ant

The sounds won't be so bad when there's actually crowd noise and commentary (I presume these will be forthcoming when the season starts and commentary exists), but yes it did start to grate very quickly.

I think that's likely the case RE: visas and complications. It would clearly be beneficial to get somebody like Jemal in, but come on, it'd hardly be a total disaster if we start the season with what we already have. My biggest question mark is over who Adkins will have as his first choice to partner Fonte.

Worth it for the extended highlights alone (you get 5 to 10 times as much footage as on the Football League Show). If you don't live in Hampshire then I imagine the Solent commentary stream will be invaluable too, plus there's a lot of behind the scenes footage and full interviews rather than snippets. The service does have minor faults but for £4.29 I don't think you can go wrong. I only subscribed last season but would really miss it if I had to cancel.

Golden thread.

Of course, but I'd take the frustration of missing out on the play-offs to get to that position in the first place. Would be a nice 'problem' to have! Would also arguably be easier to consolidate from there than if we struggle to adapt to the Championship.

I'd quite happily snap up 7th rather than 8th to 21st thanks.

Approve of this statement! It'd be nice to have a chant not entirely punctuated with 'do's, 'na's etc. etc.

Well I'm happy about this news anyway. He's good enough for us, for now. Something of a character as far as I'm aware and it's worth having people like that in the camp. Apart from anything else it suggests that Southampton FC is a decent place to be right now, which can only be good for team spirit and togetherness.

Everyone will flock to Twitter and the BBC text updates. Shame really.

I'm not really disagreeing with those points, but isn't £3.50 for a draught pint about standard for a pub now? Not suggesting that it's exactly the same drinking from a plastic cup on the concourse of course.

It's not as articulate as many of these, but I think there's legs on the mooted 'Sex on Fire'-based chant. "Derrrrrrrrrr Rid-der, Der Rid-der's on fiiiii-ire!" I get the same sort of vibe as Jose Fonte's, that's all.

It should be the first 40,000+ attendance of the season then

Molson Coors, yes. They own a cavalcade of mediocre alcohol brands (with a few notable exceptions).

Wow, that white and turquoise one is a blast from the past. Remember picking that and its shorts/socks up dirt cheap at the end of one season from JJB in Basingstoke. Got the goalie top from the same era at the same time - the first and only of those I've owned: Can't have cost more than £30 for the lot. Realised yesterday that this year's home shirt is my tenth (first was the one used 1995-7). Have only sporadically had the away ones though, when they were top-notch or reduced. It's a shame that you can only buy our apparel from two physical shops these days, it used to be fun hunting out bargains or finding long-abandoned stock.

Yes, I suspect that Nigel is already aware of his ideal starting XI and that's enabling him to experiment. That said I'd be mildly surprised if the lineup isn't more stable tomorrow night. If my first statement in this post is wrong then there's not much time left to narrow it down, but I believe in Nige.

Haha perhaps, but I don't think you're going to be making the queues any shorter if everyone's stood there gawking at the barmaids!

We're going to have sign another completely-off-the-radar player by then, and one that's been talked about/rumoured fairly heavily.

Those days are past I feel, wasn't really my game

Depends what you class as a 'kid' I guess! I'm only 24 but ale is my first choice at the bar if available. Pulled plenty of pints at proper pumps (nice alliteration) while at uni as I worked in the Student Union pub and there were weekly guest ales.

I imagine that all of them p*ss off at least one person, probably easier just to write out everything that's sung! There's definitely a couple that grate on me but I do my best to remain magnanimous and ignore those. The worst 'songs' will die out eventually, yeah?!

Bootiful, thanks. I did try Google, in case anybody was wondering

Almost entirely off-topic (well, the talk of third kits reminded me actually), but does anybody remember our third from around 1995-6? It was a sort of creamy/ecru and blue effort but I'm pretty damn sure it was never used in a match. Been trying to find an image or photo of it for a while.

It would have to be a hugely significant development to unsettle Lambert surely? In the post-Plymouth away interview he seemed very emotional about the chance to step up to Championship-level football and as mentioned, has signed a spanking new 3-year deal. No doubt in my mind that this is b*llocks, but of course football and speculation are inseperable bedfellows.

Germany now isn't it? Tried a bottle of that as well yesterday, it seemed bland but inoffensive.

Well I would consider myself to know a fair bit about ale, but I don't expect there will ever be decent beer; alcohol's a nice distraction at half-time and/or before the match but it's never a reason to go to football! Personally just plump for the least cr*p option - I've never had anything other than ****-poor beer at any football ground! In Molson Coors the club's contracted a company that don't really 'do' any ale (bottled or otherwise), so you can say it's sneaky to label it one, but if the first pint was a sting then it's easy to avoid in future...