alehouseboys

20,000 'fans' + 10,000 glory hunters + 20,000 daytrippers = too many cousins all in the same place at the same time. What a record.

*cough* 4 relegated from the PL

Was a bit tongue-in-cheek but...none going on Batman's suggestion - PL to become a 22-team league (for one year only), then 5 relegated the following season. In the circumstances, a solution would be 2 sides from the lower leagues to make up the numbers in the respective leagues with 4 relegated the following. Teams in, for example, the League One play-off zone remain in the division for another year, everyone's a winner. *on reflection to Batman's post, I think it's also only fair to cruelly snatch the scousers title away from them too.

Because I've got an undying love for Cov and Rov? And are these poor players just getting £94.25 a week Statutory Sick Pay now?

I could live with that, Cov and Rotherham replace them from League One, Crewe and Swindon move up from League Two, etc. I particularly like the League One scenario.

Yep, all results wiped from the record books other than completed competitions. That will be just the League Cup then.

*would

I've read about bans on mass gatherings in various areas that range from 250-1000, even without a crowd there wood be a significant number of players, staff, security, etc. inside a stadium.

*cough* Good evening Steve, Thank you for your message, I have no info related to Southampton nevertheless I will try to help you see more clearly. To answer your questions: Why buy the club? In my opinion, it must have been strongly encouraged by the government (like all investors - I see some similarities with Spanish Barcelona). There are of course several answers, but in my opinion, the main one is to make yourself visible to the government and attract the good graces of the Chinese Communist Party. Indeed, in 2014, President Xi expressed the wish to develop soccer in China and for the country to become a major player in this sport with the high point of being world champion in 2050. For this, he did not not hesitated to push big local companies and other fortunes to invest. Initially, the big fortunes invested abroad (the date of purchase of the club corroborates) to show that they followed the recommendations of the party and also, to secure an investment outside China in case .. Starting from this premise, the goal is mainly political and personal. The investor wants to show himself and thus benefit from a network within the party. Concretely football is not his hobby and the investor has no interest except to show the rise in financial power of Chinese fortunes. Another reason can also be financial: buy a GLP club with an excellent training center, take advantage of the exponential income from TV rights and then resell to make a capital gain. Regarding the sponsor: On this point, we must look at who is the shareholder of this brand. This company, like many in China in this niche, can turn out to be an empty shell. It reminds me of the partnership in the real Sociedad and Qbao: that was badly finished and the club had ended the commercial relationship. In another style you have Desport, who is the owner of the PSG license. For many of these companies, being associated with European clubs is simply a way of promoting themselves and nothing more. Finally to talk about the potential arrival of jack ma. You should know that he is already in football as a minority investor in the Guangzhou Evergrande club. This club is the armed wing of the Chinese government and therefore it is not insignificant that Ma (Who really cares about football) is an investor. Each investment abroad is validated and approved by the party, nothing is done or left to chance. My conclusion is that nothing should be expected from this president and that, in my opinion, he has no plan for the club. Most Chinese football-related projects (local and international) are meaningless and short-term. I hope it will help you a little, I'm sorry, I have nothing about Southampton. If need not hesitate, especially if my answers are not clear enough.

If he does manage to sell up and ship out it will be interesting to see how this LD sponsorship goes.

I'm onboard with everything you say but this bit, that's the least of my concerns with any such takeover. Never really liked the current one, if it was something that included the old 3-roses badge that's displayed throughout the city, I'd be happier. But that's me and certainly the least of our concerns right now.

A Man U fan who lives in the New Forest who's already involved with a couple of other clubs. Dead rubber.

And with China at the sharp end they'll know whats's coming. Bung in the potential loss of revenue from closed stadiums and low take-up of season tickets in the summer and our legendary balancing of the books looks in jeopardy. Gao is probably wishing he'd kept his Renminbi in his pocket now as he'll be stuck with us for some time to come. Unfortunately.

I’m the first to take a pop at our support but today, second half until they scored, was very good - but it will be interesting to see if results improve at St Mary’s once we, inevitably, start playing behind closed doors in the coming weeks.

There goes the Kingsland.

To be honest, everyone would probably just point and laugh. Harry the Dog and his nans.

You'd know more than me but the few aways I've done in recent times have generally been sold from the corners out meaning just holding back for a bit sees better seats become available, usually nearer the centre of an 'end'. Spurs in the cup was a good example, the last blocks released were behind the goal in the upper tier, which must have been the best view of the game from the visiting section.

Unfortunately, and not the club’s fault, but some fans hang back from away ticket sales as they know if they jump straight in they generally get the worse seats on offer. The longer sales go on the more chance you’ve got of not being stuck in the corner.

He’s in the kind of form, if not better, that Celtic deemed worthy of a £10m fee for when we bought him. They should start the bidding at least at that, it’s up to them to convince Forster to take a pay cut.

It was probably the best it had ever been then but I was thinking back more to the days of open terracing.

One-offs. I'm not disagreeing, we've some top atmospheres at St Mary's but they're few and far between. We used to get groups of Dutch fans travelling over in Koeman's days, I'd chat with some, they were surprised how subdued a stadium full with over 30,000 fans could be. And playing well.

I'm sure you've got your tongue firmly in your cheek with that myth, but just in case, it is a myth.

And that's reflected in our vocal support. Even when we were "Champions League" bound it was only marginally better in the couple of usual areas, most of the place, particularly south of the halfway line, was still dormant. I've been actively going to watch SFC for over half a century and I would honestly say it was never much different. The Dell suffered from never having a home 'end' bank of terracing with a roof over it like most other grounds where the atmosphere was generally generated. It was mostly small pockets of fans that tried to get it going but as the place was so compact it could quite quickly make a din when fans collectively got excited. Even then we had a large percentage of polite fans.

Didn't make it off the bench today despite a 1-5 home defeat to Fiorentina. Ramirez and Gabbiadini played, Gabbi grabbed the consolation in the last minute. https://www.google.co.uk/search?source=hp&ei=NohJXoXNC9qfjLsPqYCxkAQ&q=sampdoria&oq=sampdoria&gs_l=psy-ab.3..46i322i131i395i275j0i3l2j0l2j0i131j0j0i131j0l2.1539.4255..4744...0.0..0.196.1018.6j3....3..0....1..gws-wiz.......46i199i291i131i395j46i199i291i395j46i322i131i395j46i199i291i395i275j46i322i395.YUVKrTnxwzY&ved=0ahUKEwiFwLOV2NbnAhXaD2MBHSlADEIQ4dUDCAg&uact=5#sie=m;/g/11fmp9d704;2;/m/03zv9;ln;fp;1;; The Fiorentina player in the photo looks uncannily like Marian Pahars

You're right, they should. But other than a couple of relatively small groups in two corners of the ground who give it a go (not particularly loud and repeating the same boring stuff over and over) the rest of the stadium is dead. We attack the Chapel in near silence at times. Other PL grounds are bad, but nothing as polite as St Mary's. IMO.