Wes Tender

Granted. But he is now one step closer to making himself a first choice rather than an understudy. Bang one in against the Ukraine and his scoring prowess allied to his all-round play is beginning to make a decent case that even if the first choice strikers were available, he would still have a part to play coming off the bench. His goal was a pure oportunist poacher's goal, but his two assists were very good indeed.

Whereas number of appearances is indicative, it does not necessarily follow that just because a player has made more appearances and has some international caps, that he is therefore a better player and worth more than another. It rather depends on whom the appearances were for, both at club and International level and Wigan and the Republic of Ireland don't exactly set the pulse racing. The statistics for tackles and interceptions are something that makes Schneiderlin a cut above most midfielders and I don't particularly hear much in that direction about McCarthy. So it is quite feasible that Schneiderlin is worth more than McCarthy and if he gets to play for his national team, then that will also be a cut above the Republic of Ireland too. Ultimately the value of a player is what a club is prepared to pay for him and £12 million was not enough for Arsenal to get him, so at least he is worth more than that to us.

Is the assertion that Chambers is preferred to Clyne correct? My understanding was that Chambers got the opportunity in the first place because Clyne was carrying a knock. It might be that as Chambers has proved to be competent that he is allowed to continue for a game or two beyond Clyne's return to fitness, but I feel that it is stretching things a little to suggest that Chambers is preferred at this early stage of his senior career.

I would happily sign the petition, but what exactly am I signing? Yes, there is all the explanation of what is proposed next to it, but the petition itself makes no reference to it directly. For all I know, there is another important lawsuit that Bayer are bringing against the EU which is using this petition as a subterfuge.

Really? So expectations are more to do with the precedent of what went before than the substantially changed circumstances that we now find ourselves with regard to ownership and the massively increased levels of income in the game? When we were at the Dell, we even managed to come runners up to Liverpool, but apparently we can never ever achieve those dizzy heights again, as that can only realistically be the preserve of about 4 other teams apparently. I'm intrigued to learn that the Ugly Inside comprises such a high proportion of posters who attended the Dell compared to here and that the insinuation is also that older posters are more grounded as a result, but only mostly on that forum for some reason. As far as I'm concerned, whether posters go batshi.it if we lose, whether they are WUMs or their expectations are totally unrealistic, has a lot more to do with their maturity and overall grounding in what is sensible and reasonable rather than whether they have been long-term Saints fans, play Football Manager, post on the Ugly Inside or played football themselves or not. Although maturity of opinion doesn't necessarily come with age, broadly wisdom comes through experience, although the youngsters have always throughout history liked to believe that they know it all. The OP voices the concerns of many other posters who fear that the forum is being hijacked by certain childish and immature elements who are debasing it and causing its gradual decline, because posters really can't be bothered to indulge in the petty bickering or to trawl through all the dross. Everybody knows who the culprits are, their post counts being a good indication of their incessant activity. It really is up to the moderators to do something about it if they don't wish to have a diminishing following.

Well, for all the heavy spending in the transfer window, we couldn't score even a single goal away to Norwich. Neither did we really have many shots on goal. Norwich appeared to have outhought us tactically and it was them pressing us for much of the match. My overwhelming feeling since the start of the season is that we are missing Cork. He would have made the difference in controlling the midfield and providing the extra effort to have swung the balance in our favour. I really do struggle to know what is our best team, but if Cork doesn't play, Schneiderlin just isn't the same. And please God, get us Shaw back fit so that we can get shot of Fox, and Clyne back too, if it isn't too much trouble. I'm also waiting to be convinced that Puncheon couldn't have produced something today too.

Get your facts right. A 4* hotel was proposed by EBC, as were a bowling alley, Planet Hollywood style restaurant and night club, sports shop, ice rink and various other things that would have been acceptable to EBC. What they would never allow was a shopping complex the size of the Chandlers Ford Asda and the multiplex cinema, the first because of the proximity of Eastleigh Town centre and the second because that was already planned for the Swan centre. Lowe tried to play hardball with the Council, who got fed up with his arrogant intransigence and we would indeed have been stuffed if Southampton City Council had not come up with the land at St Marys, which was originally designated for social housing.

Do not act incautiously when confronting little bald wrinkly smiling men?

