Gis

They have been known to be a bit jobsworth in the past @ Fulham after a bit of trouble a couple of years ago :smt009

Just a brief warning to any of you thinking of turning up to watch the U18/16 teams at Fulham on Saturday to come prepared. Fulham only allow in Fulham members or Fulham Season ticket holders, which I doubt includes that many Saints fans! The official advice is to try and get tickets from Saints, but the reality is that family and friends of players will be taking these as it is such a short trip. So your best bet may be to approach Fulham direct - this seemed to work for me, (I'll find out on the day if my tickets are waiting for me at the gate).

We are so so lucky. On TalkSport this morning Sven was quoted as saying that he had actually only ever met the owners representatives ................ the people with the money behind this seem more of a mystery than Fishtown's arabs

Personally I think loaning people like Oscar out to other teams is great news. He got 60 minutes on Saturday with MK Dons under the cosh for much of that period. That has to be a better education than sitting on the bench then playing some fairly meaningless match for the reserves. It's also a great education for some of our academy to go out to other clubs where the training grounds and infrastructure are in comparison rubbish - an eye-opener that again will benefit. (Mind you not that I think that is necesssarily true of MK Dons. Seeing the development of their ground in the background of a Paul Ince interview at the weekend it reminded me of a mini-Wembley)

Sums it up really. Especially as we have the likes of Oscar Gobern (out on loan himself now) who will pushing for a place soon.

My concern with whether or not we reach the play-offs is that I agree there is no room for any bad run, and even then we are reliant on other results going for us during the season. But the main worry is that if we don't make the play offs and then go up. I'd be surprised if we kept the likes of Mills, Lallana, Morgan, or even perhaps Lambert - which makes next season much more than a formality as we will be starting with another new team.

I would have thought Oscar is being lined up to replace Morgan. Just in the case the frenchman moves sooner rather than later

Neil Ruddock at the back - although most fond memories are of the way he used to terrorise the penalty area the other end whenever we got a corner. Brian O'Neil - my No. 1 midfield hard man (Case, Hurlock, Williams, just pussies in comparison)

Good news that there seems some compromise that allows season ticket holders to buy for others in Block 4 and 5 again. I would like to see this officially on the OS though, plus some apology about how this has all been handled. Actually if it does end up this way and season ticket holders are responsible for their guests it could do the Itchen North atmosphere a real favour as it may weed out some casuals who don't seem to understand there is a balance between banter and boring abuse.

What? Where did you hear that from? If it's true I'm tempted to move as we've got season tickets but are often after extra tickets for 'occasionals'. It's fine sitting a couple of rows away.....but ending up in different blocks is a joke if you can see there are spare seats going.

I've just had to get an extra ticket for Saturday and the nearest single I can get to my seat in Block 5 is Block 8! This is for Gillingham, I thought I would be able to pick and choose for that one. No-one could answer when I asked after the sales for this game so far but unless the Ticket Office have been told to sell the expensive seats first it looks like being a decent gate. Predictions for the gate? I reckon with a big following from the Gills 23,247 (as long as we win tonight that is).

Good thread Mr Lungs. What amazes me is just how NC persuaded Marcus to invest; let alone, allegedly, over just a single day meeting at the start of the year. He must be massively trusted and respected for Marcus, to come up with £13 million for risky investment in a venture that is hardly a Liebherr speciality? If he sticks around I hope NC will finally deliver the plan to truly make us a big club. I guess the dream ticket would be the 'conspiracy theory' that Liebherr and Cortese also see Southampton, the City, as an opportunity for investment far beyond just the football club.

Another vote in the 'he's fast' camp from me. Particularly with the ball, breaking out from defence through the middle of the park, as well as runs down the wing. I agree he hasn't shown it in the first team yet.

