Dig Dig

For none season ticket holders it's very difficult to see Arsenal play and they have a huge waiting list for season tickets anyway. I think any opportunity to watch Arsenal play, with the demand they see, is going to be taken. Being in London also helps as you get more non Arsenal fans willing to go just to see the stadium or to possibly watch Arsenal overturned by Shrewsbury!

I was one of a few kids in my year at Millbrook school who supported saints. A ****ing minority in the middle of Southampton!

/\ great post

Why don't you and the lads give it a go at pompey? It will be even cooler with flares

Would prefer that to a load of boozed up pencilled necked ****ants all stood there with their flares and scalves hiding their little spotty gimpy faces. The same type who think they are hard around the masses but would **** themselves if caught alone. Embarrassing.

Yea lighting a flare makes you well hard

Bit far fetched considering we're talking about a very small fee. Are you seriously suggesting that because fans are paying these "taxes",it will lead to astronomical rise in season tickets? Tickets/season tickets will rise in accordance to where we are in the leagues and is all relative to on field success, supply and demand and external economic factors. It has nothing to do with what the club think they can get away with based on these fee's. Anyway, none of this bothers me as I'm so stinking rich I'm always looking for an opportunity to offload some small change

Not dressing anything up. Did a good job but a) we should have made the play off's b) didn't believe that his time with us was sustainable as he thought he was better than L1 and didn't buy into the clubs philosophy. All in my opinion if that's allowed?

93!

Lol. I was refering to where we were at xmas. I think half a season is a little better than pre-season but hey what do I know? Who am I to argue with your 35 years of football knowledge!? Silly me On the subject of pre-season, how did his next one go? remind me again...

He had a very good budget and bought in very good players. It's hardly the same as taking the poor squad which got us relegated and turning them around is it? The likes of Lambert, Harding, Hammond, Fonte wouldn't have given a monkeys how **** we were before so it's irrelevant really. I'm not suggesting that he didn't do a good job but I stand by my opinion that having been so close to the play off's, we could and should have made it.

No I havn't forgotten anything. Alot of people write off NA's achievements last year due to the fact that the squad is much better than L1 standard so should be expected. The same people credit AP with building the spine of the team (which he did) which is still in place today. So with half a season still to play, 6 points off the play off's and a squad much too good for L1, it's unfair to suggest that this wasn't more than achievable? I wonder if NA would have been afforded the same level of understanding last season had we come short......considering were we were when he came in.

Neither do you but that doesn't stop you. Pardew had us 6 points away from the play off's at xmas and IMO should have got us there. -10 points or not, after getting that close, he should have made it.

I thought you didn't like "**** waving" contests?

yea but he's not good enough for us, won't be able to handle the expectations and pressure, never managed in the prem, players won't play for him, underestimates the opposition and is only a physio!

How different do you expect a circle with a pitch in the middle to look from one another?

Adrian, you're right we should be beating the likes of the USA, Algeria etc. The last WC for so disatrous that there are probably a combination of factors which led to that absolute train wreck. But last WC a side, QF's seemed to be where our short comings were exposed and I do believe this is because of the traditional English style of play....get your self fired up, run your heart out, be physical and strong etc. There has never been much emphasis on keeping the ball, being comfortbale in possesion, controlling the game. These attributes seem to be what seperates us from the very best. Do you geuniunly believe that the current crop of England players have the technical skill to play like Spain for example? I don't. You use performances in the Prem and Champions League as a way of proving that the English lads do have the necessary skill to win things. As a geniune question, how successful would these players have been at club level had it not been for their foreign counterparts and coaches? Of course it's impossible to say for sure but imo I bet their trophy cabinets would be looking a little emptier. There are a whole host of reasons why other nations don't perform aside from having technical ability. Argentina as the example you use, do I think they are not technically good enough? They probably are but the managerial round a bout and instability within the FA along with being top heavy on attackers but not so well equiped at the back probably don't help their cause. I'm not saying that I'm right and there are probably a whole host of other factors which has led to years of dissapointment. But the whole overpaid ego argument just doesn't stack up for me. It's just a default argument which can be either put forward or ignored depending on circumstance.

Yes I suggested that all successful nations probably have equivalents to which Alpine replied saying that the German football dynamic is different and that the young players within the German team are level headed and grounded. My point is that ego's and money don't really have anything to do with it. It's always the thing which people come up with to satisfy their need to whinge. Ultimately, we are not yet technically good enough hence decades of nothing to show for our efforts. If people expected less and if we didn't have a press sniffing for blood then I'm sure everyone would enjoy the England experience a bit more. If the current England players had actually won the World Cup I wonder if people would still moan about the ego's in the team. My guess is no but they would still be the same people....just better players (which unfortunately they arn't)

There is no way of knowing either way based on what you hear and read. If Alpine can make this assumption about the German youngsters why can't the same logic be applied to the likes of Wiltshire, Walcott, Young, Smalling, Jones etc. Or are they just a bunch of overrated egotistical ******s as well?

MLG will be along shortly to clear all this up

Definitely more down to earth? I know you border the country but there is no way you can know that. The younger players for England certainly come across as more down to earth then the senior pro's but this doesn't last long. Other successful nations are full of ridiculously paid players who are as cocky and arrogant as the rest. The key difference just simply comes down to technical ability, skill and bottle. We seemed to have only just clicked that the good old English way of pace, power and heart are simply not good enough at this level. Keeping the ball, dictating the pace of the game and staying in control are all key at International stage and we finally look like we are building towards this, it will just take time. I also honestly don't believe that playing for England is a partculary enjoyable experience and neither is the manager role. We have such a fickle mentality when it comes to England which is driven by the media that eventually, no matter who you are or what you've done previously, you'll be hounded out. If there is one job which could make any manager look like a complete ****, it's the England job.

Why does everyone assume we're any dfferent from other nations when it comes to having big ego's and money driven players? Do you think the German squad is full of lovely down to earth lads or do you think that they also have some big headed tossers amongst them? I think most probably. The reason we lost and why we continue to lose against good sides on the european stage is because we're simply not techically good enough and the players play against an unjustified expectation which they simply can't fulfill

No it isn't. The most logical explaination is that the OP made it up!

Yep. I don't doubt that people who say they have seen a ghost actually believe they did. But I think this is driven by the want to believe it's true coupled with the human minds ability to make you see/hear things which are not there. The mind is more powerful than we can comprehend.

I doubt that is true at all. If the information shared is that sensitive then it wouldn't be shared with fans in the first place.