Lighthouse

Or alternative, Hull are losing. A draw would have been nice there, but TBH I'd always have that one down as a home win. Boro have always been a home team, just like us. All we can do is keep winning. Saints won Leeds lost Hull lost Cardiff drew Leicester drew Only Boro, Blackpool and Reading won out of our rivals, so far, and the latter two are still 11/12 points adrift of us.

Coventry away really shouldn't be all that, even for our 'B Team'. If we get through that, maybe we'll get a League 1 side, or another disinterested NpC team at home. Who knows. I'd rest our key players, but you can go quite far in the FA Cup these days just by turning up. If we rest our first team we've still got Bart, Butters, Martin, Harding, Connolly, Holmes and one from Cork/Dean/Morgan. Even without our injured players that's not a bad start to a team.

He actually said "in the second tier of English football" so he was technically right, although that's a bit of an obscure stat.

Just to add: Pompey lost Leeds lost Cardiff drew Boro play Hull later, so at least one of them will drop points. Draw there would be brilliant Reading play Brighton, so again points will be dropped. West Ham have a trip to Brum in the late KO Basically we could well be the only team in the top 10 to win this afternoon. Merry Christmas indeed.

Needed a win after our recent form. Congrats to Guly on a strong comeback from the Pompey game and De Ridder, who sounded like he put in a blinder. On to Bristol on Friday.

Not quite. Wham have got Brum this afternoon and Derby on Saturday. If they win both and we don't beat Brizzle, they go top on NYE. All assuming we don't f**k this up of course.

JD Sports don't sell sports clothing, they sell casual wear for pikeys. The only thing I've ever bought from JD sports is socks.

All about De Ridder according to the 5LE 'taters.

Davis - FR, Fonte, Jos, Fox - Steve, Morgan, Cork, Lallana - Guly, Lambert Subs: Bart, Harding, Martin, Hammond, DC

Can't see one anywhere else. COYR!!!

Surely a factor in this has to be when you shower. I shower in the evenings, so I'd imagine my sheets are cleaner for not having BO from my day to day adventures wiped all over them. I try to cange them every week but can never be arsed, so it often ends up being every 2 or 3 weeks.

My photo got a reply from Jos today. Not sure it's really 'competition winning' material, but it was a good laugh none-the-less. Liking the photo of Fratton Park. Not sure I've ever said that before.

I think all the ingredients are there for Stief to become a top player. The good thing about this situation is he has the attitude and the tallent, it's just finding the consistency and fitting his game into our side. It's not like Jermaine Wright or Neil McCann when you thought, 'he is this good, he won't get any better'. I don't think we've really seen him start any games which weren't either reserve cup games or sh*t away games when the whole team was crap. Still, he's had some decent appearances off the bench, like Coventry and Reading. I vote we give him a run of about 5 to 10 starts in our strongest team before we cast judgement.

Good grief, you're all still biting on Dalek's troll posts. I can't believe the number of people who still try and construct a coherant argument with him when it has been apparent for years he is a complete retard. THERE IS NO POINT TELLING HIM HE IS WRONG. HE KNOWS!!!! He's just pretending to think these stupid opinions so he can pass away the time with endless pointless arguments. Put him on your ignore list and don't respond to his posts. It's that easy.

The zero alcohol approach is completely unfeasible IMO. On Tuesday nights I stop off for a pint of shandy or two after 5 a side footy. I don't even come close to being a danger to road users. Why should my evenings be ruined just because a small minority of idiots can't stick to the rules. If people can't stick to the current rules and just have one pint of beer, glass of wine or whatever; what makes you think they're going to stick to the 0 alcohol rule?

Agreed, although Lambert gets the nob because without him we just look useless. Honourable mentions to Chaplow and Hooiveld too.

It need not be someone better than him right now. If we can find the next Beattie or Kenwyne Jones from somewhere. A young lad with a physical presence, who could develop into a Premier League striker. Hopefully our scouting network can show a bit of it's mettle here.

GK - Davis as good as any at this level. Bart is decent back up, despite some ridiculous, one match, knee jerk reactions. LB - Flooded with decent options RB - FR and Butters both quality at this level. Frazer I think could still play in PL. CB - Jos and Fonte are as good a partnership as any in NpC. Martin and Cork good back up. CM - Chaplow, Morgan, Hammond and Cork. 4 fantastic options in the middle. LM - Lallana obvious. Holmes is decent enough, but I'd like to replace him with a quicker, less injury prone option. Fox, Schteve, Chaplow and Dickson can play here too. That just leaves RM and up front we need to improve.

Certainly looked like we needed a new LB at Bristol a couple of weeks ago. You will not find a better 'keeper than Bart who is willing to come here and sit on the bench for 40 odd league games each season.

I think Bart has looked pretty impressive in most of the games he has played for us. Just had a look at the last 3 years; W14 D2 L4. That's a pretty decent record and it's not all against lower league teams either. There are a lot of CCC games for Barnsley in there. One of the draws was the JPT game with Norwich when he pulled off a world class save to win the shoot out. The defeats were against Man Utd and away games at Leeds, Colchester and Palace. If these were all league games, we'd have 44 points from 20 games, easily promotion for. We really are pretty decent when Bart plays.

I'm curious to see if the people campaigning for a new goalkeeper will be applying their standards equally accross the squad. I'm guessing most of you are basing this on Bart's poor performance against Blackpool. Fox had a similarly poor performance at Bristol, do we also need a new LB?

Except it didn't. The only people who were arrested after the Brighton game (I don't know any of them personally) would have taken it to another level and said something properly homophobic, instead of some silly songs about holding hands and shopping.

Red Star Belgrade

We've got competition in the form of Martin. If Jos or Fonte were to pick up 5 yellows or a red, it's only a 1 match ban in which Martin can deputise and Cork can provide cover in an emergency. We have 2 quality CBs in our team, very capable cover in the form of Martin and Cork, who can do a very good job in defence if needed. If you bring in another, it'd be cover for a scenario whereby Fonte, Jos and Martin are all injured/suspended, on top of Jaidi and Seaborne. Highly unlikely and a waste of money. RE: Jaidi. I don't think he will play for us again. I'm pretty sure his knee injury will prevent him from going somewhere else. I said in summer we needed to be a bit meaner in letting players go and Jaidi was one of them.

I just don't see the need for another CB at the moment. We already have 5 on the books, which is one too many IMO. I know Jaidi and Seaborne have long term injuries, but that's why you have cover when only 2 of them can play. If we sign another we will just have Jaidi, Seaborne, Martin and new matey on the wage bill not doing anything. Maybe that doesn't bother some of you, but when we're paying £3 booking fees all season it's quite annoying for me.