ScepticalStan

Seriously? The bookies have 'stay' at 1/3.

You could argue (perhaps slightly tenuously) that Leicester winning the league would set a precedent in terms of what was achievable for clubs our size, and thus make it easier for us to attract and hold on to players in the long-term. Therefore, given how little is at stake for us (assuming we finish between 8th and 10th or so) and how much of a difference it could potentially make to Leicester (lets assume their winning the league is contingent on them beating us), you could envisage a scenario where Saints are better off in the long term from a Leicester win. Actually, thinking about it I might well end up not supporting them, but not begrudging them the win in the slightest. A Spurs supporting friend of mine has been nauseatingly arrogant and dismissive of Leicester's chances - only referring to Arsenal and City and assuming that Leicester will return to 'normality' (to use his words). This is of course despite the fact that Leicester are above Spurs in the league and have taken four points off Spurs. And they've had a tougher fixture list so far. Put it this way - I'll watch the game and obviously support Saints but will be quickly and immediately comforted should we be beaten by the fact that Leicester screwing Arsenal and Spurs over will be hilarious and beautiful.

Fixed that for you. You didn't quite go far enough for my liking

Henderson. Just hearing that name causes me to laugh. Reminds me of him (on Rodgers' instruction) scuttling over to Rooney to grab the Captain's armband off him when he was subbed off. Rooney chuckled and told him to jog on. Joke of a player.

Funnily enough, I used to know a Portuguese chap who was a Sporting Lisbon STH and thought Ronaldo would never make it as he was so skinny and scrawny. He thought the lad (as he was always relatively tall) 'looked out of proportion' and just figured his centre of gravity was always going to be too high for him to really have the necessary athleticism to make it at the top level regardless of his pace and fast feet. We had a good chuckle about it looking back but he insists that as a teenager he'd go flying into a sequence of step-overs and simply be bounced to the ground (and perfectly fairly I might add) by strong, stocky full-backs who'd simply nail him shoulder-to-shoulder. So, who knows? Maybe I'll be proved wrong on JWP. Its all a game of opinions.

James Ward-Prowse. 119 appearances for Southampton. Gaston Ramirez. 48 appearances for Southampton. Regardless of whether Ramirez is, isn't, could have been or could-never-have-been good enough, the one thing absolutely no-one argued was that he hadn't been given time.

Perhaps, but given that most of his weaknesses are physical, rather than technical (you're not going to see him become a faster sprinter, grow taller, or toughen up any more than Lallana has between the ages of 20-27) its hard to imagine much change in that department. One that wants to see the team wearing Southampton's badge do well, and if that means crushing the frankly ridiculous levels of chauvinism and double-standards when it comes to English vs foreign players then so be it. I'll never forget the fans behind me calling for Dean Hammond or Richard Chaplow to start ahead of Morgan Schneiderlin away to West Ham in 2012 because the former 'can put a bloody tackle in'. Four years down the line Morgan Schneiderlin commands a transfer fee of £25Mn and Dean Hammond plays in League 1. That more-or-less tells the story. Having said all that, JWP could potentially become a useful player for us, but he's going to have to be technically masterful enough to offset all of the physical weaknesses he has. Not impossible, but unlikely, and we should be realistic about him.

I agree completely, but funnily enough, the bookies still really, really don't think so though, Bompey are available at 8/1 if you fancy a punt (check oddschecker).

Well blow me down this is going brilliantly! I can't for the life of me understand how or why we've had multiple months of relegation form followed by several months now of basically title-winning form, rather than something more balanced but yeah fantastic stuff!

Why no Mané?

And how is your 'position restored'? What means is used to incentivise other humans to collaborate upon 'restoring your position'?

Indeed. Heartbreaking that a really decent chance for England to get something going this summer will be ruined by the fat man being shoehorned into the team.

I've said this several times. If you take out life insurance, you are quite literally betting on your own death. Likewise if you take out fire insurance on your house - you're literally betting your house goes up in flames. There's not even a shred of exaggeration involved there; it's precisely what you're doing when you extrapolate the exchange of money vs circumstances needed for payout. If people can grasp the concept of insurance for everything else, they should be able to grasp the concept when it comes to football.

