Yes I was ecstatic.
All teams have off games, lucky wins and unfortunate losses. You can't look at games in isolation. The facts are that, on average, we were plenty good enough for the last three quarters of the season. It was the beginning of the campaign that killed us last year.
People were happy when we signed Connolly....
It's a bit different anyway when it's a player who's already on your books. I'm sure a lot of people would rather he was playing than sitting around twidlding his thumbs.
Interestingly, the OS doesn't have the Winchester, H&W or Basingstoke games in their fixture list. They do have Farnborough, Sutton, Barnet and Eastleigh on there.
http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/page/FixturesResults/0,,10280,00.html
Hammond is our captain, Pardew obviously rates him. If we were to bring in someone else, it would probably be as cover. I've got a feeling that Pardew is fairly happy with central midfield. First choice of Hammond and Morgan, with Wotton/Lallana/Puncheon able to step in here and there.
I'm disappointed because I like the excitement of signing new players. However in terms of the season, I'm not panicking. We probably need one or two more players, and I'm sure we'll sign them. Then I expect we'll get a few loans in during the season to fill gaps as and when they appear. A league one club shouldn't have a massive squad.
I see no reason why the odd over-21 couldn't play in games under our under-21 set-up. At international level you used to have a few overage players per team. After all, they aren't even going to be in a league, just playing friendlies. Players coming back from injury will have to have a way of getting a couple of games under their belt.