Well, I'm afraid that I reached the same conclusion from what you said as OldNick did, so please include me amongst the moronic tendency that isn't worth wasting energy on. Hands up anybody else who took this to mean that our home kit was worse than the Skates third kit? Unless of course calling our kit an abortion was just a warm, affectionate, endearment of yours and you really meant that ours was hands down better than theirs. Oh, I see; the reason that ours is worse is that they will only wear theirs very seldom, and there is an historical precedent for the pink, whereas we have to wear ours much more frequently, is that it?

I bought a bottle of water at half time in the concourse and it cost me £2. I could have bought a same sized bottle of Froggy water such as Naive or Volvic for about 80p outside, but this was Hildon water from the Hampshire Downs, none of your foreign muck. They serve Hildon at Lords, Ascot, Henley and Goodwood, so it is posh water, passed by the aristocracy. Therefore we are privileged to have it at such a downmarket venue like Southampton Football club, so they charge us a premium price hoping that most of us plebs won't be able to afford it, so that there will be more for them. The amount they get get out of the ground is regulated by the Government, don't you know?

Appropriately for the Charles Dickens school, I also managed to find a photo of the lovely Kora's son begging to be given some water

Another photo of the beautiful Kora Blagden

JBS - As everything you say about Dorkish is true, then it should have occurred to you that he is just trolling. I'm sure that he is reasonably intelligent, so he is just being mischievous in suggesting that your criticisisms of the catering are damaging to the club. Most people who complain about the poor standards of an organisation do so with the desire that things will be improved, so therefore has their best interests at heart. Also his opinion that we cannot expect the catering operation to serve the level of pasty usually found in specialist outlets rather than a multi product kiosk inside a football stadium, is plainly nonsense, for the reason pointed out by The Cat.

Ah! Dennis Rofe's welcome to the Chelsea players at the Dell. Fondly remembered and kind of him to remember Morris too.

I can see why you would say that having read your review below, although even they are not above changing their pies:- Seriously though, it shouldn't be beyond the wit of the club to have pies such as these supplied to them and help a local business at the same time. I have no idea what the catering arrangements are and I personally feel no desire to eat fast food in the concourses. However I do accept that the food is there for the fans who do wish to eat there for whatever are their own reasons and therefore simple rules of commerce apply, that if the fare is of poor quality and overpriced, fewer people will eat it. Perhaps it has not occurred to the people running the catering that if the food was better and priced reasonably, it could cost less than it does now and not only generate more money, but also gain a reputation for its quality. Otherwise, one has to assume that those invlolved in the catering couldn't care less either way. If that was their attitude, then they are unlikely to listen to complaints about it. But in case they were, surely nothing is lost by addressing these concerns to the club?

Well if they crow about it, then they will need reminding of how they laughed at us for winning it, labelling it as an insignificant achievement. But in the unlikely event that they do actually even get to Wembley, we will have the opportunity of measuring their support on the day and comparing it against ours.

Use this Michelin site to plan the route:- http://www.viamichelin.co.uk/web/Routes There will be options to take several routes, depending on whether you want the fastest, shortest, avoid tolls, most scenic, etc. You could also put into it the routes from the various ferry landing destinations in France and that might also influence your choice of ferry or tunnel too. You can also work out fairly accurately where you might be when you need to stop for lunch/tea and also when you ought to arrive at your destination, as they put the probable arrival time at each major town. For others who might use this route guide, the map can be magnified quite considerably and at the press of a button, will show most of the hotels along the route too. Then a click on any of them will bring up their booking details/website. Putting in the travelling dates will also tell you ahead whether they have rooms available. I well remember travelling extensively in Europe pre-internet by car when one just had to arrive early and keep ypur fingers crossed that you could find a hotel with rooms spare for that night. Now the problem is that people plan way ahead and book their rooms long before their journey.

Classic CB Fry, with his usual superior (in his mind, anyway) supercilious, attempt at a put down. Firstly, as WBA came 8th last season, they are clearly not a "lesser" team. And also clearly it is ridiculous to draw conclusions based on the team's record following significant changes during the transfer window when there has been just one home match since. It is irelevant how clued up the journalist is, that doesn't mean to say that an opinion (for that is what it was) from him has to be right. Neil Allen is also a Sports Journalist, but I expect that you would agree that every utterance he makes is not unchallengeable, although even he is quite possibly more knowledgeable about the game than you. Just for the record, so you know in future, I don't grizzle about journos for refusing to parrot how super-duper we are, but I reserve the right to express an opinion on them when I feel that they have not been balanced in their views. Is that OK with you?

