Nordic Saint

If they did retrospective video reviews of past season, it would be interesting to see how many trophies would have to change hands. We might even have a couple more. In the interest of fairness, video technology can only be a good thing. The sooner it comes, the better, except for the 'big clubs'. who might lose some of their advantage.

"Southampton FC - Brasil 1 hr · OFICIAL: Chelsea chegou a um acordo com o Southampton por Virgil van Dijk! Os Blues pagarão £40M em Julho para o Saints e emprestarão Nathan Aké por uma temporada. Virgil, que não joga mais essa temporada, realizou sua ultima partida em janeiro, na vitória por 3-0 diante do Leicester. O que não podia piorar, ficou pior. Official: Chelsea came to an agreement with the Southampton for Virgil Van Dijk! The Blues will pay £ 40 m in July for the saints and lend Nathan Aké for a season. Virgil, that doesn't play anymore this season, has done his last departure in January, in the 3-0 win in front of the Leicester. What couldn't get any worse, it got worse." I copied that from the Saints Brazil fan site. I don't know where they go their info from. But £40M sounds about £20M less than we could get if we waiited for a bidding war in the summer. So, let's hope it's not true.

My grandfather lived at 457 Scotswood Road more than 100 years ago and his grandfather lived in Pudding Chare back in the 1840s. It's changed a lot since then. Quite a lot of young men moved south from Newcastle in the pre-war era, looking for work in the docks. I always think there's some affinity between the 2 cities and there has never been any real animosity between the fans. In the first match I saw at the Dell, John McGrath was playing for Newcastle. Not long after he moved down here too.

A lot of people, my grandparents from the Scotswood Road included, moved from Newcastle to Southampton in the 20th century, mostly following the dock work. The first football match I was taken to see as a boy was Saints v Newcastle. I think a sizeable percentage of Sotonians have Geordie roots.

Thanks for the link, Vectis. For those of us interested in football stats, it is an interesting list. As someone who started watching Saints when Terry Paine was our first England player for many years, I am really impressed that we have overtaken some of the traditional big clubs of the past in terms of the number of our players who've been capped by England. We're ahead of Leeds, for example, and not far behind Chelsea. That is one sign of our progress over the last 50 years. I've picked out the ones that are of interest to me, Norway, because I can Birmingham City (1908-2012), 17 Players Blackpool (1923-1966), 13 Players Bolton Wanderers (1885-2011), 28 Players Brighton & Hove Albion (1925-1982), 3 Players Bristol City (1901-1957), 4 Players Burnley (1889-2017), 27 Players Cardiff City (2010), 1 Player Charlton Athletic (1923-2006), 12 Players Chelsea (1907-2017), 44 Players Coventry City (1956-1998), 4 Players Crystal Palace (1914-2016), 13 Players Derby County (1891-2000), 38 Players Fulham (1922-2011), 11 Players Huddersfield Town (1919-1964), 21 Players Ipswich Town (1961-2000), 12 Players Leeds United (1926-2004), 31 Players Leicester City (1927-2017), 17 Players Manchester City (1904-2017), 48 Players Middlesbrough (1905-2009), 29 Players Newcastle United (1901-2016), 36 Players Norwich City (1976-2012), 7 Players Nottingham Forest (1879-1997), 36 Players Portsmouth (1900-2010), 16 Players Preston North End (1886-2007), 14 Players Queens Park Rangers (1908-1994), 15 Players Reading (1900-2007), 3 Players Sheffield United (1892-1992), 34 Players Sheffield Wednesday (1872-1998), 41 Players Southampton (1899-2017), 35 Players Stoke City (1884-2016), 24 Players Sunderland (1891-2012), 28 Players Swansea City (2015), 1 Player Watford (1982-2007), 3 Players West Ham United (1911-2016), 40 Players Wolverhampton Wanderers (1887-2011), 34 Players

Southampton David Armstrong James Beattie Ryan Bertrand Wayne Bridge Arthur Chadwick Mick Channon Nathaniel Clyne Peter Crouch Bill Ellerington Tim Fowers Fraser Forster Charlie Fry Kelly Houlker Kevin Keegan Adam Lallana Rickie Lambert Bert Lee Matt Le Tissier George Molyneux Terry Paine Tom Parker Alf Ramsey Bill Rawlings Nathan Redmond Jack Robinson Jay Rodriguez Luke Shaw Alan Shearer Peter Shilton Fred Titmuss Arthur Turner Danny Wallace James Ward-Prowse Dave Watson Steve Williams Mark Wright 36 Portsmouth Jim Allen Sol Campbell Peter Crouch Dan Cunliffe Jermain Defoe Jimmy Dickinson Jack Froggatt Peter Harris Mark Hateley Kelly Houlker David James Glen Johnson Arthur Knight Len Phillips Jack Smith Fred Worrall 16 Does anyone have an updated list of other internationals? Saints have had so many recently.

Because we're playing a 'big club'. Anyone who thinks the officiating in the Premier League is unbiased, just has to watch our games against the 'big clubs' this season to see that it isn't.