I think we are getting pretty good attendances .........but are the club being as pro-active in getting people along as they could be? Look at what Charlton do...cheap tickets (for London)....special deals for kids......and coaches from just about every large town in Kent. [/img]

Sorting out some regular competitive Reserves fixtures would seem a great way to mix up a team of older squad players like Wooton (Perry maybe soon), those coming back from injury Holmes, Mills, with up and coming youngsters. And if the fixtures were Mondays, and or Thursdays, it shouldn't impact too much on the First Team subs. Are there any local few 'Blue Circle' clubs that may be interested I wonder? It might also give players like Bart something to do instead of a life just training and sitting on the bench.

General opinion on the U18s coming into the first team seems totally unfair, and yet understandable. I've always posted stuff that talks up the likes of Lallana, Paterson, Mills, and Thomson; but it's always based around performances I've seen them give in the youth teams - where they each of them has always looked very special when compared with others on the pitch. So the real issue should be to find out what goes wrong when they get in the first team? Well it seems pretty obvious to me is that going direct from the U18 to the first team is simply a step too much, too quickly. Paterson may be over 6', but he's a baby compared with the defenders he is coming up against every week, and he should be used for 20 minute spells for 3 to 4 matches this year until he is more ready towards the end of the season. Don't blame Paterson, blame the situation where we are relying on 4 or 5 kids to make up a decent team, it just makes us too easy to be bullied.

Fairly promising performance overall I reckoned. Very impressed with 'DelBoy' Trottman and the way he coped with Carl Cort, especially as he probably hardly knows the names of his team mates yet - him and Perry look like a partnership already. Loved the way he just thumped the ball into the Kingsland when he was uncertain of what to do in the second half. A bit less hesitance from others later on and we could have had three points. Personally I thought that the (tranquilised) Thomson gave us real width when he came on just by sticking out on the wing, and that at last gave (playground footballer) Lallana the space he needed to really attack on the other side........and give a glimpse of what he is capable of. And in defence of (lightweight) Patterson, other than missing a sitter at the start, he looked as dangerous a forward as we have had for ages, good in the air and on the ground.......another good partnership with Lambert beckons.

Works great for me once I had read the eMail that tells you your new password. Looks like a much better product all round, and if they still do the commentaries on match days a bargain.

We ended up with STs in Block 5 as there were no seats left together in Block 4............would love to get back in Block 3 though. I don't particularly support the Adults only idea, although part of the charm of Block 1-3 was that there seemed to be a like-minded group who wanted the atmosphere but had perhaps grown out of the Northam. If money is the issue why not up the price of the tickets to pay for these 'additional police' costs. I'd happily pay a fiver a match more to sit where I wanted.

Yep, he looked lost yesterday but it did him no favours being isolated out on the left wing. 12 months ago Thomson looked every bit as good as Mills, who had a great game despite some mistakes. Funny how some can step up to the first team whilst others seem to lose their way. Anyhow I still think Jake has real potential, but don't really see him as a winger (right or left), where he just doesn't see enough of the ball. I'd love to see him sitting in front of the defence, alongside Gillet in midfield then he might start showing what he can do. His real strengths are all about running with the ball and breaking quickly from defence into attack.

Not exactly excited at his appointment initially. But after the drive to work and mulling it over it does make so much more sense going for Pardew rather than a Strachan or Keegan appointment. All very Germanic so far, no leaks during the takeover, no leaks before a manager appointment, solid financial base, quietly impressive all round................who's to say we scrape into the play offs this year and finally get promoted on a penalty shoot out.

4-0 The best game I ever saw Ossy have in a Saints shirt. Evening matches always have that extra bit of magic - this one was special.

lots of good material on that YouTube page - check this one out (not particularly Saints related except perhaps for the picture of a train hanging above Hiltler's head)

Suggest we pile into a Saints/Newcastle double to stay up.

I really hope this is right. All credit to Davis and Euell - a fantastic response to the situation. All the more remarkable given the general abuse and cr%p these two in particular have taken from the crowd a year or so ago. When we were 0-1 down to the Blades last year it was Euell that kept playing football when the others were starting to lose belief. He kept us up more than anyone that day and I reckon if this is true it may be the spark we need pull us out of the bottom three.