A lot more perspective you have shown than that so-called Sports journalist. He makes his assessment on the basis of one home match of the new season and includes WBA in his list of teams that we lost to at home last season. Well, if he's going to base his opinions on such a small results sample, then he might as well conclude that our away form is showing signs of significant improvement, based on our loss to WBA last season, and they finished s creditable 8th. And if he is so keen to make assumptions about our onward performances based on such flimsy evidence, then the idiot might as well consider that those extra four points we now have that we didn't have last season, are sufficient to raise our position in the league 3 places, if all the other points gained remained the same.

The biggest empty space in the seating was a large block in the Corporate section. It seems that a large number of the prawn sandwich brigade were probably still on their yachts in the Caribbean.

I find it rather amusing with the irony that despite all the talk about which is the most effective formation, the goal that gained us the point was scored by a CB from open play. And it wasn't the first time that Fonte had wandered deep into the final third during play, rather than from a set piece. I presume that it was actually a tactical manoeuvre and it proved effective, as there was an extra body in their box, one without a designated marker.

This really is the wrong place to moan about the catering, because it isn't as if you have no alternative to turning up at the stadium not having had the opportunity to eat and drink at hundreds of alternative places beforehand. And then you seem surprised that some don't appear to share your view that stadium catering, which in the concourses is poor quality at vastly inflated prices is something to be overly fussed about on here. Do what everybody else does and either pay up without whinging, or boycott it and take your custom elsewhere. The simple laws of supply and demand will eventually come into play and the management will realise that selling food and drink of poor quality and over-inflated prices is uneconomical when demand drops substantially. I got stung for £2 for a small bottle of water and will from now on buy it outside for 80p. If you feel the desperate urge to have a good moan about it, why don't you just write to the club?

We made a rod for our own backs by conceding a goal so early on, before we had got into our stride. Who was at fault for gifting Giaccherini that free header? I presume it was Lovren's responsibility. But having gifted them the dream start, you could tell that Sunderland had an Italian manager, as they employed all the cynical tactical tricks that typify the stereotype. They put everybody behind the ball forcing us to try and break down a dogged defence and then they tried to hit us on the break. Their players fell down all over the pitch if our players breathed too hard on the back of their necks, fooling a very poor and naive referee into awarding them numerous free kicks. Then they had probably been primed to try and wind up Osvaldo in an attempt to get him red-carded and to waste as much time as possible by walking slowly off the pitch when substituted, staying down feigning injury to break up the rhythm of play, etc. Despite having several gilt-edged opportunities, we wasted several of them by placing free-headers into the arms of their grateful goallie, when a yard or two either side would have us running away with the match 3 or 4 goals to the good. But there were several reasons to be happy with another point and the maintenance of an unbeaten start. Several players appeared to be improving on their form from last season and that might be down to the quality of the new signings and the preparation that has brought through the academy players to fit seamlessly into the senior team. Lallana and Ward-Prowse in particular were both excellent today. JW-P was reckoned to be the one to warm the bench with the plethora of midfield talent we now possess, but after two stand-out performances, he is quickly earning himself the first name in midfield slot in the team selection, which is some achievement with Wanyama, Lallana, Ramirez, Schneiderlin and Cork to choose from. So another game with three 18 year olds on the pitch, none of whom looked remotely out of place, with other young players also in the team. They can only get better with experience and growing belief. During the first half, we looked short of the guile to unlock the Sunderland defence, but with the introduction of Clyne, Osvaldo and Ramirez, we were much improved, with some delightful interplay. With flair players like Ramirez, Osvaldo and Lambert playing together, it was interesting to observe them floating into interchanging positions so that it must have been a nightmare trying to man-mark them. I wonder though whether the introduction of Puncheon would have produced something different that could have produced the win? A shame that we have let him out on loan really. Thank God for the wonderful ball in from JW-P and the goal from Fonte, another who appears to have formed a decent partnership with one of the new signings. The last five minutes we were up and at them with some purpose and they were hanging on to keep the point. I will relish seeing on MOTD whether our goal should have stood, but at least De Canio had the good grace to admit that we were the better team and deserved all three points.

No. I'm with you. There are actually probably millions of us who just can't be bothered with anything so shallow.