the work on his own. I'd have started with Barnard and Guly, but even that wouldn't have worked too well IMO. We need a big lad in January.

Yes, there was loads of harm done. Leeds, Brighton and Blackpool have all closed in on us, with Boro and Cardiff still to play. You're deluded if you think we're in a 2 horse race for the title.