ScepticalStan

It would have genuinely gone down into our top-5-ish moments in our history had we won on pens and got promoted. As it is...it...basically...y'know...didn't. Ahwel.

These threads always follow a similar pattern. OP complains about a poor atmosphere. Respondents complain about OP's complaining. OP asks the admittedly rhetorical, albeit reasonable question of whether having a noisy and energetic atmosphere in a football match is a good thing or a bad thing? Respondents reply with attacks to a straw-man, responding with platitudes about the (obvious and never seriously disputed) fact that of course, people who pay for their match tickets are well within their right to sit down and watch the game without making a peep. The issue of the quiet atmosphere at SMS is silenced and we all have to pretend that noise, energy and passion aren't actually good things.

I'd be very, very surprised if we sold Mane in January. Having said that, I'm completely resigned to losing him in the summer. Having said that, I'm very optimistic about getting north of £30Mn for him minimum. I'd settle for £35-40Mn and do genuinely believe that Chelsea, City and United would all be willing to pay it. That's not a bad thing if we can replace him with a player half as good for a quarter of the price etc. rinse and repeat and eventually stumble on another wonderkid like himself in the process of doing that year after year whilst staying roughly around the top half and making a good go of it in the cups/expanding our profile in the footballing world and so on and so forth. However, regarding the topic discussed on the thread, I must admit that if Mane were to hypothetically disappear into non-existence in a puff of smoke tomorrow; I'd genuinely view this season primarily as a relegation battle to scrape the necessary 40 points. The truth is that we are hugely reliant on him for his pace and ability to beat players. No-one else can do it. Yes, Tadic can turn and twist, but faced up against a full-back one-on-one, he doesn't have the pace to get past him. We really need another player who can beat a man one-on-one and take some of the burden off Mane, which is frustrating, because those kinds of players in and of themselves (Bolasie/Zaha/Arnautovic/Dyer for example) aren't that hard to come by.* *I realise those four all have massive issues with their end product but that's kind of my point; simply having a bag of pace who can actually carry a vague sort of threat going forward would add a lot to our squad given our massive lack of pace.

Its hard to improve your finish despite improving your squad? ...wait, what? Look, as I say. All I did was politely ask people to temper their expectations a little, stay off Koeman's back and just keep a level head this season. All I got was a load of verbal and personal attacks coupled with people deludedly claiming we'd finish 6th or above. And incidentally, you're wrong. People did say they'd take me up on the bet to finish with a higher position OR points tally than last season, but never stuck any money down. Anyway, my reason for doing all of that is hopefully so that we don't go into games at home to Stoke City like we're playing Stockport County back in League 1 thinking that we're completely entitled to win. We're going to finish roughly mid-table which is OK. Let's try and enjoy our games of football and keep an air of positivity about the place. Positivity doesn't come from thinking you're better than you are and being brought crashing back down to earth by the likes of Stoke. It comes from being realistic about your chances and staying enthusiastic throughout.

Ahhhh interesting backtracking. When I (politely) made the prediction I was told that I was a moron for failing to agree that we had a better squad than the last two seasons. Now all of a sudden our likelihood of finishing higher than last season is on a par with Paddy Long winning the golden boot? Perhaps we'd actually have a decent atmosphere if we didn't have a fanbase that were deluded about our actual ability.

If people had politely disagreed with me, rather than berated me for questioning the God-like nature of our team I might have been slightly more forgiving. As it is I'm not in the ****ing mood. Like I say, put your money on the table or shut the **** up.

Put your money where your mouth is or quit *****ing.

Telling that no-one took up my bet that we wouldn't finish as high, or with as many points as the last couple of seasons. Meh, never mind. No danger of relegation I guess.

Oh woops. Looks like the second part of my post was chopped off as I posted it (being at work I must have taken my eye off the ball). The point I was making was that there is a shock value in displaying the carnage done by these animals. The love-and-peace attitude that some have taken is delusional at best and dangerously complacent at worst.

Not at all. As has been said in response to the father-and-son video. What do you think those dead guys would have rather had in their last terrifying thirty seconds of their lives? Flowers or guns?

Trouble is that pharmaceuticals are an industry where they can only be sorted with private companies following a profit motive. Pharma companies spend billions on drugs that never make a penny or make it to market because they have to pass test after test after test over a course of 10 or so years in order to gain approval from the regulators. Cancer survival rates wouldn't have doubled (and in the cases of things like testicular cancer - be damn near cured when 50-odd years ago your life was on a coinflip), were it not for the incredible leaps forward in drug technology because of the ruthless competition between pharma companies for the next blockbuster drug. Trouble is that whilst capitalism is good, its not flawless and main problems with antibiotics are twofold 1) As has been mentioned, we're pumping chickens and other livestock full of them in what's considered a modern day 'farm' (which is really just shelves upon shelves of chickens wasting away in their own faeces whilst pumped full of chemicals, steroids and other assorted crap). 2) Whilst you can't research drugs without capitalism, capitalism obviously isn't perfect; antibiotics aren't as commercially profitable as drugs for cancer/aids/alzheimer's/hell, even erectile drugs make a fortune in the first-world market. Governments have to incentive antibiotic research and obviously that means higher taxes or in our case, cuts to other areas the NHS budget is spent on. Its a mess

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/ This article has been shared well over a million times. Very interesting and eye-opening. I don't think anyone on this threat wouldn't benefit from giving it a read.

