ooh it's a corner

The horse is De Hollow Man and Hjulmand is Danish for hollow man. Do I win a prize?

Absolute Radio - Request for Love Will Tear Us Apart Again, for my friend Ellen Droad. Iranian Government celebrates Wembley result

Strangely enough I was discussing the difference between Championship footie and Premier league footie with a local landlord after the game yesterday and his opinion was that he preferred Saints in the Championship because the additional games gave him a few more "large paydays" when compared to the top flight.

I think the fact he is still here and hasn't been poached already probably answers your last point. We don't hang onto our best players if a bigger club wants them. Maybe that has changed under SR ownership, but I suspect JWP still being a Saints player is as much a reflection of other teams' opinion of him, and the perceived value for money versus impact on their squads.

I'm confused with this. In one tweet, Hannah has said, "I'm sorry that you have experienced this....we all want the same thing", and then in the next tweet there is an advert for orthopedic women's shoes. Is this what she meant? Do we all have problems with our feet? What do we want, comfy shoes, when do we want 'em, now.......... I suppose it is only fitting for middle-aged men.

The ownership is more complicated than Dragan owning 100%. Let's not forget Ms Liebherr still has a shareholding. But the important statement is the one from the published accounts for Sport Republic UK Ltd (formally Sport Republic Holding Ltd), which were published 30th June 2022, and I quote: "The directors consider the ultimate controlling party at the Statement of Financial Position date to be Mr D Solak". So, directors will be answerable to the shareholders. If the shareholders wish to remove a director, I would expect them to be able to do so. If shareholders wish to remove a fellow shareholder, that should also be achievable, subject to any shareholder agreement clauses and the exchange of a wad of cash. So if Dragan wants to sack Rasmus as a Director of any of the companies involved, I would be astonished if there is anything (other than potential compensation) that would prohibit him from doing so.

I'm with Jimbo's comments above. I know Sports Republic have said there will be funds made available etc., etc., but I have a view that seriously wealthy business folks do not make poor, costly business decisions. Dragan has invested somewhere near £250m? Is that right? £100m to purchase the club and another £150m ish on player purchases. If I were Dragan I would be looking at the parachute payments to offset income loss, versus the inflated cost structure we have as a newly relegated team (whether that is in redundancy payments for rank and file staff, or offsetting player contracts that even at 60% of their premier league value are still inflated for Championship football). And I would look at player sales revenue to return some of my investment. That revenue, as people have speculated on this thread, could be anything from £125m-£200m. Dragan may choose to trouser all of it, or at least the majority of it. Paying £250m and owning a Championship club which is worth considerably less than £250m, is poor business. But owning a Championship club that has cost you £100m, and still has a reasonable asset value, is looking a whole heap healthier. We're all speculating how much we will get from player sales this summer and how much that allows us to spend, but maybe we're just going to get a £25m splurge on a few League One or unfancied Championship players.

I think the recent pages on this thread sum up the difference in opinion that Saints fans have with JWP and the outside world has with JWP. He is a decent enough footballer, well worthy of a place in an established premier league team. He has a wonderful free kick technique which has earned him many goals and assists. Undoubtedly he would have more goals and assists with better forwards in front of him. But, for all his qualities there are some flaws and these tend not to make the MOTD highlights reel. He is not a fast runner, he does tend to slow the transition from defense to attack down, he naturally looks sideways rather than forward, which means he never finds that killer through-ball and he frequently hits the first defender when taking a corner. He seems a thoroughly likeable young man, and we can only thank him for his time at Southampton. I hope his new club treats him as well as he has been treated here and I hope we spend any transfer fee more wisely than we have done

Maybe and no.

I did well to escape

I agree entirely with this. By my maths, this means if Rasmus works a very solid 50 hours per week, then in about 4 years time, he will be an expert at running a football club. Whilst he is slowly earning that experience and skillset, fuck knows what will happen to our football club, because by his own definition, he must be a rank amateur at the moment. What a knob.

The club has beaten my desire to attend out of me this season. I was looking for an excuse not to renew at the start of this season, but still did. But having owned a season ticket since 1987, this is my last one. I've been bored to tears watching them for a few years. Very little to cheer about, it is a fairly depressing process. I have been to a couple of games this season where I have gone to the pub, and then gone home, rather than have my Saturday afternoon spoiled by watching over-paid, under-performing individuals turn out. I should be deflated with that thought process, but I'm not. A bit like a long term relationship coming to an end, I want to say, "it's not you, it's me", when actually the opposite is true. (But not all the fault of SFC, the Premier League community is unpleasant, corruption and cheating is rewarded, literally, from FIFA, UEFA, through the EPL. Time for me to find something else/better to do with my time).

7 losses and 1 win. (sorry to be a pedant, but the guy is worse than you are giving him credit for (and you weren't giving him any credit)) Liverpool (A), Newcastle (H), Fulham (A), Brighton (H), Villa (H), Everton (A), Forest (H), Brentford (A) Scored 6, conceded 18. 3 points. Abject. Jones, fcking abject. Please leave.

