Ken Tone

Lol.

So based on that, never mind not selling Chambo, why haven't we made an offer for Dale Jennings?!

Quite. Presumably the players Daddy Ferguson brought back from Preston the day his son was sacked can now be loaned to Peterboro. The stories about young Man U players being frozen out if they didn't sign for the other Ferguson son as their agent, and the blatant way that sort of nepotism works in football where it would be a misconduct/sacking matter elsewhere, in 'real' life, makes me wish that once Peterboro have beaten Brighton this weekend, they never win another game till they sack Ferguson again.

Whereas we all know he is actually on the bus.

Lol. I think it depends on whether season ticket holders can buy their own seat on the bus first .. and on parking obviously.

Absolutely. 20-30 thousand people all singing "the wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round" ... x2 then ... "all day long" as we get promoted. Brilliant. Perfect football song...... simple, repetitive, unique to Saints, funny, and completely incomprehensible to the opposition. Fits all the criteria!

Well I suppose a choice between another L1 side or an NPC relegation side, or maybe moving to Burnley, isn't too exciting , but I'm surprised he can face having his best players sold around him ...which will continue to be his future at Bournemouth. Will Mitchell now sell Pugh to pay for Howe's increased wages?

I doubt it will be on live. TV is always obsessed by prem v prem fixtures. Hope I'm wrong mind you, because I can't go on the saturday, but if it's moved to the sunday I can. Anyone know when the TV games will be announced?

Quite. One simple example sum that even a pompey fan might just understand. Instead of paying Lawrence £21k a week, get 3 perfectly good players at £7k a week (which is still a good wage by championship standards) and they'd have 2 more first team players in their 'tiny' squad.

I see their latest whizzo scheme is around Halford's suspension. First they appeal frivolously, so the league increase the suspension to 4 games. Then they send him back to Wolves because his loan has ended, so that Wolves pay him whilst he is not playing, and then NB he 'misses' 4 Wolves games he wouldn't have played in anyway , in the time that Pompey play only 3. Then apparently Wolves have agreed lend him back to them again after the suspension. Net result -- his effective suspension from Pompey is only 3 games not 4, AND they don't pay him whilst he is not playing! Why on earth have Wolves agreed to this?!

Quite. For me he is the best partner for the excellent Fonte that we have at present. I'd only let him go if we buying real quality to replace him, someone of simlar quality to Fonte in fact!

you know, I hate it when people pussyfoot around like this instead of just coming out with what they really mean. Policital correctness gone mad!

So in short, we don't know, even though some posters claimed last week they had spoken to him and he'd had an op. Ordinary human beings would take a couple of months to be fully fit, but I'd have hoped that a pro footballer with access to every sort of medical support ( ) would be ready to play in a few weeks.

Absolutely agree. But that's the trouble with being a fan and not just a customer. If any normal business treated its customers like Saints (and most clubs tbf) do their fans, they'd lose busines rapidly. We fans just keep coming back for more regardless. I gather the new David Luker is Sarah Draper if you want to try emailing.

So did Barnard have a hernia op or not? Radio Solent this morning said he had been back in training, along with Chaplow and Richardson, with the implication that he was in contention for Walsall. Surely a hernia op would keep him out for a few weeks, otherwise why on earth wouldn't they have operated earlier, rather than keep him only half fit for months? Anyone know whether he is fit? We certainly need him.

Had the same experience, and this was after being turned away before Saturday's game after queueing for some time, when they suddenly decided that all ticket windows would only sell tickets for that day's game, in contradiction of what the stewards had been saying up to then. And yes the car park staff had said when we renewed at the start of the season that parking would be available for cup games, but would cost extra. Unlike you, I did buy tickets anyway, because I can walk ok, but all round it wasn't and isn't good customer service. It almost feels like they are actively trying to discourage cup attendance this season! May well bring the wife's hatchback rather than risk parking my car in the Belvois valley somewhere!

Maybe so, but a) Doble has yet to play first team and b) more importantly buying Pugh not only gives him to us, it also takes him away from Bournemouth and thereby weakens the opposition. Last season's policy semed to be to buy all other L1 teams' best player, whether we really needed them or not ( cf Barnard , Puncheon (!) and especially Dickson). It's the transfer equivalent of a 6-pointer!

Quite. I was gobsmacked when they said on Solent that they couldn't get after-match talks from players as they were flying to Dublin for a party! Un-bloody-believable

Well having skipped the first 2 cup games partly out of apathy and partly because of not wanting to sit in the itchen when I'm a ST-holder in the kingsland, I went to saturday's game early to buy blackpool tickets (and some extras for the christmas league games) We were told by stewards that window 2 was saturday's game only ..fair enough .. we queued for about 10 minutes at window 1 and then a tannoy announcement said that now all windows were selling saturday's tickets only. Big moan from queue and about half left, ****ed off. This was before 2.30 and the queues were not yet that big. Surely they could have kept a couple of queues for advance sales? Or at least given better information. There was no info on the scrolling display btw. Really poor customer service, and a lot of upset fans ..again!

I am Spartacus! I will have had no influence whatsoever on the decision but I was very much against re-appointing Hoddle, because of the way the man left ..not because he left, but the way in which he conducted himself when he did. He said he'd not been negotiating with Spurs when he had. He said he'd not flown to wherever it was (it was so long ago!) to talk about Spurs, then it turned out that the Spurs vice-chairman just happened to be in the same place. He sent our players off for a totally silly mid-season break before an important game, to the detriment of our club, so that he could conduct those negotiations. In my personal opinion the man is a ****. If he had returned he would have had no credibility here with fans, players or media. Your 'vocal minority' was IMO matched by a not quite so vocal majority who felt the same. Got it Dalek? Now will you please shut up about bloody Hoddle? K.

I'm not normally one to say 'nonsense' about another poster, but this is nonsense. David Luker stood out as a bloke who actually bothered to reply to queries and messages, which when you consider some of the crap he must have received was pretty remarkable in itself. In effect he became the public (and human) face of Saints for many.

He was considered faster than Walcott when they were academy players together.

But what if your son then had a career-ending injury whilst at Saints? He'd get a much smaller insurance pay-out than if he'd been on twice as big a wage. Or less dramatic had a bad injury, did go on to play again but was never quite as good. It happens to a lot of players. Or even less dramatic, what if he simply didn't improve much and/or lost form? It happens to lots of youngsters, probably more than go on improving. Suppose he 'did a Lambert' the very next year! So then he'd never earn the £15k a week. Would you be able to re-fund him the equivalent of £7k a week for the rest of his life? Life doesn't always work out the way you plan. It would be a really brave decision by any youngster to turn down a top club and top wages. After all, if things didn't work out too well at Arsenal, he could then settle for a transfer to a smaller club later in his career, with 4 years of £15k a week behind him. That's £3 million -- enough for most people to live on for the rest of their lives.

Where in the cotswolds are you going? It takes me only about 2 hours to get to Cheltenham from Southampton, and that's without going nuts, sticking reasonably close to speed limits. So compromise and just leave about 10 mins before the end to avoid the traffic, arrive just before 8, check in and change quickly, getting to table about 10 past 8. These do's never start on time. Ok? Sorted? I'm so glad you shared this problem with the group.

Which only 20-30% of the population went to. Funny how no one says "bring back secondary moderns", which the other 70-80% would have to go to if we did bring back grammar schools. And it's also funny how Kent, which never really got rid of grammar schools, does quite badly in comparative league tables. I went to a boys grammar school in the 60's to 70's.The results of the bottom set lads there were appalling, yet they were in the top 20% of the ability range for that county.