Jack

This can't come soon enough. It's going to be a frustrating weekend with no Saints game and ITV's amateurish coverage of a cup that's lost it's magic over the last few years. The only change I'd make for Newcastle is Shaw in for Fox. The pressing game is fine at home or away, and as long as Jos and Yoshida keep it tight like against Citeh and mop up any long stuff from Newcastle then we've got a good chance. It's great to be in a position where we've got a seriously hard working midfield to grind an opposition down, and some real quality to come off the bench. Who would've thought a few weeks ago that so many people's best XI wouldn't involve Lallana and Ramirez?

Most of the skates in the area have crawled back under their rocks and into the woodwork. It was always a predominantly Southampton area until they got a bit of success, balance is now restored. They are about, but don't really let anyone know about it any more.

The navigator is worth avoiding, over £4 a pint. Not 100% that they've got ESPN, but the 2 pubs in the area for watching football are the Silver Fern in Warsash and The Lock, Stock and Barrell in Locks Heath Centre. They always used to have all the football on, give them a ring.

It needs sorting, I think our performances in general this season should have us comfortably lower mid-table, but these lapses have left us in the sh*t somewhat. If we pull it off and survive, we'll be a lot stronger next season with the experience and understanding gained this season.

Quality over quantity.....

After our performances against Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton and United, no reason we can't make a really good game of it. They won't be looking forward to a trip to SMS.

This. Our best XI and we really should just go for the throat against Wigan.

It's his job to get stuck in, and he does it brilliantly. No problem with him or his bookings.

Benitez has got Torres playing to his full potential? Ramirez will come good. He's still adapting and clearly has talent. I'm convinced he'll be a class act next season if we stay up.

Really want to go, but the 750 mile round trip from N.E Scotland is probably a bit much. £111 and 14 hours on the rattler on my own doesn't sound great. Gutted as I would've been amongst a group of 14 on a mini bus up from Southampton if I was working locally at the moment.

Too tough to call this, could go either way. Play with the same intensity as last night, and be a bit more accurate and ruthless, I think we'll win. We battered Wigan for an hour before throwing it away earlier in the season, and that was when we were sh*t. That, and our record being very decent against the rest of the bottom half, I think we'll scrape a 2-1 win. Please.

I know, but consider the form we had to show to overhaul the head start we gave them, the fairly decent run we're on. We rarely look like losing these days. I know we don't win enough when we've been on top, but we do get on top in most games. QPR and Reading only pick up points when they defend like f*ck and get a lucky break, having got lucky not to concede a few. Villa have a go and get picked off every time. Wigan are ridiculously unpredictable, but I think they'll pull it off again. I maintain that the current bottom 3 won't pick up enough points to overtake us.

QPR have learnt how not to lose, but rarely look like winning. Not too worried about them. I still think we'll be fine because the current bottom 3 are considerably worse than us. That said, tough games coming up. Wigan came back from 2-0 down at Stoke to get a point, probably could have been all 3.

And to be fair, Chelsea drawing with us at home would be like us drawing at home to Barnsley last season. Not really acceptable.

Let them keep underestimating us.

Eyebrow - playing football in a classroom, got tripped, faceplanted the corner of a radiator. Squirted blood about 2ft along the wall. Shin - drunk, stood on a train with my back to the doors. Doors opened, a mate thought it'd be funny to push me, I stepped back and my leg went down between the train and the platform edge. I fell back onto the platform and looked down to see blood p*ssing everywhere. The cut got infected and took about 3 months to heal. Got a very decent scar and dent in my shin. Forearm. Caught it on a 2 inch wood screw sticking through some plywood. Various scars all over my hands from work. Scarred knees from being a normal kid.

Yep. Better to just get on with it rather than wasting time reading about miracle weight loss. I've been training again after the 2 weeks off over Xmas. Been running every other day, and doing press ups, sit ups, chin ups and burpees on the days I don't run. Only lost a couple of lbs but that's due to putting muscle back on. Don't get frustrated by what the scales say, the can mirror can be as good when trying to reach goals.

The comment about where we've come from in 3 years IS valid and relevant. It's a tough enough job to get promoted from the NPC into the Prem and stay there. Everyone knows that. To get consecutive promotions and then stay in the Prem is a huge ask, money spent or not. We've got a very decent best XI, but a thin squad, still lots of players in the squad that got us promoted from League 1 - huge praise to them and NA for them making the step up. If we pull it off and stay up, first team players will become squad players, squad players will become redundant and we'll have a much stronger and settled squad. I think it'll be tight, and can't see us finishing any higher in the league than we are now, but we've got enough to do it. We've got a good record against the other sides in the bottom half, and we've given some of the big boys a really good run for their money. We'll be ok.

The Prodigy - 50000+ crowd at a festival in Serbia, absolutely mental. Foo Fighters, Pendulum, Kasabian all very good. Oh, and Madness. Very good.

I don't follow this thread anything like as closely as some, so I'm not clued up on the finer details, but I find it absolutely astonishing that this joke of a 'company' can still exist. In any other business in the world, if a company was that far up sh*t creek financially, it would've been liquidated months, probably years ago. Sell everything, give everything else away, burn it, start again. But somehow, disgracefully, there's money in some magic little pot that they can dip into as and when they want to bring in new players that half the teams in their league can't afford. And all that as a choice, instead of paying bills, tax, or any of their debts despite being in a position where they won't even have to pay back 99% of that debt. It's so illegal it's untrue. I don't know the laws and smaller details, but people should be going to prison over this IMO. Or shot.

One Villa fan's reply to another's pleas for calmness ahead of Saturday's game:

I'll probably do the GSR this year. I've only been running regularly again since November and Xmas got in the way a bit, but I managed a 10k in 48:25 last night. Happy with that as I was aiming to get under 8min/mi for that distance. I've never done a 10m run so that's the next step. What do you lot think is best, gradually step up the distance I'm running at 8min/mi pace, or go straight into a 10 mile run at a slower pace and then up the pace over time?

More importantly, who gives a sh*t about comparing city nightlife on a thread about potentially signing a new centre half?

Hang them, then burn them. Absolute oxygen thieves.

Who would pay his wages?!