Unfortunately, someone seems totally oblivious to reality: http://www.sportsmole.co.uk/football/southampton/news/reed-southampton-have-best-midfield-in-pl_276561.html

That's a real blow. Amazing what a difference the loss of our goal scorer makes. It's all about avoiding relegation now and we should have a enough points already to do that. The other results have gone our way. If we'd been told at the start of the season, we'd be playing nearly half the season with Stephens and Yoshida as our central defenders, we'd have been happy with just staying up anyway. Considering the financial reports that we've spent more on players we've bought than we've got for the ones we've sold, our dealings in the transfer market over the last 2 years seem to have cost us both on and off the pitch.

It seems to indicate that we have been selling players for considerably less than has been bandied about and buying them for more. But any accounts which show a profit have to be considered OK. I'd guessed the profit would be greater but the discrepancies in the reported transfer fees would explain that.

It's very similar to when they beat us at St Mary's, except we're a better team than Millwall. They camp their midfield deep in the opposition's half and spray passes from side to side until they find openings. If you let them do that, they'll destroy you. You really half to pen them back in their own half, which requires stiff, aggressive tackling from our midfielders on and in front of the halfway line throughout the game. That's something I've not really seen from our team this season. Romeu does it for 70 minutes until he tires as he gets little help in that department.

Yes, it looks like we only have to win 1 of our 2 games in hand to be fairly well assured of at least a top 10 place. A 4th consecutive top 8 finish for the 1st time in the club's history looks possible. We had 5 top 8 finishes in the early 80s but in the middle of them was the 12th in 1983.

Schneiderlin was very overrated by many Saints fans. His glaring weakness was always that he often lost concentration and was too easily dispossessed,as he was again today. Ironically, today he was up against a player who was very underrated by many Saints fans, Wanyama. Now, he really is a top class defensive midfielder: one of the very best in the game.

I'd pick Davis ahead of Ward-Prowse every time. If we can sell Ward-Prowse, than someone who can score goals from them, like Gabbiadini or Boufal, will be allowed to take the free-kicks, and that could be worth quite a few points to us over a season.

Clasie Gardos Martina Hojbjerg Reed Ward-Prowse Lewis Targett Isgrove Rodrguez

Watford just scored from a move started by an obvious foul throw. The thrower's foot was a foot in front of the line

You'll always gets some people who'll resits any from of progress. We'd all still be living in caves if everyone were like that. It's made both rugby and cricket better games and it makes sense to have proper results rather than games decided by referees' mistakes and whims, which tend to go in favour of the 'bigger' team. It would take less time than the time currently wasted by players' arguments with refs. We can already see how well it's worked with decisions over whether goals were over the line or not.

Artur Boruc has just given a man of the match performance, saved a penalty and made a string of brilliant saves to get 10-man Bournemouth a draw at Old Trafford. If the referee hadn't helped Man Utd so much, Bournemouth would have won.

It was a hooped Saints polo shirt with an SFC club badge on it. He was in the middle of the Fratton End when in the 2nd half he exploded, shouted, ‘There's only one team in Hampshire’ and started throwing punches and shouting abuse at everyone around him. This is the most objective account from a neutral who was directly in front of him: ScottDFC 10:23 PM on 01/03/2017 This happened just behind me and he was taken past me on the gangway - it was a Southampton shirt, a rugby type one with the badge on. He was a complete thug and those that saying they can't condone violence may think differently if they were in the row when he was going off - he was a big fella who was swinging hard. Someone had to punch him not only in self defence but also to nullify him in order to get the stewards up to get rid of him. Alternative was to let him keep hitting fans. He was a thug, intent on trouble, don't blame fans who had to deal with very difficult and violent situation.

We've got about twice as many fans as them nowadays, which is reflected in this poll, the social media and our attendances. If the poll were restricted to neutrals only, I doubt Pompey would get any votes at all.

It is amazing how much the presence of one great player can affect the performance of the other 10. The second Gabbiadini was taken off at Wembley, you could sense an instant change of mood on the pitch and after that there was only ever going to be one winner. I guess the opposite would have happened if Mourinho had taken off Ibrahimovic.

This is one of the first games this season that nobody is calling must win as there isn't a great deal left to play for. Absolutely anything could happen. We're on a 6 match unbeaten run in games against Watford and it would be good to extend that to 7.

Jose Fonte's West Ham have gone 3 games without defeat. His leadership seems to be having an effect: "Jose Fonte: 8 Was superb at the back. Distribution was excellent and made several brilliant challenges to put an end to Watford breaks." http://readwestham.com/2017/02/26/player-ratings-watford-1-1-west-ham/?index=3

Yes, one of the great things about our support at Wembley is that we didn't feel the need to constantly sing about Pompey. I expect 1 or 2 Pompey-obsessed idiots still tried to start singing about them but not where I was. Let's hope this actual support for the team, rather than giving Pompey as much publicity as possible, carries over to all our games at St Mary's.

The United fans at Wembley weren't mocking it. They thought it was part of our celebration of equalizing and it looked impressive so they copied it when they scored the winner. You can expect to see it copied at grounds all over the country for midweek games in the next few months. Celine Dion comments or not, it did look impressive as did all the scarves held aloft. Anything which brings colour to the increasingly dull atmosphere at English games is to be welcomed and let's face it the authorities are not going to let us have fireworks and flares like they do at South American games.