Lighthouse

Well, he has got to prove himself to be better than Jermain Wright, Rory Delap, Tomasz Hajto and Lloyd James. Some world class tallent right there.

First 3 goals all deliveries from the right today. Can't remember from who exactly, but FR definitely set up Guly's goal. Keep it up lad!

Living up here in Brizzle and keeping half an eye on the local teams got me thinking. With Rovers relegated to League 2 last season and City now bottom of the Championship, there really doesn't seem to be any joy for either fans. This in the 7th largest city in England. If they renamed City to something neutral, like "Utd" or "Athletic" and built a new SMS style stadium in the middle of the city somewhere, then just 'got rid' of Rovers some how, they'd have a decent Premier League sized club. My question is, if you were a Rovers or a City fan, would you support that team? On the one hand, you would be sharing with your nearest rivals, on the other hand they are all from the same city and it would give both sets of fans a shot at some long term success. I think I would support them.

I'm surprised there's no 'Keep up Brighton' thread as well as this one. 1 point from their last 4 league games (3-3 lol at home to Leeds), I thought people on here would be all over that like flies on dog muck.

Surely the "we're coming for you" chant is now redundant. We have long surpassed Portsmouth, we could lose every game from now until we play them in December and we'd still be above them in the table.

He's on the bench. We signed him on Wednesday and kept it quiet. Seriously though, the tie implies this is more than a casual visit.

I think the most angry I've ever been at at Saints game was the 3-0 home defeat under Burley in 07/08. We we completely useless and Burley just didn't have a clue. We had Jermaine Wright playing at LB and Euell playing LM, it was the slowest most useless left flank I've ever seen. They made Van Damme and McCann look like Roberto Carlos and Figo. I think what capped it all off for me was Burley sitting there for 88 minutes like a lemon, then bringing on Adam Hammill with 2 minutes left (and playing him on the left where he is useless anyway). To make it worse, we had Licka and Skacel sat on the bench and Vignal wasn't even in the squad. Cannot believe the Scots thought he was there man, but I ruptured my anus laughing when they actually paid to take him off our hands.

So if I have this right, one Saints fan has made a racist slur against a player. I agree he's a complete c**t for saying it, but that's hardly endemic of Saints fans in general. If you get 20,000 people in one place, you will invariably get a couple of kn*bbers in there, just report them to the stewards.

I wouldn't let it get to you. It's only lazy journalism, anyone with half a brain will know AOC came from Saints and anyone without half a brain can check it out on wikipedia. Besides, I don't care if the whole world thinks our accademy is sh*t. I'd rather nobody knew about the likes of Bale, Walcott, AOC and Lallana until they're 18, on a proffesional contract and you have to kiss Cortese's arse to buy them.

Any chance of a thread which isn't infested with brain dead f**ktards? No, okay fair enough, I'll use this one.... It was very nearly a carbon copy of Burnley, right down to Lamberts headed miss at the far post, 3 yards out from a Fraser cross. First 70 mins we were crap, didn't threaten, gave the ball away cheaply with silly flick one straight to the opposition and the goal kicks... Kelvin I beg thee, have mercy upon us. Seriously, what is the point? If there is a massive open space in the middle then fair enough, but 9/10 times there just isn't. Worst case they rob the ball off Cork and score. Best case we pass it around the back 3 a couple of times before it ends up back with Kelvin, who just hoofs the fecker anyway. Guly is a liability away from home, Lallana was quiet all evening, Kelvin was all at sea for the first goal and Connolly was anonymous again.

Aside from the bollix which has already been discussed, why are people so amazed by goals just because they are in the Champs League? I mean, Olympiakos FFS, is that really any more impressive that scoring against a mid table Prem team like Stoke or Villa? It's like when Walcott scored his hat trick for England, people were talking as if he'd reached the pinnacle of World football. It was against Croatia FFS.

I think it adds more perspective to Steve Mclaren if I'm honnest.

Can you imagine... Saints first season at St Marys. Rickie Lambert leaves to join Pompey on a Bosman, then Saints first ever defeat at SMS is against Pompey, we throw away the lead and Lambert scores. THAT is what just happened at the Amex.

Get in! Palace and Ipswich.

Don't sign Adam Le Fondre, he's a League 2 quality player and we need to be aiming higher.

Gillett's first ever goal?

No, he shouldn't. He should be wanting to be in the team ahead of Lambert and determined to prove his worth. I don't want anyone in our squad who is okay playing second fiddle to anyone. Also, there will be game where having 2 big lumps up front could be useful. Would welcome him back on a trial to prove his worth.

Okay, now you definitely just being a drama queen.

A quick lesson in physics here. If an object exists within the universe, it's behaviour will be forever be controlled by the various forces acting upon it. Even the furthest away anitneutrinos with the smallest off mass will be influenced by the very weak force of gravity between other mass in the uinverse. If a neutrino billions of light years from Earth cannot maintain and unchanged state for the entirity of time, I fail to see why Burnley's dubious home form should either. In short, things change in football constantly. Every team will go through good and bad patches. If you are the first team Burnley beat at home in 4, 5 or 10 games, it doesn't automatically make you sh*t.

