Re: Season 2017/2018
 

Southampton just retreated into their own arse... :erm:

Re: Season 2017/2018
 

Saving themselves for the Fa Cup semi v Chelski next week no doubt.:D

Re: Season 2017/2018
 

No good if you are going down.

Re: Season 2017/2018
 

Why no good Den?

I have accepted relegation as perhaps not a bad thing to get rid of the wasters in the side. A continued cup run would be a bonus alongside that.

It didn't do Newcastle any harm did it Adz?

Also if there is any justice the disgusting animal alonso will get a retrospective ban and be unavailable next Sunday.

My son and I have our Wembley tickets and we will be there. :)

Re: Season 2017/2018
 

Depends if the club have the mentality that it's too big to really be down there which in fairness, Soton sold a CB for £70 odd million. We did twice, and returned twice pretty dominantly. In our case it was a help because we really needed to offload the foreign influx we'd gotten and rebuild a solid home grown foundation, which we achieved. The issue being is we didn't improve upon those players when we came back up and have found ourselves relegation candidates until recently. We spent £50 million down there, can't see why Soton couldn't offload the shite they have and do the same.

That being said, you're only 3 points off, there's still 5 games to go.

Re: Season 2017/2018
 

Not just the wasters in the side but poor managerial appointments and poor leadership from those up high Julian.

Re: Season 2017/2018
 

Indeed. We used to have a conveyor belt of huge talent but we've got stuck in a rut of selling big and buying cheap foreign replacements. Leaving owners pocketing profits.

If we play like that without the defensive capitulation we could snatch a couple of wins which may be enough we will see......

Re: Season 2017/2018
 

Benitez just committed to another season at Newcastle regardless of whether the takeover concludes :D

I think it will go through, I hope he hasn't said this to look good because he's assuming it'll go through and things will be amazing for him in the summer.

Soton may have the luxury of facing a City side that are already on the beach come the final day too.

Re: Season 2017/2018
 

Yep that too Den.

Reed out!!!

btw Go green army ;)

Re: Season 2017/2018
 

As you can imagine l have to play the diplomatic card of neutrality today with 2 brothers rolling in to town.:)

Re: Season 2017/2018
 

Premier League is still nice and broken to be fair, it's even getting stranger.

So we're being real, you can't crack the top four without money. Leicester is a null argument, they won a Premier League on a bad year for the big clubs, but that didn't suddenly raise their stature, look at them again now :erm: mid table.

When there was a 'top four' you could sneak the odd team into fourth place every few seasons or so. That's not happening now there's a top six. Burnley could be that wildcard we have every few seasons. However, lets say Staveley gets her way and concludes the takeover of Newcastle and as people are anticipating and proceeds with the arab investment, leaving Newcastle alongside City and PSG in financial terms and shortly after changing the top six to the top seven.

How do mid table clubs ever stand a chance to compete with that when you'll have seven clubs all fighting for those four spots and the title. That means everyone else needs to wait for middle eastern money bags takeovers, at which point we've gone full circle and we're back to a top four. :erm:

We've seen an example of that already. United getting a spot via the Europa League, something Arsenal are needing to do to be fair.

The TV money was a sham. Sure it makes your club look a bit wealthier, you can spend it on training ground improvements and whatnot but it's absolutely worthless in the transfer market as inflation just matched it outright pretty much instantly. Your £10m bargain bin buys are now £25-30m.

Re: Season 2017/2018
 

My ticket arrived this morning.:cool:

Re: Season 2017/2018
 

Just seen Alonso on Long, that's just poor. Couldn't hand out an easier red card... :rolleyes: Sometimes there's an argument of perspective for the ref, dives etc. But Mike Dean is literally looking right at it.

Every time something has to be done retrospectively they should also judge whether the referee has a valid excuse for not punishing during the match, then add a strike to his record, three strikes and you're back in school. Punishing it and letting the ref go on as if nothing's happened doesn't really solve anything does it. They pull ref's from matches for ludicrous decisions. So why not a totting up system for the basics.

Re: Season 2017/2018
 

Well points shared and diplomatic row avoided.:)

Re: Season 2017/2018
 

Why bother trying for top spots, the millions 'paid' to clubs just for surviving is probably incentive enough to strive for a 'top 20' finish :p:

It's a bankers paradise up there :D