Sat next to 2 in the Chapel stand. Travelled down from Northampton, citing how difficult it is to get away tickets because of where they live (I didn't care when they told me and I still don't care now). in fairness, I told them they'd be ok, provided the didn't behave like cnuts, and they did behave themselves. Went for a pee at full time and the gents had probably a dozen geordies who were pretty close to breaking into song. It is not good enough from the club and it only takes an annual reset of "names on database" to cull most of the problem. If you bought 1 ticket to a home game last year, you are probably an away supporter. Prevent further ticket sales, unless by exception. (And there will be Saints fans who only bought one ticket and they will have to go through an exception process, but the bloke from Northampton, who bought a ticket for Newcastle, who will only want to buy a ticket for Newcastle next season (big assumption there), can fck off.

Thanks for posting that hypo, it is sad. But I agree with Whelk - it is 17 acres of prime, inner-city development potential. Either as a school, or student flats, which is what we seem to be keen on. I hope the city can continue to use it as a school, but somehow doubt it.

Where have you heard that? I went to St Marys in the mid 1980s. It was a reasonable school then (despite some dreadful teachers), achievements were a long way north of the city comprehensives, but the city comps have closed the gap (and over-taken) St Mary's, which has suffered from under-investment. I think the city and the educational powers-that-be have been gunning for the school for a few years. I have some fond memories of the place, but wouldn't lose sleep over its demise. But I also have some friends whose kids go there today and of course, that is a big wrench if they lose their place.

I think it served a purpose when "similar" countries were experiencing a situation worse than our own. It served to forewarn us that the changes afoot were needed, or else we will end up like Italy/Spain. Now we have had the changes and over-taken these countries, there is no need for the re-inforcement of the message, "this is going to kill people". Of course, whether we ought to be locking down more, not less, and whether we could have, should have, ought to have, locked down harder and faster, will all be subject to the post-match analysis. And there is no glory in finishing top of this table.

In amongst all this mayhem, I wonder how many fans will simply "fall out of the habit" of going to football. It has been made a middle-class sport and the absence of football may make the heart grow fonder or it may fall out of sight and out of mind. I would love to crack a beer and watch a game on the telly tonight, but the thought of heading to St Marys tonight wouldn't fill me with the same enthusiasm.

I think desperation over money is going to be a big part in any business making decisions in the next 1-8 weeks. Football won't be alone in thinking that they need to generate some revenue. I am still completely perplexed as to why we are thinking about releasing lockdown. When we went into lockdown on 19th March, we had had a period of 500-600 new cases per day with a daily death rate in the 30-40s. Here we are 7-8 weeks later, daily new cases are 5-6k, daily deaths still 500+ and we are happy to try to head back to normality. I would be entirely satisfied (and not perplexed) if the Government turned around and said, "we're heading back to the new normality and the public can expect 500 people per day to die, until such point that we reach the promised land of herd immunity or a vaccine is avaliable". But if we're adding 5,000 new cases daily and we remove elements of lockdown, it would be reasonable to suggest that number increases, rather than decreases. It just doesn't make sense to me.

I think that is what would happen if Liverpool held a parade after winning the title. Not sure I was catastrophising it. And, for what it is worth, I would open the country tomorrow and see what happens, but I'm not in charge. (which is probably for the best).

It's not about cancelling everything forever, is it? It is about whether kicking off in June is safe or not.

Can you imagine if the fixture that could win Liverpool their first title in 30 years gets to be played at St Mary's? How many scousers will come down? Thousands of scousers, singing, letting off flares, outside the ground? There is ZERO chance of every single scouser in the country adhering to essential travel rules and there simply wont be enough resources to stop them. I think the Premier League could be about to shoot itself in the foot if it tries to restart the season. Think of the public outcry if 2000/5000/10000 ?? people congregate together for a jolly-good-fun-jump-up-and-down outside a stadium. Let alone 800,000 people lining the streets of Liverpool for the imaginery parade. (Imaginery because I dont think the civic leaders in Liverpool would be that daft). Just call the whole thing off.

Dunno. My guess is an attempt to realign world order into a global technocracy. Tracking and control of movement and expenditures. Cash being removed from society, everything digitally paid for, either via human chip or facial recognition. forced vaccination to enter the job market, and one of the by-products of vaccination will be sterilisation. Not for everyone, maybe 1 in 4 jabs to carry sterlisation. Bring the population down over the next 50-100 years. Of course, it could just be a very nasty flu pandemic ;-)

I object to this. Some of my best homework was done in a rush, on the bus. Maybe, not my best hand-writing, but my best homework.

The simple fact is none of us know the true figures. Does anybody really believe that North Korea has 0 cases? Is it likely that South Korea shot to 8,000 cases so quickly, but is only reporting 250 deaths? Can it be true that the complete basket case that is the South Sudan has not seen a single death? San Marino tops the charts with deaths per 1m population, why are we not asking the good people of San Marino what has gone wrong? We can wind ourselves up about the stats, or we try to judge the information we are being fed, as best we can. Forums are good for this as they will offer a counter position to your own, the trick is to not see the counter position as an argument, more as an extra bit of information to process. It will allow you to make a more rounded conclusion (if indeed any conclusion can be drawn today). My wife works at Southampton General, on a convid ward. They have had some deaths, of course. They also have more than 50% bed capacity on their ward (which is being restricted to covid patients). There are other wards which are verging on deserted and staff are largely redundant. We can either applaud this (as a clear indication that the NHS is not being overwhelmed), or we can complain at the amount of public expenditure on a redundant hospital, let alone the economic impact of continued shutdown. It is all up for debate.