Nordic Saint

Good performance. Feeling much more optimistic after that. It was interesting to see the players' reactions to Pellegrino's instructions in the 2nd half. Basically, they ignored them and one or two of them made a point of ignoring them. I don't know how that's going to pan out for the remainder of the season but it certainly worked today. We still need a goal scoring striker and a tall, dominant central defender.

Off the top of my head, Blackburn, Bolton, Fulham for a start and Leicester won it. Now off you pop. The small-minded, defeatist fans like you who play the "we're just ever so 'umble little Southampton, we can't hope to compete with other clubs and should be grateful for any crumbs that are dropped down to us" card are pathetic.

Even though CB Fry tries to turn a blind eye to it, the truth is out there: 2015/16 63 pts 2016/17 46 pts 2017/18 32-38 pts ?? As for his "those huge peaks we hit after January 2014" that is total ********. Most clubs our size and many smaller ones have hit much higher peaks than that. Finishing runners-up in a League Cup Final should be considered far from a 'huge peak' for a club of our size. Teams that have done that include Bradford, Cardiff, Sunderland, Wigan, Bolton, Birmingham and Tranmere. Swansea, Birmingham, Middlesbrough and Blackburn also won League Cups. In recent years, Wigan, Hull, Cardiff, Palace and Stoke have also been in FA Cup Finals and Wigan won theirs. Even little Pompey were in 2 FA Cup Finals in 3 years and won one of them. Just about every club in the top 2 divisions and even some in the third division have qualified for Europe and most performed better than we did. Fulham and Middlesbrough reached European finals. So, our 'huge peak' wasn't even as good as Wigan's, Swansea's, Blackburn's, Fulham's or Middlesbrough's and we have a much bigger fansbase and get bigger crowds than all of them. We have the 12th biggest average home gates in the country this century, in spite of our limited capacity, and social media figures indicate we have one of the 10 biggest fanbases. So top 8 finishes and losing a League Cup Final are hardly a massive overachievement. For our size, in terms of trophies won, we are historically, just about the most underachieving team in history and it looks lke we are underachieving again and still haven't won anything. How many clubs have spent more than 80 years in the top 2 divisions and never won one of them even once? Even Reading beat us to a trophy. A club of our size should have won at least 4 or 5 major tropies by now. If we'd had a 'huge peak' as good as Swansea's, for example, relegation wouldn't be quite so hard to take.

The problem is Dangermouth, as it was with the sacking of Puel, is that there is every chance Les Reed will appoint someone worse. So we'll be out of the frying pan into the fire. We wanted rid of Eric Black as first team coach and now we've got Kelvin Davis, one of the worst goalkeepers in the history of the Premier League, with no previous coaching experience, in charge of coaching, assisted by ex-Barnsley goalkeeper, Dave Watson, neither one of them with any previous experience of coaching outfield players, and not even very good at coaching goalkeeepers.

I assume you must be one as 'Sack the board' is one of the oldest chants in the game, going back more than 60 years. Fan protests agianst failing directors have been going on as long as there has been professional football, the same as the sacking of amangers.

There is really no point in sacking Pellegrino if Les Reed is going to be appointing the next manager, as each one he appoints is worse than the previous one. We need our 'Black Box' Paul Mitchell back to find the next Pochettino. Les Reed and Ross Wilson will just bring in a worse version of Pellegrino. 2015/16 63 pts 2016/17 46 pts 2017/18 33-38 pts ?? There has been a clear decline since May 2016 so you certainly can't blame it all on Pellegrino or the Gaos. Kat, Les and Ralph have been in control for all of that period. I get the impression that Kat just lets Les get on with it, as long as he makes her money, and that, in effect, Ralph's position is not mch more than an honorary president, who just seems to be brought over to make a PR statement every few months, and he isn't even very good at that. So, Les Reed must be largely responsible for our decline. Polls show the majority of fans agree he has failed badly over the last 2 years and that, after reaching 65 last year, he should have retired and let someone younger take over. I think he is doing more harm than good by hanging on. My preferred choice to replace him would be Paul Mitchell.. There is no need for A4 paper. A simple chant of Les Reed Out at the end of each defeat will suffice.

That's nothing special for Newcastle, or most other regular top flight clubs for that matter, which have nearly all had spells like that. Newcastle finished 4th, 3rd and 5th from 2002 to 2004 and 5th as recently as 2012, under Mike Ashley, and have had 10 European campaigns in the last 20 years, including the Europa League with Ashley. It doesn't stop their fans protesting when they underachieve and know that the people running the club are no longer doing a good job. Their fans are passionate about their club and don't like to see it failing.

I think he will because, unlike Walcott, nobody else wants him.

I'm not ITK but I have a hunch they'll announce the signing of Carrillo just before the Spurs game to head off planned protests, which they'll be aware of because they do monitor these messagboards.

