Lighthouse

Which was based on an Irish folk song called 'Johnny I hardly knew ye'. It's the same tune, but it's hardly nicked.

Players wage demands will go up a disproportionate amount because of this, I get the feeling most clubs will end up out of pocket.

A 27 hour round trip to see a pre season friendly? That's hardcore!

That looks far too narrow for my liking and I think we'll get battered defensively. Lallana isn't one for tracking back, it'd be like having 4 strikers on the pitch a lot of the time. A front 6 of something like this would be more likely. Gives us a bit more width and we like to play with the 2 sitting central midfielders. We need someone better than De Ridder starting on the right though. Not Guly. - - - - Cork - - - Morgan - - - - De Ridder - Lambert - Lallana - - - - - - Rodriguez - - - - - -

Kind of highlights the pointlessness of this discussion. With only 1 signing, it's basically just the same team as last year, but some people have wedged Rod into RM because there is nobody else. I think he will start up front with Lambert with Sharp dropping to the bench.

Last year I correctly guessed Leeds at home, so I'm going to say that again.

Forecast Butters - Seaborne - Fonte - Harding De Ridder - Hammond - Guly - Forte Barnard - Sharp

Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnn!!!! Sorry

Let's be fair to alpine, it is getting very difficult to do his job. Saints have just got promoted twice in 2 seasons, we're back in the Premier League, investing heavily in infrastructure for the future and we've just broken our record transfer fee on one of the most promising young tallents in the football League. That was at the beginning of June too, so he can't even complain that we're leaving it too late. I think we should be supportive of alpine instead of slagging him off. Come on alps! You can come up with some world class negative, inaccurate bullsh*t if you truly believe in yourself!

Where's your whippet gone? etc.

To the tune of that 'Hey baby' song Jaaaaay Jay Rodriguez Ooh ah .... Can't think of a last line.

I said Yarmolenko on the first reply to this thread. *Blows own trumpet* I've seen him play for Dynamo Kiev a few times, he is absolutely quality. Like Lallana but taller, stronger and faster. I doubt he would be interested, but I would die of over-happiness if we did. I think a decent tournament and he will be off to one of Europe's top teams.

Dan Petrescu invented Connect 4.

The summer we signed Delap, Man Utd bought Van Nistelrooy for £19m from PSV. Liverpool recently bought Suarez from Ajax for about £23m, same league and very similar age and scoring record. Only one example I know, but I don't think transfer fees have gone up massively in the last 10 years. It's only the ridiculous end of the spectrum with clubs chucking money at Ronaldo, Kaka and er... Andy Carroll. Even so, Juve spent £30m on a goalie the same season we signed Delap.

Last year we talked about Championship experience being required for promotion. Who were our best players? Rickie, Jos, Lallana and Morgan IMO. The first 2 had never played in the Champ before, the latter 2 had a season each in the Dutch disaster, which you can't count as decent Championship experience. If you're good enough, you can beat anyone. Buying Premier League experience can land you with Joey Barton, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Kieron Dyer, so be careful what you wish for.

Ukraine is top of my countries to visit, wont be this year sadly. Great to see Saints being represented out there though. BTW, make sure your nipper and his mates cover their equipment up before sticking it in any of the local totty. Seriously, there is an AIDS pandemic amongst young people in Southern and Eastern Ukraine.

Arsenal pay proven internationals £55k a week and nobody is going to drive 9 hours every day to get to training. Please tell me this was a wind up.

I was planning the same as VFTT but it looks like one heck of a drive. It's 8 hours from Callais down to Geneva so I'll be looking for flights or maybe the TGV.

We did have a nutter posting on here under the username Tommac. Might have been a wind up, that's not much of a disguise.

Why the f**k does he want to sign for Colchester, that's nowhere near the Northwest?! Sorry, I'll get my coat.

Wow, there's some names from the past. Wasn't there someone called Long life Milk who was supposedly ITK? Loving the thread divergence, keep it up!

I think he nearly scored 3 hattricks in a week once in 2002. 1 for the reserves, 1 midweek against Tranny in the LC then got 2 goals against Man City.

Marian's first name is actually Marians.

Barnard works harder more consistenly and is a more consistent scorer. Guly has good games, games where he goes completely missing and has been on a half season scoring drought. I would rather have him up front than Guly, that's my opinion. To suggest that to suggest otherwise is weird, is weird.

I don't care if his 15 goals didn't get him in the top 100. It's still a decent return for a striker, especially when you consider how hard he works for the team. Guly scored 9 of his 11 goals whilst playing up front last season. Since Sharp and Lee came in in January and he was moved to midfield, he hasn't scored any goals. He has scored once in 2012, playing up front at Forrest. 2 goals from midfield, 9 goals up front and 0 goals since January is neither good nor above average. I'm not one of these cretins who believes stats are the be all and end all, but they do paint a picture of Guly's season. He has been inconsistent and certainly is not the midfield scoring threat many paint him out to be.