Charlie Wayman

First class team performance and great result, well done Ralph for getting your tactics right and bamboozling Guardiola. Now let's do the same every week. Romeu excelled today and was a class above. What a star! The other big success story was Elyonoussi who brought intelligence and creative insight to our attacking midfield. As he gets more game time the more his underlying qualities emerge. He is not a spectacular high energy player but is quietly efficient, popping up in all the right places and creating chances for others that would be seized upon by half decent strikers. Big shout our for KWP who bossed the defensive left side third and still found time and space to run the line and get in some decent crosses. On what planet was that not a clear penalty and red card. The ref should have stuck to his guns. Judging by the number of times he had to watch the re-wind the benefit of any doubt should have gone to the attacker. We were cheated out of a win which would have been fully deserved.

Seems we have got away with murder for once. Hide the money before they want to back!

What's the problem with that? Can he only count to 10?

Hopefully we can keep it down to 0-3. Reading between Ralph's lines we'll see much the same team as last week. KWP will sit and fume as is becoming usual these days, so would I! Although he was almost categorical about having too many 10's to consider Livramento as a 10, two of his 10's are non-options at the moment through longish term injuries? Looks like he'd rather piss off Kyle than Redmond or Djenepo then. Weird priorities.

Ooh! Ice is a bit thin there.

Norwich are a bit of an enigma, too good for the Championship yet falling at the first hurdle every time in the PL. They never seem able to kick on from their great performances of the previous seasons like Wolves, Leeds and others have done. You'd have to say on current form that they are dead certs for the drop. WBA are much in the same mould but that's for next year. Watford, I'm no so sure. At times they can play some brilliant stuff. I have a feeling that Wolves may struggle along with Newcastle & Leeds both of whom seem to have weak defences. Saints will finish 13th. Burnley as always will survive one place below us. Relegation? Norwich, Newcastle, Brighton

Why the surprise and search for reasons for empty seats? Many older and clinically vulnerable fans have not been persuaded to return because of Covid infection concerns. There are very high infection rates in cities and no guarantee that a few people with Covid will not be sat near you in the stadium. In a crowd of 20k at least one two Covid cases could be almost guaranteed. Now that the idea of vaccine passports has been kicked into the long grass the future has become even more precarious for vulnerable folk and many will never return.

We have surely seen the best and worst of Redmond over the years. Why should we expect anything different to what we have seen and endured over the seasons. In my opinion he has never been sufficiently professional to have knuckled down and worked really hard on correcting his weaknesses. If only he had the dedication and determination of a Romeu or a JWP for example he could have been a half decent player but he doesn't and he isn't. He is what he is and never will be consistent enough to warrant and hold down a permanent place in the starting XI.

On loan or not, for this season he is a Saints asset and his future has nothing to do with our present. If he is our best striker then he should play ever week. Good will come of it even if he leaves at the end of the season as Adams & Armstrong will need to up their games considerably to get back into the team.

Depends I suppose on one's expectations, if being set up mainly to contain the opposition, keep a clean sheet and hit them on the break for a 1-0 then some might have enjoyed that and fair to argue that the ends justify the means. That's not what I want to see. Let's just hope we have not given up on being a slick passing fast running attacking team that creates loads of chances and scores a few goals. Perhaps that is naive. Surely it cannot be that the quality of our players is so low that RH can only set us up to defend or attack but not both?

A dour and unimaginative performance from Saints contributed to a scrappy and in most part utterly forgettable match with few highlights and little genuine excitement. If this is what it takes to keep clean sheets then we are in for a long, boring and miserable season. Salisu was our one player worthy of the MotM tag while McCarthy showed improvement with a couple of good reaction saves and increased aerial authority in his 6 yard box. Stephens was reliable and solid and did what he is paid to do. JWP & Romeu were way below par and Redmond frustrated as only he can. With a misfiring midfield we never really got going. Why Tella's pace wasn't used alongside Broja in the late stages of the game is beyond me, whet's the kid done to have fallen so far from grace? Leaving Armstrong to forage on his own for much of the match was a recipe for certain failure and we rarely offered a serious goal threat. It seems to me that we are not in good shape for next week's visit to City, caught between this new negative style of keeping a clean sheet at all cost, and our normal high-octane easy on the eye attacking play. Once again there were question marks over Ralph's team selection, while Tino seems to be his flavour of the month I am not convinced he is any better than Kyle W-P defensively or going forward. Certainly in the final third in positioning and decision making KWP is far superior. Ralph should not forget that Livramento is 18 and has a lot to learn. Playing Djenepo, Elyonoussi and Redmond together seemed extravagant and short sighted especially with Theo side-lined, leaving us with no viable substitution options when they tired.

Living his dream and why not.

Funny to you maybe but quite offensive to many old men on here. Plenty of smelly young men around who have never understood what personal hygiene means!

Worse than the Austin Allegro?

Really nice film on the OS today of an interview taking place with Oriol and his new Classic Porsche out in the New Forest. Turns out he has a Motor Home, loves classic cars and frequently drives home to Spain in them. To cap it all he has just had a new arrival in the family. Hard to imagine a more grounded player in this modern age where flash and glitz seem to dominate most minds. Solid as a rock on and off the field, rarely if ever expresses dissatisfaction with his life and just gets on with what he is paid to do always with a broad smile. How can we not love this guy? We are fortunate indeed to have him here playing for the Saints. What I love most is his choice of classic cars, a Porsche of course - what else - but a well selected highly regarded collector's model at that. This chap knows his onions.

It has always been a rip-off since we moved to SMS. Best to park in the town centre car parks and walk down, much, much cheeper with no congestion when you get back to your car.

Match day comparisons are of little value, even as a measure of match preparedness and fitness it doesn't convince as so much depends on the vagaries of the fixture list. Relative performance in specific matches doesn't tell the whole story either, we might have dominated a game last year and lost 0-1 whilst this year scrapping a late lucky draw having been outplayed all afternoon. The signs of progress we should look for are goals scored and goals conceded, it's that simple really, 4-7 last year, 4-6 this. To me that suggest we are still at or about where we were last year. Little has changed but we've played only 3 game so far.

BBB

Based on what exactly?

...and we will. 3-1 to Saints with a proviso that we must go in at HT 2-0 up. Expect an unchanged team form the toon trip.

Of course not

If we have to pick a number this early in the season then 13th.

Chuck them out of the World Cup, full stop!

This is a thread about Lyanco chaps!

Could be that we were paying Obafemi much higher wages? ...and 2m smackeroons is not to be sneezed at! Doubt Dan has much value on the open market.