Scummer

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.

Yeah but they are going to lose a few of those players as well.

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.

We didn't make the playoffs last year because we didn't win for 10 games. After that we had automatic promotion form for the rest of the season.

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.

They are calling it a Saints XI though, doesn't indicate that it will be the first team.

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.

Dubrovnik is lovely.

Sounds exactly like the type of player we should be looking at as backup to Rickie.

After all that, it turns out that Cortese is in Switzerland with the team....................

I wonder who leaked the letter?

Maybe try Bern? Bigger place and only half an hour away. Would have thought you'd have more luck getting rooms there.

David O'Connolly.

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.

He's a very good player, just a shame he dives and moans so much.

# Some of those studs look a bit odd. It's like they are a cross between moulded studs and blades.

There's no rule that anyone has to buy it either.

Isn't that pretty much what bates did at Leeds?

What is the voucher?

It's Alan Pardew doing it.

That's the old England shirt.

I wanted to see a replay of the fighting at the final whistle as well.

Agreed. How many seriously buy one ticket, for one match, at a time? How many billy-no-mates fans have we got? I'd be amazed if it was more than a couple of hundred people per match.

FA Cup 2nd round.