stevegrant

To be fair, even if they'd wanted to dump Fratton Park and build elsewhere, I don't think that was ever a viable option. The cost would have been prohibitive, and there isn't exactly a long list of potential sites. Pretty much zero on Portsea Island itself, so anything would have to be outside the city, which I think they'd probably turn their noses up at, and understandably so.

I don't think it's as bad as that, there are some away grounds that were ludicrously expensive which have now been brought into line, while some of the cheaper ones (but there weren't many) have taken the opportunity to squeeze a few more quid because they can. Looking back through my purchase history for last season, here is what we paid before the £30 cap came into force: Newcastle £37 Watford £36 West Brom £25 Chelsea £50 Liverpool Sunderland £34 Man City £42 Crystal Palace £40 West Ham £45 (50% subsidised by SFC, so we paid SFC £22.50) Norwich £45 (50% subsidised by SFC, so we paid SFC £22.50) Man United Arsenal £26 Swansea £35 Bournemouth £33 Stoke £25 Leicester £35 Everton Aston Villa £41 Tottenham £37 Liverpool, Man United and Everton prices missing as I didn't go to those, but they were at the top end of the pricing - think Man United might have been £50, Liverpool and Everton around £42. From that, it's only West Brom, Arsenal and Stoke who charged us less than £30 last season. Stoke kept theirs at £25 this season, with West Brom and Arsenal increasing to £30. That means that, from the 16 of the 19 away games where prices are listed above, we've saved £109 from comparable games this season. Add in the three rough estimates and that's up to £153. Fans of clubs like us who previously used to be in low-rated price categories for our opponents would have saved the least from the new price cap, while supporters of the big clubs would have benefited the most as they'd have been paying Category A everywhere.

As I said, "I know why Virgin Media have done it ... but that doesn't make it any less irritating".

The point being that EVERY away fan who comes to St Mary's has a subsidised ticket from OUR club sponsors - I know why Virgin Media have done it, they've already got a captive audience with our fanbase so it gives them exposure to the other 19 clubs as well, but that doesn't make it any less irritating. Also, why subsidise trips to two of the most popular away games? They should have done free coaches to Hull on a Sunday and Everton on a Bank Holiday in January, not Man United when we'd have sold out anyway.

I'm not sure there's an awful lot of sound financial advice being offered (or, more accurately, listened to and acted upon) at Eastleigh, to be fair...

The only free midweek Man United will definitely have available is the last week of the season, so with the final game already scheduled for the Sunday, it'll surely be played on Wednesday 17th May. With the Chelsea game pushed to 25th April, the Arsenal game will need to be squeezed in during a European midweek. Suspect they'll wait until one of the semi-final weeks, hoping/assuming Leicester get knocked out by Atletico Madrid, so there's no English interest remaining in the competition so they don't get in trouble with UEFA for playing a game at the same time as European games.

Goes without saying, but every deal is different. Most will include structured payments, but some deals will be done based on the circumstances. For example, I would expect that we would have paid the Charlie Austin fee in full because it wasn't a massive fee and he only had 5 months of his contract left. Similarly, I believe some of our sales have been heavily front-weighted so the initial payment is 60-70% of the total due, rather than a 50/50 split between up-front and a year later which is apparently the most common arrangement. I could imagine that having a bigger up-front payment might mean the total amount received is negotiated down (so, for a hypothetical £30m player, we want £18m up front rather than £15m and another £15m in a year's time, but that means the negotiated total is actually £29m, so £18m up front and £11m later), but cashflow is often more important than balance sheet strength.

He's made such a difference to their lineup after all... 5 starts, 0 wins.

No it isn't. The original statement on Monday when both players were charged specifically said that "the FA has submitted a claim that the standard punishment that would otherwise apply for the misconduct committed by the Bournemouth defender is 'clearly insufficient'".

The NIC thing is a red herring as far as contractors are concerned, I think. Most won't pay themselves enough as a salary for it to make much of a dent - ministers claim anyone earning less than £16k will actually benefit, although I've not looked at the detail of that claim. The big change is the tax-free dividend allowance from £5,000 down to £2,000. That'll cost contractors who take most of their earnings in dividends anything between £225 and £975 a year, depending on whether they take enough to fall into the higher rate. Of course, that'll be comfortably offset by the reduction in the rate of corporation tax...

I would expect most people using streaming services do so behind a VPN, so there would be no way of an ISP knowing what a user was downloading. Sure, they might throttle users whose activity looks like they might be streaming live football, but they've no way of proving it, so they run the risk of losing customers who are using perfectly legitimate services, but wish to do so behind a VPN.

Will be interesting to see if their claims actually get backed up in practice. Realistically, they're probably always going to be one step behind.

Well we did seem to be beating ourselves in a lot of those games...

Took a wicket on day one as well

Struggling to find any ****s to give. He's gone. He got what he wanted (a longer deal on more money), we got what we wanted (a big fee for a player whose ability may be declining).

