stevegrant

Yeah, looked a perfect tackle from where I was as well. The only footage I've seen is from the normal TV angle in real-time - could do with a different angle and slow-motion, which I suppose shows that decisions like that aren't always obvious from every angle.

Liverpool game's guaranteed to be on the Wednesday, regardless of TV picks. Fully expect our game to be picked by Sky, though, with Man City v Hull on the Tuesday.

The main problem with Targett isn't that he's not good enough, IMO - he showed in the handful of games he played last season that he can do it. The issue is that pretty much every game he's played this season has been in a game where we've either gone with a really weird formation (Newcastle, Everton) or where he's in a lineup that is rusty (last night). The common theme with all of those games is that he has been left completely exposed against the opposition wide players because either there was nobody in front of him to offer protection or because the player who actually is in front of him isn't used to offering that sort of support. If he's got 2 players running at him, he can't win - he either goes to the ball and leaves the easy pass to the other player open, or he backs off and allows a cross into the box. There's no right option to pick there, half-decent players will get past him either way.

Pretty sure it's blocked in the UK, but obviously there are relatively simple ways around it. BeIn's on SportsMania, for a start.

Oh, OK. I was under the impression they weren't showing it.

Statistically, I would assume Davis has made the most penalty saves as a Saints keeper, but part of that will naturally be down to the number of games he's played for us. It would be interesting to see if the "penalties saved vs penalties faced" ratio is available somewhere.

No and no, apparently.

Since returning to the PL: P6 W3 D2 L1 F14 A6. Some bogey team.

No Benteke for Liverpool tomorrow night against Bournemouth...

The thing that people forget with Lallana is that he basically phoned his performances in for the last three months of the season, having been excellent in the first six to pretty much guarantee someone was going to pay big money for him. He barely put a handful of those good performances in the season before (after which we gave him a new 5-year contract and questions were asked as to why we were doing so), and he's not come close to doing so since his move. Much like Lovren, it could be argued the first two thirds of the 2013/14 season was "peak Lallana" and he's since reverted to type - a handful of excellent performances per season to show he's got the ability but more often than not doesn't deliver. There's not a cat in hell's chance anyone would pay £25m for him now, that's for sure.

Aldershot and Maidstone haven't dropped far enough overall to be on that list, tbf. Aldershot were 16th in Division Four 30 years ago, they're now 12th in the league below, a drop of only 20 places. Maidstone were 17th in the Conference, they're now 4th in the National League South, a drop of 9 places. Obviously they've reformed, think only Wimbledon possibly should be on that list (5th in the old Division Two 30 years ago, finished 3rd to go up, now 14th in League Two, a drop of 57 places), but that would involve the Football League reminding everyone of the cluster**** they were involved in back in 2003.

I've seen a few people post on this thread who went but had things to moan about.

It's a joint thing with the BBC, but their broadcast slot for the show started at 19:03 and finished dead on 20:00.

It doesn't need to be an all-or-nothing approach - at the end of the day, they still have actual people turn up to these events, so those people need to be involved to an extent. It's down to those hosting it, whether it's the BBC or anyone else, to ensure that the most interesting and relevant subjects and questions get covered, and if there's any time for anything else then throw it open to the floor. And, most importantly, ensure the question introduction is "Hi, I'm [name], and I'm from [location], and my question is..." - while some people like hearing other fans' stories, there simply isn't enough time to include them in something like this. The main problem is that they're limited to 57 minutes of broadcast time, and people need to remember that everyone is tuning in to hear what the top table has to say, not what their own life story is. The quicker the question gets asked, the more time there is to hear what those on the top table have to say on the matter. An alternative would perhaps be to extend the forum to two hours - with the BBC's broadcast schedule, they could probably break for 10 minutes in the middle for the news or whatever, so it's not too intense. That way, you allow time for more of the "soft" questions as well.

I think you'd really struggle to find characters like that in our match-going fanbase, Arsenal fans have such a sense of entitlement that we (largely) simply don't have, which makes for extreme views and reactions to the smallest of events.

I suggest spending 57 minutes this afternoon with your other arm aloft to balance things out

Our version of this is never going to be as good as the Chelsea or Arsenal equivalents - we simply don't have the level of entitlement among our fanbase, on the whole. Sure, they might find the occasional gem and get a bit of exposure from it, but largely it's just going to be pretty dull, I think.

The general situation in Germany is that the seated tickets effectively subsidise the standing ones, and at the bigger clubs, getting hold of a terrace ticket for a one-off game is more or less impossible without going via the black market. As you'd expect, some clubs are more expensive than others, but terrace tickets for away fans are almost always less than €20 - it's pretty common for travelling fans to launch protests against any tickets that are more than that, and their protest will be a proper one where they'll turn up outside the ground, do their stuff with banners, chanting, etc, but won't buy the tickets. They realise that if they give the home club their money, it's a tacit acceptance that they're charging a fair price. They take the sacrifice of missing the game in the belief that it'll help in the long term. Something people in this country generally aren't prepared to do. In Italy it seems to almost be a "class" system - tickets behind the goals are pretty cheap, while "VIP" seats on the side are insanely expensive, designed to keep the riff-raff out. If you watch Serie A games on TV, at most stadia you'll see big concentrations of fans behind the goal, a smattering of people in the premium halfway-line seats, and then vast gaps of nothingness in between. Those gaps only ever get filled for the really big games.

They're numbers taken out of context though, like the vast majority of the headline figures. Most of Arsenal's season tickets are just over £1000. Still a truckload of cash, but included in that price are the first five home cup games (not League Cup, as they do £10 tickets for that competition) per season, so you get 24 games for the money rather than the 19 most PL season ticket holders get. If they don't play 5 home cup games in a season (drawn away in the FA Cup, for example), you get a credit for the following season. With Barcelona, there are a severely limited number of season tickets at that low price, in order to be eligible for one you have to be a club member ("socio") which costs around £100 a year, and then there's a multi-year waiting list.

I would imagine there are very few season tickets available at that price, they'll have picked a small subsection of the ground to put these cheap season tickets knowing that it'll get picked up on these surveys and publicised, thereby making them look better for the fans than their rivals. In reality, they're as bad (if not worse) as the rest - they recategorised one of their disabled areas in the summer which saw season tickets in that section cost rise from £350 to £975.

The WhoScored player ratings are absolutely laughable. Defenders end up with high ratings for scoring one off their arse from a corner despite having an absolute stinker at the other end. Vincent Kompany somehow ended up with really high ratings last season despite everyone seeing with their eyes that he was awful for most of the season.

These studies are a complete waste of time, there's far too many variables to be able to apply any context to the numbers. Taking the pie thing as an example, yes, Kidderminster charge a lot for their pies, but they're ****ing massive and REALLY good quality. They sell out EVERY game.

Solely attributed to the training ground redevelopment, as far as I can tell. The one thing that's surprised me with the whole thing is how early we've released the figures this year - for as long as I can remember, we've always released the financials on the last day possible, usually 31st March the following year. With the new TV deal kicking in next season and the domestic deal alone being worth 70% more than the existing one, that would probably be a good time to start repaying some of that "soft" debt.

The reason they brought this rule in was because there was an increasing number of people taking the **** when buying away tickets, buying kids tickets in the assumption that they wouldn't be challenged at the turnstile. The Wigan away game was the straw that broke the camel's back, as nearly 1800 of the 4500 tickets sold were kids tickets. Wigan genuinely thought Saints were trying to rip them off.

Saying the right things, but ultimately pretty meaningless unless he signs a new contract.