Nordic Saint

True, we are very much the nearly men of football. So often runners-up in leagues and cups or losing semi-finalists. For a club with a fanbase our size (20th in the all-time average attendance table) we are, in terms of trophies won, possibly the most underachieving team in the country, but in terms of coming close to winning them, we are right up there. But, things can change. Before Don Revie became their manager, Leeds United never even came close to winning a trophy; their greatest achievement was reaching one FA Cup Quarter-final. I'm hoping Tonda Eckert can do for us what Revie did for Leeds or Brian Clough did for Forest.

Post-match, City fans were going on as if it was the only time we'd been in an FA Cup Semi-final so that's why we outnumbered and outsang them. One posted that we were excited because it was our only Wembley appearance in 50 years. It was Saints' 14th FA Cup Semi-final. Before the Emiratis bought them, Man City had only been in 10, and only 10 of the current Premier League teams have appeared in more semi-finals than Saints.

When you have more than 35,000 fans, spread around 3 sides and several tiers of a massive stadium, limiting what you all sing to a couple of songs, makes sense. If you started a variety of songs, it would just cause confusion and not everybody would sing the words at the same time or even join in. Anyway, I don't know why Man City are criticising us for only singing 2 songs, as in the first half they sang none and in the second half I only heard them sing one: that awful dirge of theirs: City, City followed by some mumbling. The other thing about most of the other football songs that we didn't sing is that they are generic so the players may not even know who is singing them and people watching on TV definitely won't. With OWTS and Yellows, Yellows, everybody knew it was us. When we had our best atmosphere at the Dell in the late 70s, it was always loudest when our fans all around the ground sang OWTS together; not a variety of different songs. City fans online after the game were very defensive and resentful of the fact we outnumbered and outsang them so they were being hypercritical of us. What happened off the pitch seemed to concern them more than the result.

They haven't even played Pompey for years, but when they did...... Pompey fans don't travel that far north:

It might still mean a lot, as the result could well determine whether we face Millwall or Ipswich at Wembley.

Funnily enough, years ago I saw Millwall lose at home to Bristol City, and their fans were streaming out well before the end. The atmosphere was non-existent. Football fans are much the same everywhere.

Dominic Ballard has been awarded the Sky Bet League One Player of the Season, Young Player of the Season, and named in the Team of the Season at the EFL Awards. He's only 21. He has a great future ahead of him. A hat-trick for Dom Ballard at the 2026 EFL Awards

“We don’t get satisfied after winning one game, we have to win the next one, the next one, the next one." WWWWWWWW We've never had a manager who's done that since we joined the Football League.

Hopefully, he'll be Manager of the Month every month. There isn't a better manager.

Poor atmosphere too. West Ham booed off at half-time. They say there are 9,000 Leeds fans there, but I haven't heard them.

Of the possible opponents, Leeds would be good. They obviously have much less experience of FA Cup semi-finals than we do, especially in recent years, and we've already beaten them at Wembley. Their current team doesn't look anything special, but I'm hoping they can get past West Ham today.

Le Tissier at Blackburn in 1994.

They recently conceded a goal set up by a long ball from the Norwich goalkeeper. I wouldn't be surprised if they've let in a few like that. "The Canaries took the lead in the first minute after some poor defending by Oxford. Norwich goalkeeper Dan Grimshaw sent a long ball over the top which Toure was able to sprint onto and slip past the onrushing Jamie Cumming before slotting into an empty net." They also concede a lot of penalties.

You're right, and as others have noted above, typically, they only have about 25% possession in the games they get results from. A very frustrating team to play against.

As I said earlier, I don't think we've ever had a manager like Eckert. He will do exactly what it takes to win games, no more, no less, always bearing in mind that he wants to win the next game and the ones after that as well. “We don’t get satisfied after winning one game, we have to win the next one, the next one, the next one." How much possession we have, how entertaining we are, even how many goals we win by, are irrelevant to him. His only objective is winning and still being ready to win again. He is ruthless and relentless.