Nordic Saint

Gabbiadini is enjoying a purple patch like the one he had when he first joined Saints. He has scored in every one of his last 5 Serie A games. But another ex-Saint, Juanmi, is doing even better than that, with 7 goals in his last 5 La Liga games.

Our last win there. We had a much stronger team then: Report: West Ham 0-3 Saints | Southampton FC

Covid is hitting attendances: Chelsea 1-1 Everton Attendance: 13,933 Chelsea 1-1 Everton: Jarrad Branthwaite equaliser gives Toffees hard-earned point - BBC Sport

Yes, he looks as promising as Shearer did at the same age. Unfortunately, Chelsea can probably see that too.

Does that make Ward-Prowse the all-time greatest Premier League goal scorer from free kicks or just 1st= with Larsson? I'm not sure when this was last updated: Premier League Player Stats - Freekicks scored

He is a phenomenon. 49 caps for Portugal, all in his 30s, and I expect he'll win his 50th next year.

Goal machine, Juanmi scores his 5th goal in 3 games, as his Real Betis move up to 3rd in La Liga. Resumen de Real Betis vs Real Sociedad (4-0) - YouTube

That side is so poor that it really brings home how far we've fallen from the days when we had great players like Fonte, van Dijk and Mane. Most of the players we have now would not get into any other Premier League team's starting XI. Would they even be good enough to make the playoffs in the Championship?

How about Caballero-Lancashire-Walcott-Long? Championship or League One?

Best in Europe. With 22 duels won, Jose Fonte is the defender with the best percentage of duels won (76%) in the Champions League, ahead of Ronald Araujo (Barcelona - 71%) and Eder Militao (Real Madrid - 69%). Fonte's Lille team won their Champions League group.

As I'm sure the TV commentators will point out, we have never won a league game at the Emirates and haven't won any of our last 26 league games at Arsenal. Surely, we can't have a worse record than that anywhere.

From the BBC: "The deal to take total ownership could be worth in excess of £500m." "He said the 49ers' plans were "pure" and promised to make Leeds "one of the biggest clubs in the world". "He added they plan to keep Elland Road, but modernise and increase the capacity of the stadium." Leeds United: San Francisco 49ers have option to buy 100% of club and Elland Road by January 2024 - BBC Sport

Yes, but at least we should be able to enjoy the first half. Probably best to go the bar at half-time and stay there.

I was born in Fareham and went to school there so I know about the rivalry. That's why I know that Pompey fans love us singing about them on TV. It makes them feel big. It doesn't help our team in any Premier League game we are playing. It simply gives Pompey more media coverage than other League One teams get, thanks to our gullible fans. Every home game at St Mary's the first song the Northam/Kingsland corner starts is always about Pompey. I've seen televised Newcastle games and not heard songs about Sunderland and I've seen televised Pompey games and not heard songs about Saints but every single televised game at St Mary's everyone can clearly hear the songs about Pompey. As I said, it is small time and embarrassing and gives far more credit to a lower league team than it deserves. We are bigging them up and they love it and this is a team that lost its last home game against Harrogate in front of just 7,000 fans. WHY do fans of clubs like Liverpool and Man United need to hear us singing about Pompey as if they were at the same level???

Little Pompey being battered by non-league Harrogate at an almost empty Fratton Park: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/football/59521674 It's really embarrassing that our fans still sing about such a small club at every Premier League game. It's like Newcastle singing about Hartlepool or Liverpool singing about Tranmere.

Juanmi scores yet again to beat Barcelona today and take Real Betis into the top 4. Only Real Madrid's Benzema has scored more goals than him this season: Resumen de FC Barcelona vs Real Betis (0-1) - YouTube

Juanmi is having a very good season. His Real Betis team are 5th in La Liga and he is their top scorer. He got a hat-trick at the weekend: Resumen de Real Betis vs Levante UD (3-1) - YouTube

He's starting to score a few goals and that's great to see. His games for Scotland have helped boost his confidence.

No, they are not. Forster is much better than McCarthy and we've clearly seen that whenForster has played this season. McCarthy is a lower league standard goalkeeper who should never be in the Premier League. He found his level at Yeovil.

But, if ALL of the players get sent to jail, we won't be able to play in the Conference. We need a bit of optimism here: we need to keep some of them. And whilst we're being optimistic, let's hope Vestergaard plays at least part of the game tonight as he has made a couple of sub appearances recently. The last time we played Leicester at St Mary's we only managed to get a draw because Vestergaard was sent off after 10 minutes (and that's when he was playing for us).

Aren't our first team coaches Kelvin Davis and David Watson? If they resigned, they wouldn't get a job anywhere else.

Not really. It happened to him at Torino too. The last game he played for them they lost 7-0 at home and they made sure that was the last time he played for them by offloading him to us. Torino 0-7 Milan | Milan thumps Torino 7-0! | Serie A TIM - YouTube

To be fair, he also kicks some into touch but, of course, that still means they're going to an oppositon player for a throw-in.

Leicester fans' player ratings for the season so far: Youri Tielemans 7.2 Jonny Evans 7.1 Jamie Vardy 6.9 Patson Daka 6.7 Timothy Castagne 6.7 Kelechi Iheanacho 6.3 Kasper Schmeichel 6.2 Wilfred Ndidi 6.1 Boubakary Soumare 6.0 Harvey Barnes 5.8 Daniel Amartey 5.8 Ricardo Pereira 5.7 Ademola Lookman 5.6 Marc Albrighton 5.5 James Maddison 5.3 K Dewsbury-Hall 5.1 Caglar Soyuncu 5.1 Luke Thomas 5.0 Ayoze Perez 4.8 Hamza Choudhury 4.6 Ryan Bertrand 3.7 Jannik Vestergaard 3.4

Gong back over the years, the Saints goalkeeper McCarthy reminds me most of was Dave MacLaren and the one Forster reminds me most of was Campbell Forsyth before he broke his leg. Of course, our best goalkeepers were Shilton and Niemi but of the top flight goalkeepers we've had in the 60 years I've been watching Saints, Forster is one of the better ones and McCarthy is one of the worst. The goalkeepers I would have signed in recent years would have been David Raya after his appearance for Blackburn in the U21 Premier League Cup Final at St Mary's in 2015, when you could see he was something special, and, more recently, after the way he played in the Euros, Lukáš Hrádecký, both of whom we could easily have afforded.