Nordic Saint

He was in the Brighton team that beat us to the League One title in 2011. He was in the PFA League One Team of the Year that year so, he could well have been the difference between us and them as Brighton only finished 3 points ahead of us. If we'd signed him, he'd have replaced Danny Butterfield.

We were linked with Kieran Trippier when Paul Mitchell was our Head of Recruitment but then Mitchell moved to Spurs and took him there instead. He, also, of course, took Alderweireld there. We were strongly linked with van Dijk before Mitchell left but at the time he went to Spurs he obviously preferred Alderweireld so we got van Dijk. I wonder about Dele Alli too as he was one of the first signings Mitchell made at Spurs.

We tried to sign Coutinho but he turned us down in favour of Liverpool. He had played for Pochettino at Espanyol. The situation was similar with Maddison and Leicester. So, we can't blame the club for not trying. They were just two of the many that got away because wealthier and more successful clubs wanted them too. Going back to the 1980s, McMenemy tried hard to sign Trevor Francis. If he had succeeded, we probably would have done the double in 1984 so that was the one that hurt us the most. In the late 70s, he also tried to sign Colin Todd. He was one of the few other big names to get away from McMenemy, who was brilliant at persuading top players, like Keegan, Shilton, Ball and Osgood, to come here.

Yes, Leicester kept hold of Vardy and he wasn't even a Leicester fan. If our owners don't want to sell Ings, he'll stay.

A draw tonight between Palace and Burnley would be the best result for us. I'm impressed by the Amazon Prime TV coverage both before the lockdown and now: good, old school commentary and great camera work.

Our 2 best performances have been watched by a nationwide TV audience. With ours being the only Premier League game today, I wonder what the viewing figures were like? I'm sure that as well as our fans, Watford's and the neutrals, every Pompey fan out there would have been watching and hating it. That own goal must have raised their hopes for a brief moment. It's the hope that gets them.

Yes, it was clearly Smalbone's assist for that goal.

A very classy performance against a Watford team, which, let's not forget, beat Liverpool 3-0. I've been a big critic of Vestergaard in the past but I'm very happy to revise my opinion of him. Today he gave an almost flawless performance. He won everything in the air, made good interceptions and his passing was excellent. If not for the brilliant Ings playing like a world class striker, Vestergaard would have deserved Man of the Match. Walker-Peters has secured that right back spot and what a free-kick that was from Ward-Prowse!

I don't feel too bad about the result, to be honest. To put things in perspective, Pompey haven't beaten Arsenal for 62 years. If, when I started supporting Saints in the 1960s, I'd been told that we'd be in the top flight for most of my life, I'd have been very pleasantly surprised. I remember in the 1965/66 promotion season we played a home friendly against Arsenal and lost 1-3. I thought, wow, it's going to be a struggle to survive in the company of teams like that. Well, the win v Norwich secured our 44th season in the top flight. I never dreamed we'd be another Arsenal, Man United or Liverpool but neither did I dream that we'd ever achieve that.

No, I think Ralph has made the very sensible decision to get him off.

When we beat them in December, Norwich only had one corner in 90 minutes. It's a bit different today.

No, I didn't. I just heard the commentators say that after I posted my comment. So, it isn't the crowd noise that is making a difference. Norwich just seem more motivated than the teams did in the first two matches. I prefer the noise to the silence anyway: it makes it seem less like a training game.

First impression is that the piped crowd noise is a big advantage for the home team. There is much more urgency about this game than there was in the two played in silence on Wednesday.

It sounds good. Our owners investing in strengthening the squad with a new transfer guru, poached from another club, advising them on which players to buy. Just imagine us behaving like other clubs: reinvesting the Premier League money in building a better team. Is that really going to happen?

The fallout and legal battles in Germany over those former MALI companies are ongoing.

Different company, Turkish. They are manufactured by the Liebherr Group, which is owned by Markus's siblings & Kat's cousins,. That is still manufacturing and thriving. At the time of his death, Markus only owned the 5 companies in the MALI Group + SFC. They were all liquidated after Kat gained control of them, except SFC.

Fair enough, Benji. Markus did seem to manufacture high quality equipment and vehicles. He was actually in the process of expanding the tractor manufacturing plant when he died.

They used different brand names as Markus bought the Doppstadt Tractor factory, then marketed his new tractors under the brand name Li-Trac. I could look at videos of MALI tractors all day but I've got better things to do:

Even though the company was liquidated years ago, there are still plenty of MALI tractors here. If you're into German tractors, they've even got a forum for their owners, a bit like Saintsweb: https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=mali-trac+&go=Search&qs=ds&form=QBIR

In a vain attempt to be a smartarse, You've made yourself very silly. You should stick to cleaning windows, mate.

"offroad vehicles" "£3 billion" https://db0nus869y26v.cloudfront.net/en/Markus_Liebherr

Who said anything about cranes and fridges apart from you??? Why on earth would you make up such cr@p? Weird. This is what I wrote: The major part of her inheritance was the MALI (MArkus LIebherr) group of engineering companies, which manufactured heavy equipment and vehicles, such as tractors, and was worth billions at the time her father died. I've just been looking in to what's happened to them since then. It's easy enough to find out what they manufactured before they were liquidated: "tractors" "specialist vehicles" https://www.translatetheweb.com/?from=de&to=en&ref=SERP&dl=en&rr=UC&a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.volksstimme.de%2fnachrichten%2flokal%2fschoenebeck%2f924374_Mali-Spezialfahrzeugbau-ist-insolvent-Keine-Traktoren-mehr-aus-Schoenebeck.html

An internal promotion? Perhaps someone who used to assist Ross Wilson?

The major part of her inheritance was the MALI (MArkus LIebherr) group of engineering companies, which manufactured heavy equipment and vehicles, such as tractors, and was worth billions at the time her father died. I've just been looking in to what's happened to them since then.

As she herself said: "I will ensure that all decisions made about the future of the club will be in the best interests of its staff, players, management and fans." So, we can only take her at her word.