If it was a sure thing, then I presume you put your life savings on against the bet when we were around 20/1? effortlessly helping yourselves to thousands of £££?

In Brazilian Portuguese the 'd' is for all intents and purposes a 'j' as well. A German friend of mine who's sister in law is Brazilian had a good old chuckle at her pronouncing 'Red Hot Chilli Peppers' as 'Hedgey-hodgey chilli peppers' (that's another thing - their 'r' is essentially an 'h')

What do people think of the actual likelihood of us leaving? Odds-wise, best you can get on 'Stay' is 2/5 and 'Leave' is 5/2. http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/eu-referendum/referendum-on-eu-membership-result Personally I think those odds are pretty generous on 'Stay'. I can't for the life of me see us leaving, although I would like us to.

We've been playing superbly over these past four games and certainly, much betyer than I had expected four or five weeks ago, but the metric as to whether we're better remains simple Higher points total Higher league position

Kelvin for sure. I was never his biggest fan but some of the saves he made were astonishing. The drilled low strike from Webber and the speed at which he got down to keep that out had my jaw on the floor.

I have a feeling you might be correct on this. If so, get betting. Leicester are 1.3-ish to finish in the top four, so if you think they'll finish outside the top five you'll probably get 6 or 7/1 on that.

Papa Waigo should be given an invite. He was top scorer in the JPT and full of energy and passion, even though he was easily the most talentless player to ever pull on the shirt. My favourite memory of him was him celebrating like he'd scored a goal after we successfully defended an indirect kick in the penalty area in a meaningless match against Carlisle at the end of the season with about 9 men walled up on the goal line.

Britain has a population of near-enough 70 million people and we're surrounded by water. Whilst being an island nation used to be a military advantage, it's now a massive handicap due to our complete and total reliance on food imports thanks to high pop. x less and less food produced on these shores. If a Russia or China could successfully implement a blockade we'd have to surrender within weeks, utterly regardless of whatever conventional weaponry we have at our disposal. Our only defence against that is having the ability to make St. Petersburg, Beijing, Moscow, Shanghai, Kazan and Guangzhou together with their inhabitants disappear and remain uninhabitable for a 100+ years. Disarm the subs, you might as well completely disarm absolutely everything right down to the last SA-80's firing pin.

Useless keeper, great servant.

Great comment below the line on the Guardian from a chap in Sunderland that I thought I'd share with this thread. "As I posted elsewhere, my Dad is working class. Left school at 14, was a mechanic all of his working life (most of which was in a nationalised industry) and was a staunch trades unionist. Labour would assume he was left wing. He doesn't agree with immigration though as he thinks it stops unemployed people here getting jobs. He doesn't like "scroungers" like the guy and his son who go to the same social club as him, have been on disability benefits for years and have nothing wrong with them. He doesn't agree with the EU. He says he voted for the EEC because it was about trade but says his Dad went to sea and fought a war so that we could run our own country. He thinks prison is the best place for criminals. He was far from delighted when some Chavs smashed his car wing mirror. It turns out they had a competition in the early hours of the morning running down different sides of the street seeing who could smash as many wing mirrors as possible. After doing this four consecutive Saturdays the police caught them. My Dad and no doubt all of the other folks whose cars were damaged, thinks they should have gone to prison rather than what actually happened which is that they got fined (a fine they probably won't pay). He doesn't believe in foreign aid when can't afford to run the NHS and he has to wait a fortnight to see his GP. You can call my Dad a bigot if you like. You can tell him that evidence suggests he's wrong about many things. Politicians can condescendingly talk down to him about what working people really should think having never actually been one themselves or lived in their communities. But he forms his opinions, like most people, from what he sees with his own eyes rather than from what someone tells him. He is in one of those Northern constituencies where UKIP came second.He used to vote Labour until 2005 when he stopped voting because he thinks they have absolutely no understanding of the lives and issues faced by working people."

Judging by the adulation reserved for our five-goal-a-season man Shane Long, nowhere near.

Its going to be tough for the good-honest-tackle English football mong brigade once Ramirez has gone. Which 'fancy-Dan Carlos-kickaball foreigner' will they be able to scapegoat when a jolly good old British hard-worker like Davis or JWP fails to add anything going forward?