No, they already have a game scheduled that weekend against Burnley, which has also been picked for TV.

Yes, guaranteed to be midweek. Also, considering UEFA don't tend to like the big leagues playing games at the same time as Champions League and/or Europa League games, that means there's very few midweeks available for the Arsenal and Man United games to be played. If we assume that, based on the article on the OS about when it might be announced, they'll both be in April and/or May, the following schedule already applies: APRIL Sat 1st: Bournemouth (home) Weds 5th: Crystal Palace (home) Sat 8th: West Brom (away) Tues 11th/Weds 12th/Thurs 13th: Champions League Quarter-Finals, 1st Leg; Europa League Quarter-Finals, 1st Leg Sat 15th: Man City (home) Tues 18th/Weds 19th/Thurs 20th: Champions League Quarter-Finals, 2nd Leg; Europa League Quarter-Finals, 2nd Leg Sun 23rd: Chelsea (away) - could also be rearranged if Chelsea beat Man United in the FA Cup quarter-finals this weekend Tues 25th/Weds 26th: available Sat 29th: Hull (home) MAY Tues 2nd/Weds 3rd/Thurs 4th: Champions League Semi-Finals, 1st Leg; Europa League Semi-Finals, 1st Leg Sat 6th: Liverpool (away) Tues 9th/Weds 10th/Thurs 11th: Champions League Semi-Finals, 2nd Leg; Europa League Semi-Finals, 2nd Leg Sat 13th: Middlesbrough (away) Tues 16th/Weds 17th: available Sun 21st: Stoke (home) So we've only got two definitely available midweeks, and potentially three games to fit into them. Man United look well placed to progress deep into the Europa League knockout stages, while Arsenal should obviously be knocked out of the Champions League by Bayern Munich this week. Games have taken place on CL nights before, but it's pretty rare and UEFA kicked up a fuss about it a few years ago. Obviously not in this country, but Celtic ended up playing at 5pm one night to fit in a game in similar circumstances to avoid a clash. Personally, I think we could fit the Arsenal game in on Thursday 20th April (if Man United progress v Rostov and are then drawn at home first, they'd be a 5pm kickoff that night so there'd be no clash), as our next game is on the following Sunday (or not at all if Chelsea progress in the FA Cup), and then the Man United one either the following week or leave it until the final midweek of the season.

West Brom are an interesting case study in being in a run of utterly ruthless finishing. This article on F365 from yesterday discusses it: http://www.football365.com/news/west-brom-playing-pulisball-but-with-added-luck Essentially, they're not doing an awful lot different to previous performances under Pulis, possession is very similar, number of long balls very similar, number of shots on target marginally up (2.8 to 3.3 per game), but the shots-to-goal ratio is up dramatically (8.9% to 13.2%) and the on-target-to-goal ratio is a frankly ludicrous 42.1%. That's unsustainable for any side, really.

I think top half would - considering the various distractions this season - be both satisfactory and an accurate reflection of our performances. We've been such a "nearly" team this season - a bit of luck here, a top striker signed six months earlier there, and we'd be where Everton are now.

Rostov beat Bayern Munich in the Champions League group stage, so clearly no mugs, and Sparta played more than an hour with ten men.

The Saints Foundation are hosting a special gameshow event on Tuesday 7th March at St Mary's, hosted by club legend Kelvin Davis and matchday presenter Kenzie Benali. Kelvin and Kenzie will be joined by a team of Southampton FC legends and a team of Southampton FC's squad, with Matt Le Tissier heading up the "Legends" team and Charlie Austin leading the "Superstars" team. The teams will be competing in a range of gameshow challenges throughout the evening, with the event running along the theme of "A Question of Sport" and "League of Their Own". There are a limited number of tickets available for the event, and they can be purchased here. All proceeds from this event will go to the Saints Foundation. Due to the fact this is a live event and content will be "uncensored", the evening is open to those aged 16 and over only.

The only team to ever be relegated from the top flight with a positive goal difference, I believe.

Poll added. Pick three options only, please

17k Club Wembley, so 10k for the rest. Important point to note for anyone going via "unofficial" channels for Club Wembley tickets - because these tickets are generally e-tickets, there are a LOT of fakes out there. Be VERY careful about where you buy from if that's the route you choose to go down.

I'm disappointed that the away goals rule is still a thing in any competition. It was brought in for European competitions when it was a genuine challenge for teams to travel across Europe and get a result. These days, every team flies on chartered private jets and stays in luxury hotels, and there is very little "mystery" attached to any away game because of the amount of footage available of every team you might ever come up against. For them to have brought it into domestic football was a huge mistake and continues to be such. Strangely, the Football League ditched the away goals rule in the playoffs more than ten years ago because it was producing dull matches with the home sides unwilling to take the risk of conceding away goals, and yet they've kept it in for their primary cup competition all this time. IMO, if the tie is level after the second leg, it should go straight to penalties - that way, no team has any inherent advantage.