Saint_Ash

But it was Mehball who makes things up for fun and has done this before with other supposed transfers I'm sure.

Of course he does. The press don't though.

Who said anything about spending beyond our means? No one really knows what we can and can't afford but to not take advantage of our position with a shrewd purchase here or there would also be a mistake. I believe we'd only spend 6m on a player if we could afford it.

We could go for broke and spend 10m on 2-3 players that will give us an excellent chance of promotion. If we get promoted it's a master stroke as we'd have spent 10m to get into the riches of the Premier League that will see us getting 5 times that. If we fail to get promotion however then we could be fooked. All it would need is for us to spend 6m on Hooper and then he gets a cruciate the following week. Personally I'd go for it. We're top, spend the money and try and the quality in that will see us over the line. Probably lucky I'm not running a football club.

You've got your ear to the ground better than most on here. Are there any snippets of rumours that could be interesting or any further news on the Hooper stuff? We're getting a bit bored now, it's been like 1 day since we knew Lee was definitely joining, we need more info or some people around here will say we'll sink like a stone...

Have you ever drank baileys out of a shoe? *I actually have "I'm old greeeeeggg" as my ring tone!*

West Ham

Really annoying, my father in law decided to have his 50th birthday on Sunday and has booked out half of the Osborne View Hotel in Hill Head Fareham at 2 for all the family to have a nice meal, he's a rugby man and doesn't give a sheet about football. So I hope to watch the first half an hour at home, pause the telly, have no radio on, turn the phones off, drive there, eat, come home and watch the rest of the game without knowing the score. Likely? Probably not!

Disagree, thought we had the ball easily far more than them in the first half but we didn't do as much as them when we had it. We passed the ball around looking for an opening and held onto it for a while, then a sloppy pass would give it away. Hull then strung some quick slick passes together and looked dangerous but they didn't have the ball for long, just seemed it because they were good with it when they had it.

From coming a goal behind this is an excellent win. I felt we dominated possession throughout the game but there were a couple of sloppy passes that gave the ball away and when Hull had the ball I felt they were useful, they liked to pass the ball about and could do it nicely. Our defence had to throw themselves into some juicy tackles and I thought Fonte and Jos did well. Richardson was very good at getting down the wings and I felt in the first half our players seemed a bit slow to get into the box for him. Guly had a poor first half but Adkins obviously thought he was going to get his chance and kept him on, and it worked. Pleased that Lallana got a goal after a bit of a drought, he looked like he left his shooting boots at home but he still managed to do some nice touches and turns. Our possession football was great, the 70% stats do prove that but with only a minute to go I wish they wouldn't muck about with the ball so much near our own goal, I would've been happy with an ugly boot up the wing and use De Ridder to hold it by the flag, BUT it's good that they have the confidence to try and tap it around our area to keep possession. All in all an excellent result that leaves us 8 points clear of 3rd place which is amazing.

He hasn't but when we get to the top level he'll only have a couple of years at the top level.

* long term

Maybe Juke is seen as a long term replacement for Rickie who might only have a couple of years left in him at the top level. Seems like the players we're getting in are ones for the term.

I think Cardiff might snatch the 2nd place and I think Hull will be up there as well. Going to be interesting watching Hull next week as I reckon they're going to give us a game, could be our toughest game at St Marys for a while.

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11700/7322557/Painter-Ref-swore-at-me Diddums!

One thing I love about the current team and success is that I look forward to the transfer window now instead of dread our best players being touted around. I think some of the rumours next month will be pretty good if we're still top come Christmas.

With the 30 seconds or so that Barnard has played this season I would say Conners over him every time for the subs bench. Even when both fit I would struggle to remove Connolly for Barnard, he just knows where to be at the right time and can adjust himself quickly really easily when receiving the ball. Yep, Conners over Barny for me.

Seems to me it was meant for Chaplow again, when he runs forward does he follow the same line on the pitch? It would've been a very similar goal to his first one. I think we're even using the gridlines on the pitch to help our formation and runs! Looks like we're working hard on the training pitch aswell. Great times.

Interesting, my guess - Richardson for Butters (shame as Butters got in the team of week) Harding for Fox (Maybe to tighten up the defence) Conners for Guly (if he did get a little injury, no point aggravating it)

Hadn't realised Peterborough are the only team in the league without a clean sheet and as we're the top scorers in the league I expect us to get at least two goals, it all depends on how we defend, keep control of McCann and I think we could win by a decent margin, get complacent then there's going to be at least 5 goals in the game but not sure what exactly the scoreline will be. I'm going for 3-2 saints.

He has to say that, Celtic are ultimately his employer, if for any reason either through injury or otherwise we don't take him on in January he still has to go back to Celtic and try and continue his career. I'd love it if we bought him though. I reckon his price might have gone up with some solid performances and Nicola might think they're trying to take the pee and pull the plug, if we don't sign him that would probably by my bet as to why.

Would be an excellent time to get a top striker in. Top on the league, full of confidence, just the right time to strengthen and frighten the other teams around us and adds a bit of competition for our strikers.

That is embarrassing. I hope other people listening don't think he's what the majority of Saints fans are like!

I don't think it'll be too hard for the opposition to have 2 game plans, one for if Lallana was playing and one for if he was injured. I think it would be much better if Adkins was stating "He's probably too injured to play, don't expect his name on the team sheet" And then to the opposition's surprise he was playing. Probably harder to make a quick fix if he's playing than to relax because he's not playing.

When we came second in the league to Liverpool? When Dave Jones was in charge and we came 10th to Arses 11th or summat, 2001?