Ted Bates Statue

Schrodinger's wallet. Case in point, we were such spendthrifts that we blew £4-5M on compensation for Luton Town (and up to £10M for Ralph to take a break), yet simultaneously too miserly to tempt anyone to join as manager.

The bullshit klaxon is screaming...!🚨 Not even going to bother thinking of the other players for my own sanity but I imagine one of those was Lemina, for god's sake

Too bad I can't catch it, guessing probably more insightful and entertaining than the usual dross served up by the so-called professionals

Looking at the 2021 table, Newcastle were even worse than our current position, having played more games (8 from 42, 91st place). So let's get ready to celebrate our imminent CL qualification! Step 1 - get Eddie Howe in as manager, he was watching us a lot recently so I reckon he'd be interested... what do you mean, not anymore? Honourable mention to Brighton in 2020 who were 87th, 5 wins from 34 LOL. So there are ways out of our mess, hopefully Nathan Jones can find them soon.

Can't let yesterday pass without dredging up this thread for our favourite traitor. Adam Lallana could have really rubbed salt into the wound yesterday by giving it large with the goal celebration. It was bad enough as it was. Fair play to him for having some restraint yesterday and his conciliatory remarks afterwards. After some of the stick we've given him, he had no obligation to say anything. For me, the weirdest thing about his comments is that he is yet another person who admits to watching Luton regularly. I had no idea they drew such a large audience. https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/23214331.lallana-makes-southampton-hindsight-admission---calls-jones-time/

Next thing you'll be telling us that he didn't play for us at RB after all.

Time to dust off that vintage "Schneiderlin to Arsenal" rumour. (If anyone is genuinely concerned, that Twitter prankster Keenan Finch is reporting this exact rumour. Therefore, rest assured that Lavia is nailed on to be staying put).

Nice try but Paul Whitehouse did it better nearly thirty years ago.

Better get used to it, for those who are looking forward to our future life in the Championship.

At least Sturrock won games. I would be more worried about the Wigley type, whom all the players love despite losing to everyone except Pompey.

Think it's not so much a case of the players being quiet, so much as Jones being the only one mic'd up and having volume turned up to 11.

The Brooks Centre has been like that ever since it opened...

And Nuno, don't forget about him...

I'm sure we've started transfer windows in years gone by with absolutely nothing from the club for the first couple of weeks, except for rumours of star players' departures. Of course I hope we hit the ground running when the transfer window does open, but won't start to worry unless the situation remains the same in a month's time.

I can confirm that I also had an interview with Saints before they resorted to Nathan Jones, but I decided against the opportunity as what I really wanted was the Wolves gig.

Go on, then... don't leave us hanging...

This might be my first home match in a long while. Is it possible to print out tickets these days? On recent experience with Royal Mail I'm starting to doubt the post will arrive in time.

Back to the football, Fil Djuricic subbed on for Serbia... Also, Cameroon's goal to get back into the game reminded me of Osvaldo's classic v Man City.

Kudos to ITV for using Eminence Front as their backing music

No kidding. I paid £50 to sit in the neutral end once, but £90 in the new Riverside upper? Ninety!?

Thanks for that. FWIW I always appreciate a good Cortese anecdote - otherwise, we only have the vomit-inducing Jim White's sycophancy to go on. Also the true reason for Danny Rohl's exit when you feel safe to divulge it...!

I shouldn't have to defend myself but I've been on here and its previous iterations for the best part of two decades. I changed usernames about ten years ago having forgotten my password and sign-up email, only to be thwarted from doing so for a couple of years due to the IP address being the same. So I personally know that it isn't straightforward to create multiple logins. I was polite enough to you the first time you made the accusation a few days ago, but free to sift through my relatively few posts and it should be obvious to anyone with half a brain that I don't hold the same identity as another poster purely on the premise that I write in their defence - not least because I had previously given my position on Russia-Ukraine, and guess what - it doesn't match. You aren't as bright as you think you are. Please fuck off and leave me alone.

As a fellow ITK-watcher, I think it's the Ukraine posts... despite my strong suspicion that Manji has a completely different source for Saints info. I've seen enough to think he has a contact and is posting in good faith. There are only a few people who bother posting any ITK info on here these days, and invariably only a fraction of proclamations actually come to fruition, even when they are genuine. Notably, all the bollocks over the post-Gao takeover on here (including Manji as I recall), and the one who actually did break the news, on another forum, only went on to say recently that we were in for Gallardo in preference to Jones. Anyway, it makes the forum interesting and gives us hope... certainly in this instance, as the alternative is that without two decent forwards, we go down at the end of this season. I certainly don't come here for the low effort bickering and tedious post-spamming which makes Private Eye's 'From The Message Boards' section look run-of-the-mill.

Pure big club bias, isn't it. Lazy and sickening. He wouldn't have got that playing at some poxy L1 club.

I reckon there might be some deviants on here who would take relegation with no silver lining at all. For me, the number one reason to ensure survival for next season is to ensure a decent chance of cup progression - reaching a final and knowing you can actually win it outright on merit as opposed to sheer luck. The higher we can finish up the league, the better our chances. Honourable mention to Poch and Koeman for trashing this belief, but of course it depends a lot on the team's attitude as well. You can't realistically expect to challenge for silverware in a lower division, but as a top 10 PL side, there can be cause for optimism of carrying good form into the cups.