They know they'll have to bring in someone to appease the fans or they'll face serious unrest. So, I think they'll bring in the cheapest stiker they can get with a realistic chance of scoring 1 or 2 goals more than Shane Long, which will be Carrillo, and then whoever they can get on loan for the rest of the season, with an outside chance of another dirst cheap player like Bednarek on deadline day, probably someone with a poor injury record keeping his price down. That's the minimum they can get away with and not have mass 'sack the board' protests for the rest of the season.

(1) How on earth did you manage to wreck our Academy? It looked foolproof. Now, judging from results we have one of the worst academies in the top two divisions. (2) Why did you replace successful managers and coaches with much worse ones? (3) Why didn't you retire on your 65th birthday last year and let someone younger take over? (4) Why do you think an online poll voted you "The worst manager in the history of the Premier League?" (5) Why did the FA sack you?

Gao sacks him and we get our 'Black Box' back - Paul Mitchell.

Knocked out of the FA Youth Cup 2-4 on penalties to a category 3 U18 team. Les Reed now seems to have effectively degraded the club at every level from top to bottom with poor recruitment, especially of managers and coaches but also players, whilst getting rid of anyone who was doing a good job.

We have a few quality players left but the problem is the spine of the team is weak. Goalkeeper - central defence - central midfield - central striker, and those positions are the crucial ones. If you've got nobody up front who can score goals and nobody at the back who can stop them, it doesn't matter if you have classy wing-backs.

Our defence is a shambles. Gardos and Targett aren't even good enough for U23 division 2 level. The one bright spot is Sam McQueen who looks good enough for Les Reed to sell to Liverpool one day. The U23s have now lost 2-4 to Wolves and 1-4 to Villa in successive games. Jaidi's vague instruction, shouted from the sideline, "Do something," just about sums up how poor the coaching is at the club nowadays.

#LesReed Out. Why punish the monkey when the real villain of the piece is the organ grinder? If he's left to it, he'll just get another monkey. The root cause of our problems has to be addressed.

We're not going to get him now, as Wolves will be in the Premier League next season, but I think we could get Javier Calleja. We can certainly offer much higher wages than Villarreal can.

BBC Sport: "'Clear handball from Doucoure' Watford 2-2 Southampton Kevin Kilbane Former Republic of Ireland winger on Final Score I think Doucoure has been one of the best players in the Premier League this year - but that is clear handball. He's got his hand up by his head - it's as clear a handball as you're ever likely to see - it's a disgrace, an absolute disgrace. Southampton desperately needed this win, and the officials have robbed them, it's really poor." And I bet at the end of the season those 2 points lost are the ones which see us relegated and Watford stay up.

We could have done without the half-time talk from the manager. You knew he was going to tell them to sit back and try to hang on to the lead.

2015/16 63 pts 2016/17 46 pts 2017/18 39 pts ??only if we can improve and perform as well as we did last season. With a decline as sharp as this one, you'd expect us to follow Sunderland's path downwards next season unless there are major changes in the way the club is being run. In any other business, the people responsible would have been fired by now.

It's fascinating to see the club's transfer history laid out here. In each season, you can ask yoorself, did we strengthen or weaken the squad? Of course, how you interpret it is highly subjective but I'd say that in the last 2 with the sale of Mane, Pelle, Wanyama, Juanmi, Fonte, Rodriguez and van Djk and the purchase of Gabbiadini, Boufal, Hojbjrg, Redmond, Bednarek, Lemina and Hoedt it's weaker.

Kat has done most of that already so they haven't been left with much to strip. Gao probably had to persuade Kat to delay the planned sale of van Dijk until after the takeover before he'd agree to pay the 210 million into her bank account. Who is our head salesman Les left with now who he might find a wealthy Premier League customer for? Bertrand and Cedric. I suppose they must still also hope they can turn a profit on one or two of the players they invested in over the last 2 years but most have failed to sparkle in the St Mary's showroom and have attracted little interest so they'll have to be kept here or be sold at a loss.

Sheffield United manager Kevin Blackwell: "It was an incredible atmosphere." It's not often visiting managers say that about St Mary's. Stern John's winning goal and the final minutes of the 3-2 win v Sheffield United in May 2008 has to be up there. When Gabbiadini scored his second goal at Wembley and the minutes just after that reminded me of it.

When Ralph's comments about how van Dijk had affected the team negatively got lots of media coverage, as they were intended to, Robbie Savage was asked on Talksport what effect a high profile player wanting to leave had on the rest of the team and he instantly replied, absolutely none. We got the same red herring when Fonte was sold. The team is a lot worse without van Dijk and Fonte than it was when they were here, even if they were plannning to leave, although in Fonte's case, I don't think he was. Like nearly all of the managers, staff and players who've left, he just fell out with Les Reed.

About the only thing worse for the image of Saints fans than a boycott is a partial boycott. It just makes it look like we are a poorly supported team with fairweather fans who don't deserve a top flight team. The only people it would have any effect on are Pompey fans, who would love it. A protest inside a packed stadium, with plenty of banners and chants would be far more effective. Witty banners will get far more media coverage than empty seats. I remember being impressed by how Newcastle fans got rid of Pardew in that way, with some really passion and venom. Protests yes; boycotts no.