Lighthouse

I think he's a bit older than that.

Just seen the highlights. 1. What a goal that was from Guly 2. Lambert was so unlucky not to score in the first half. His effort hit matey on the line in the side of the head and rebounded onto the bar. The defender knew nothing about it, pure luck. 3. Ian Holloway getting upset by the oldest chant in the book ("Prem, you're having a laugh"). Bad loser. 4. Can't be too harsh on Bart for that cross he didn't catch. He came out at full stretch and couldn't get there. It was a feckin' good cross.

Evil Batman gives disabled man wet willy.

In the last 2 seasons Bart has played 14 games and we've won 11 of them. We lost at Leeds and Colchester and drew with Norwich in the JPT (Bart pulled off a Banks-esq save to then win the shootout). That can't be a fluke.

Yes, but please stick him on your ignore list instead of quoting him (I can't see his posts, but I can see people quoting him). If everyone does that, nobody has to read this drivel.

I didn't boo him but I can understand why people did. He was crap here, never really put in a decent effort and it was very much a case of all quite on the goalscoring front. 5 goals in 2 years, despite being almost ever-present in a forward or attacking midfield possition. You can say he was a victim of the set-up, and that is true in a sense, but he was as much a part of the problem as he was a victim.

A trip to the Emirates.... then Leeds go and win their replay. Any big day out or crap team at home will do. It's just a shame that for the first time in 5 years, we could actually do Pompey and Brighton go and beat us to it.

Yeah he was pretty good today, although that's pretty easy when you're up against Jason Euell. If he'd scored today he would have doubled his goal tally at St Mary's.

I don't mind Sheff Utd signing Seabourne, as long as we can keep Seaborne.

Brilliant result, totally out played them. Yet another game where we could easily have had 5 or 6. AOC hitting the bar in injury time, Dickson had a shot very well saved, so did Barnard. Lallana's finish also let him down a couple of times with a couple of weak efforts, but was otherwise pretty good. Nice to see Puncheon back and playing well too. Bart - 7 A couple of dodgy second half kicks, but couldn't fault him otherwise. Made an excellent save to tip one over the crossbar. FR - 7 Solid at the back and supported the player in front of him, which seemed to change every 10 minutes. Martin - 7 Looked very good for a player who hasn't played in a few months. Seaborne - 8 Very strong performance Harding - 8 Was good defensively and got forward pretty well Puncheon - 8 For the first half hour he seemed to think he was still at Millwall and kept passing to blue shirts. Was excellent when he got into the game. Schneiderlin - 7 Solid midfield display Hammond - 7 As above Lallana - 7 Always a creative threat. Unlucky not to score a couple of times. Lambert - A constant menace and really should have scored in the build up to Barney's goal. Had a point blank effort well saved late on. Barnard - 8 Industrious and a well taken goal Subs: Dickson - 7 Unlucky not to score at least once AOC - 7 Great run and hit the bar at the end. Could have squared to Puncheon for a tap in, but you can't blame him. Guly - 8 What a finish. Sign him up!

Fixed.

That we can agree on. That o.g. was a one in a million. We were just plain unlucky there. Penalty was inexcusable though.

It's a bit of a myth that a cup run will derail your League campaign. Look at the two Cup finals we've been to in recent history. 2003, finished 8th. We haven't been higher up in Englsih football in about 25 years. Then there's last season, when we were the second best team in the League, even in spite of that awful start. Our history is littered with counter arguments for this theory. 03/04 we managed to get ourselves into 4th at Christmas. Then, a couple of games later, we got knocked out to Newcastle in the 3rd round of the cup and fell down to 12th by the end of the season. Two years ago we lost at home to Man Utd in the third round. Made no difference to our eventual league possition and we still ended up relegated. I could go on...

Your point is a bit of a cliche really. You are saying there are a handful of players who have been unpopular with a section of the crowd and gone on to play at a higher level. I doubt there is a club in the world you couldn't say that about. Everyone has unpopular players, or "boo boys" as you call them. Plus we didn't get from the Premier League to administration in League 1 without having a few bad players along the way. It's inevitable that a few of them get booed, even if I don't agree with it. Go to a game at Liverpool, Chelsea, Preston, Swindon etc. and you'll probably see a few of their players getting slated by a small minority. You've contradicted yourself somewhat with the bits in bold. Saying it's not just a couple of isolated idiots, then going on to name "some bloke... some dinlows... some idiot" spread accross the ground. If you'd said, "The entire chapel was stood up, to a man, arms in the air, all singing 'Puncheon, you're a c**t we all hope you die'" Then you might have a point. Not sure what you're getting at with Guly. He's had three excellent games recently. Good, but not good enough to alter the past.