They weren't stocking filler DVD bad, but he should have got them both on target as an absolute minimum. To put both of them wide really is poor from him.

Oh yes. I remember when Burley got into the Prem, they did an interview with the chairman who was poudly telling national media about a 'lick of paint' around Turf Moor, or words to that effect. I got there today only to find antique wooden furnature. It's got to be the only ground I've been to which still has the seats from World War 2. No word of exaggeration, look at them.

Player ratings: Kelvin - 6 Can't remember him making any notable saves. Alright on the ball, but the short passes, Jesus Christ. Sort it out Nigel! Fraser - 8 Thought he was very good and supported well down the right. A couple of decent crosses. Hooiveld - 8 MOTM Looking better with every game and I thought he lived up to his "Hoover" nickname. Good in the air too. Fonte - 7 Pretty solid, but not his commanding best. Fox - 7 Good game and some good crosses going forward. Could have a hattrick of assists if the forwards were at the races. Guly - 4 Disappointing. Not sure if Nigel agreed with me or he had a knock, but he doesn't track back enough for away games and gives the ball away cheaply. One to leave in Southampton IMO. Hammond - 6 Not as good as previous games. We looked better when Morgan came on. Cork - 6 Not his best game either. We gave the ball away cheaply in the middle, they were all guilty of that. Lallana - 6 Really should have scored on 3 occasions and didn't good on the ball, but little end product. DC - 5 Can't really remember him doing anything of note. Lambert - 6 Decent target man, but only had one real attempt, which he should have scored. Subs: Chaplow - 7 Brought a bit of much needed bite and focus into the middle. Really should start away from home. Morgan - 7 Looked better than Hammond and was great to see him double his career goals tally in England. De Ridder - Why didn't he come on FFS!

Guessing I will be one of the first home (Scouseland) so I'll add my thoughts on the game. If I was being possitive and optimistic; I'd say we created quite a few chances, it was an open game, we could easily have won and it's a good point away to a decent NpC team. If I was being negative, I'd say we were very sloppy, wasted chances and nearly got caught out by a well below par Burnley team. The truth lies somewhere in between. First half was forgettable. Burnley just about edged it with a couple of decent chances, whereas we didn't really have any. Fox was getting a fair bit of stick as you'd expect, which intensified after a silly reaction to a late challenge. Didn't get booked (thought the ref was half decent actually) but gave away a needless free kick. Up front nothing much seemed to stick. Our delivery was pretty poor and we gave the ball away a lot. It's a cliche, but we were trying to be too clever. Too many one touch flick ons in our own half, which went straight to a Burnley player. The worst part of it had to be Kelvin almost always playing short goal kicks. We very nearly got caught out when Davis (under no pressure at all) played it straight out to one of our players (Fonte I think) who was practically being rogered by Charlie Austin (yes, him again). Only some last ditch lunging kept us out of trouble with that one. Second half, Chaplow on for Guly (who was pretty much annonymous). This seemed to spark us into life a bit and Chaplow missed a very good chance to knock in a Richardson cross at the near post. Then Burnley had two or thee decent breaks and eventually scored about 10 mins into the second half. Cross came in, knocked down by Jay Rod and scored by Austin. Well, it had to happen I suppose. We nearly levelled immediate. A cross from the left and Lambert headed the ball into the ground and off the bottom of the bar from about 2 yards. Saints seemed to change to a kind of fluid 4-3-3, with Lallana, Lambert and DC rotating accross the front. Didn't really work for my money. At times we ended up playing long balls up to DC and having Rickie on the left wing. Both teams had chances for the rest of the game, with Saints having the pick of the bunch. Lallana shaved the outside of both posts with a couple of free heads, which he really should have scored. After the second I thought it was going to be one of those days where it would never go in, but a couple of minutes later we got the equaliser. Ball in from the left, Lambert clashes with their lardy centre half and after a bit of pinball Morgan smashes it in from inside the 6 yard box. Everyone runs off to celebrate in front of the fans, except Rickie, who is old cold on the turf next to lardy. After a couple of minutes treatment for the two players, the game continued and both teams had a couple of chances in the last 10 minutes. Lallana should have won the game with the last kick of the game. Long ball from Kelvin (about time too) knocked down by Rickie, Adam plays it through and runs into space, only to stick a weak effort straight at the goalie from just inside the box. Overall, I'm fairly happy. We were nowhere near our best, but still game back from a tough away game with a point. I'm sure some people who weren't even there will confidently proclaim we struggled physically against a bunch of big Northern bruisers. It wasn't like that. Burnley played good football but not very well, if that makes sense. Very similar to us today.

Tonights brace brings him up to 4 NpC goals this season. Good player, but I'm not sure I get the excitement.