Quite. Lambert scored 13 goals in his final season; 2 were FKs and 3 were penalties. I believe a couple more were from corners and of course there was the fluke against Swansea. Take nothing away from those goals; having a set-piece specialist and suchlike is all very useful and whatnot, but his proper 'strikers goals' had more-or-less dried up by the end of the season. I believe Lambert scored three goals all season for Liverpool and has yet to score away from the penalty spot for West Brom. Frankly, he was finished when we let him go.

There is a point to be made here. Football is a hugely international sport and homosexuality is, I'm sorry to say, still widely reviled in (arguably) most parts of the world even now. Its very easy to assume that the rest of the world is as tolerant and progressive as modern, liberal Britain.

Not sure he'll decline as soon as that. The main thing that goes when you reach that sort of age is pace, which is why the likes of Henry and Ronaldinho burnt out around then, but Drogba and Sheringham kept going for two or three years longer. Pelle could conceivably have three or four more seasons in him after this one.

A perfect 3/3 against Villa/Stoke/Palace and then a win/unbeaten record against the three big 'uns? Sheesh, I'd blow my load. Hope you're right!

This will be a much bigger test. Like it or lump it, we haven't got a result against anyone serious yet (the team in 16th who've won 2 and lost 7, and the team in 10th who've only won 1 in 3 of their 12 games so far, are unfortunately, not nearly as impressive as we'd like them to be.) If we get a few points or even a win against City, Spurs and (in particular (for personal reasons)) Arsenal, I'd be deliriously happy.

Actuall I always thought the Burnley penalty was the best he took last season - the keeper just made a very good save. The ones he scored against Arsenal and Chelsea were both quite bizarre in that both were tickled down the middle with the keeper obligingly diving out the way. The one against Vitesse was really the only solid penalty out of the four we've seen him take so certainly, I was taking nothing for granted when he stepped up, especially against a giant keeper in Pantilimon. Great pen in the end.

A completely understandable and well-advised tactic given that he's being played out of position.

Do you seriously think that Spurs fans are all just pretending to think that Pochettino is a good manager and Alderweireld is a good defender purely to spite little old Saints? Incidentally I find that Liverpool fans are far more arrogant with the players that we've sold to them. Rather than admit we've done them over and have run off to the bank laughing, I constantly hear them insist that they're 'Southampton-level players' etc.

Is there some way the forum can facilitate this? I'd hate to bet against my own team but if I'm getting even money on Saints to finish 8th or lower that's something I simply can't afford to turn down.

I must say, I was surprised the other day to find that I was in the minority when it comes to believing that (relatively strong though our squad is), I do believe that we're a shade weaker than we were the past two seasons. I was tempted to propose a bet that we won't finish as high as 7th this season or collect as many points, but confident though I would be of winning, I wouldn't want to be in any way inhibited from cheering us on. Anyway, do people honestly think we're as good as we were last year or the year before that? In terms of the first team I'd say: Forster = Stekelenberg Clyne > Cedric Toby = Virgil Fonte = Fonte Bertrand = Bertrand Wanyama = Wanyama Morgan >>> Clasie Davis = Davis Mane = Mane Pelle = Pelle Tadic = Tadic So don't get me wrong, I don't think there has been a massive step down at all (there's only one player that we really, really can't/haven't replaced, whilst the other replacements are no worse than a very slight step down), but I'm struggling to see how you could argue that we're actually stronger than last year. I don't mean to be too much of a doom-monger but we've played 6 teams in the top 12 so far this season and haven't beaten any of them yet. Plus we aren't defending our leads with anything like the same control and just general 'savvy' that we had this time last year. We looked panicky today against Bournemouth much as we did against Leicester, whereas this time last year we were keeping clean sheets for fun and grinding out 1-0 after 1-0 as comfortably as you like. So yeah...really? People think that we've got a stronger team this year than last? I just can't see how anyone could think that really, but its all a game of opinions of course. Anyone want to make the case for the opposing view?

Mmm. Most of us inside barely looked up with anything but quiet bemusement. "are Bompey really trying to start something?... meh...?? ...hm. *shrug* So Alan you got much coming up this week at work?"

For a club of our medium-ish size and relatively decent financial clout it is fair to set the bar a little bit higher. Aside from the promoted sides, we can reasonably aim to finish higher than West Brom, Palace, Stoke and Swansea who in my mind, are the current Premiership teams that can reasonably be considered 'smaller clubs' than us. Add to that the clubs that are bigger than us, but have clearly worse teams and a badly-run set up (Newcastle, Villa and Sunderland) and that's a minimum of ten sides we can claim that we should be finishing above.

Paul Wotton - Talentless trier.