1. You will be surprised how much noise a handful of people can make. I can remember being at the back of the Northam earlier in the season and seeing and hearing people booing Puncheon. It was certainly noticeable to the fans and players, but when you look closer you notice it's actually half a dosen drunk muppets a few rows down, a couple more behind you and a couple more over there somewhere. 2. I'm not comparing there ability, that's not my point. I'm saying that we've released several dosen players over the last decade. You're implying that many of them go on to better things because we didn't appreciate them. In reality most of them either retired or went on to a club the same or lower level. You name Crainey. He spent 3 years doing feck all at Leeds after we released him, he was hardly our fault. Same with Ormerod who had some very forgettable spells at Leeds, Wigan, Preston, Forest and Oldham before joining Blackpool.

1. They aren't whipping boys. There were probably only about 40-50 muppets out of an average crowd of 20,000 odd. Please stop taring our fan base with a brush that should only be used on less than 1% of Saints fans. 2. For ever player you name who has gone on to better things, there are probably 10 who've gone on to do absolutely bugger all. You've basically named about 10 players over the last decade or so. There are dosens of Jason Dodds, Jermaine Wrights and Neil McCanns who haven't left us to go and win the Champions League.

Was that the game where the steward planted one on a fan and got escorted out by the OB? Pretty sure that was the same game, was pretty funny. Hope they don't bring the drum on Saturday though. Feck that was annoying.

Yes, I'm not having much luck at the moment. I may consider becoming a chutney ferret.

I'd be p*ssed off if someone was trying to nick my shorts too.

Seaborne is alright. Doubt I'd lose much sleep if he left though, there are better options out there. I don't want him out, but if a decent offer came in I'd take it.

Maybe some of us are biased in thinking Niemi was the best that season, although he did have the highest percentage of shots on target saved in the Premier League that season (about 80% I think it was). I'm not going to go around in circles arguing about this. Yes there have been Saints players who have been crap and done it elsewhere. Conversely there have been a lot of players who have been unwanted elsewhere, then come good at Saints. The half dosen dubious examples you have given aren't enough to convince me St Mary's is a graveyard for promising football careers. Of the players you have named, only Fuller and Delap have been 'unwanted' and gone on to better things. We actually made a proffit on Fuller when we signed him, so it's hardly as if it all went wrong for him here. £90k shows just how highly Pompey rated him.

When KD left the first time he was a top player, but after a year at Blackburn they sold him back for a tenth of what they sold him for. Then he came back here and couldn't recapture his form from the first spell, left, then found his feet after a couple of seasons at Bolton. Beattie got in the England team with us, but has never been close since leaving. His first season at Everton was a nightmare, he improved after that but never set the League alight. He had a good season after dropping to the Championship, but when he went back to the Prem with Stoke he was pretty average. Now he can't get a game for love or money at Rangers. Niemi did alright for Fulham, but I'd say he was the best 'keeper in the Premier League for us in '03/'04. Why can't you accept that certain players do it at one club and not another? Why does the solution have to be, "the fans are all c**ts"?

What about all the players who played well for Saints, then flopped when they went somewhere else? Kevin Davies, James Beattie, Fabrice Fernandes, Dean Richards, Stern John, Gregorz Rasiak, Antti Niemi. Even in recent times Dan Harding and Jon Otsemobor were unwanted by their previous clubs, then came here and did a decent job. If you trawl through all the clubs in Europe you could find thousands of players who've done it for one team but not another. Clearly some people are desperate to believe it's just us and that are fans are all c**ts, but that isn't the case. Some of the examples you've named are bogus anyway. Jones was good enough, he just went on strike when a big money premiership move came up. Higgy I believe wanted to live further North, Puncheon was good enough, but clearly there is an attitude problem there. Delap was sh*te for about 2 years before he left and needed a fresh start. Blackstock moved on. He was nothing special and still isn't.

Would be great news for Saints. Would crap myself laughing if they did a straight swap and Burley ended up at Bompey. Probably as good as Whiskey George will get these days (I don't think he's an alcoholic, but if he was at least he'd have an excuse).

Cheers for all this guys. Will probably do Dubai in March now (for 6 days), seeing as it looks about 5 degrees warmer on average and the Caribbean is pretty hot at the mo. According to the website, the Meridien has a free shuttle service to Dubai, so I could do that and have a couple of days out in the city. Phil, Eric; I'll come and find you out there