The9

Congratulations to all the people on this thread suggestion Crouch's offer was "reasonable" for making yourselves look like utter idiots. Who in their right mind would pay £2m to effectively sack themselves and put an opponent they clearly have no faith in in charge ? It might have achieved the goal which YOU valued over everything else (i.e. the removal of Lowe and Wilde) but it was hardly likely to appeal to the people actually holding the power, was it ?

Nice of the right back to sit five yards too deep so I could stand 3 yards past the other defenders onside, I thought - still, was a very nice pass, as I proved at the start of the second half by slicing one to the keeper when Foxy was in a similar situation.

Nice to know the "Home" team did a warm up, have to say I was just concentrating on not falling over and looking a plank in the warm up for the aways, didn't have a clue what they were up to. Also, the "not taking a shot during the warm up" worked out nicely for me, 1-0after 71 seconds (I've got it on video from my girlfriend's camera with the timing). Hamster's first knee-high terrible tackle was after 25 seconds by the way, just off-screen on my recording though, you can't even hear me yelling "For F'CK'S sake!!!!". Two minor regrets - firstly the brisk turnaround from warm-up to match start left me no time to empty my bladder and bowels (in fact I didn't even have my laces done up) so I was carrying about 3lbs extra all half, and secondly that I forgot to get a photo in front of the advert board that they use for team pen pictures... ...was brill though, despite losing to two goals in the last 5 minutes, or the "true Saints experience" as we were saying after the match.

lol.

I'd say having lots of young players with potential on not much money to back up the first team was a very GOOD way to run a squad on a budget. Of those "44", about 15 are first teamers on decent wages, the rest are young promising reserves and academy players who cost next to nothing or cheap loanees. We could shed one or two of the major earners and save the cost of all of the "kids" in one fell swoop. It's only contracts we've been saddled with since 2006/7 that are dragging us down, and I can't imagine for a second anyone would be claiming the likes of Ben Reeves and Callum McNish's wages are a drain on the club - I'd rather have 20 of them than 1 Rasiak for the same money anyway - at least we might get something back from some of those 20, even if it is only compensation if they leave. If we have to cut those 20 to 10 when in a lower division and have a thinner squad overall, so be it, but even the kids have some kind of contract, so they still have to be honoured anyway.

I'd have paid £115 to see that... oh wait.

I couldn't give a crap how we play football as long as we exist and win enough games to keep us out of League Two (or lower) for 2010/11.

I'm preparing for the worst as I've been here before in the last recession, when my LAST club got wound up for less than half a million with a youth team player on the books who went on to be transferred for £2m. Alternative plans include a bit of ground-hopping, attending the away end at Fratton, otherwise having a life, and that's about it. Hopefully it won't come to that, but the possibility is there, especially as we're now at the point of brinkmanship and both might just walk away...

I was actually asleep at the time. Fortunately this prevented me from turning up and getting hoofed by Hamster again.

It's usually me who volunteers anyway, but I suspect this summer I may be having a life instead, unfortunately for HeCuddoo fans. PS I am assuming you weren't at the Fans Forum match?

Wicked, I made the HCDAJFU list. This is no doubt the greatest thrill of my footballing career... well, since Thursday. I'm waiting for a text to confirm the loan deal though, as I believe my registration is currently held by Southampton Internet FC, bottom of teh Sholing Sunday League Div 4. At least I don't need international clearance this time...

Ah, only got boots with me, maybe next week.

Grass or astro?

I note with disappointment that as yet there's no actual HCDAJFU list in this thread. Most of the disappointment is because following a comment on the Fans Forum Post Match thread, I'd be on it - LOLz!

I was going to ask when we'd see your pics too, but then I saw the Visitors Changing Room pics and was pretty sure Minty didn't go in there, so I figured you'd pooled all the pics already. Cheers also Al...

Has anyone even bothered trying to work out the finances underpinning this whole bloody pointless argument ? You know, the player x gets paid £n a week, and with more wins attendances might have risen y raising the club £z? Or is it all such a load of tenuous, subjective, hypothetical balls that actually no-one can genuinely come up with a substantive argument backed by figures ?

Just for completion, Liptak's squad number was 41, but he's not listed in the squad number part in the first post.

Beats me what the righteous indignation is about, we shouldn't have told them we'd pay them that much money in the first place, should we ?

Yep, she was of course exaggerating, though it was also me walking out of Reception afterwards that told you my missus had already bought a load ! I haven't yet read either of the epic Managers' comments, but I liked the pic of "stevegrant" in the luchadore mask, definitely an improvement.

I've been tagging myself like a mofo.

Home Team Back Row : Nexstar, fos1, dannypope, bigdavewatson, DarrenLeTiss, the banana factor, disintegration87, silversaint, Saint Neil90 Front Row : saintsforlife7, prideofthesouth, JustMike, hamster, SaintKenny, stevegrant Away Team Back Row : FlyingFinn, Griffo, Ooohterryhurlock, BPSaint, Baj, SaintsMadSi, Foxy, Umbongo, Front Row : The9, MLT's Headed Goals, Neilza, Influenced.com, lee_saint, Andy_Porter, Foreverredandwhite, Bugenhagen Awesome pics Minty, I'll await you captioning them all with "Scott looking fat", which 28_F is fair comment at the moment

If they want to pay for my knee surgery.

My knee was fine, had re-injured both achilles' by the 10th minute though.

It was my bank balance at fault for that ! Though we both got injured, admittedly. Definitely a better standard overall than the Bournemouth game, pretty even game though we were under the cosh for 20 minutes before the late goals.

Don't bring any. I am leaving work now, on my waaaaaaaayyyy ! I bet there's loads of us hovering around the car park and Megastore at 5pm looking agitated