Tommy Mulgrew

Deserved to lose but we gifted Villa the game. Dibling gives the ball away and we concede a penalty to the resulting counter-attack, with Bednarek sliding to block the attacker, who slows down and hangs in a leg to touch Bednarek and fall down. Fine save. Then Dibling gives the ball away again and they score. Smallbone gives Rogers acres of space in front of our penalty area and they score. Stephens goes to ground when too far away from the ball and makes a double movement to make sure the ref gives a second penalty. Another fine save but no defender thinks to run back and clear the ball. Masters of our own misfortune. Ramsdale and Fernandes the only ones to emerge with any credit and even Fernandes gave the ball away too many times. Good game plan but not enough strength in DM to make it a goalless draw and not enough potency in attack to score. Archer and Fernandes at least tested the keeper. We seemed to give up on the rough stuff in the second half, except for one memorable moment from Stephens; a shame because it showed that we still have some fight left in us. Sadly, we are no better than well adrift of all the other teams in the league. Pathetic indeed. Still two more points needed. Let’s hope Leicester bring back Vestergard from the cold when we play them.

Bookmark this; it’s good every week: http://www.fawanews.com/

That’s nothing; SR has achieved that arguably four times with Southampton. I cannot wait for the next one. Ooo er missus; titter ye not.

A blank calendar for August: the COT has no f***ing idea what will happen in that month. Par for the course. Will it ever know and will we ever know whether it does? No prizes for the right answer. 🤔

Despite his sometimes strange selection and substitution decisions, Juric was IMO spot on in his post-match assessments, his appreciation of the fans who attended the matches and were vocal in support of effort from the players, his insistence that the players applauded the fans and his criticisms of past decisions by the club, specifically those connected with recruitment, which gave us, as he emphasised, an unbalanced squad that lacked the physicality to compete in the EPL. I just hope that he bemoaned the crap that he found here and the reasons why that came about in his internal discussions with DS and others at the club. I am disappointed that he did not do better but not really surprised that it ended as it did. Two more points and the world will be a better place.

If you have to be pedantic, WSS, please ensure that you are right; the text should have stated “Spors’s”, not “Spors’”.

http://www.fawanews.com/

Don’t all rush, everyone!

Choice of two. 1st one went uninterrupted through the first half. Always reliable. http://www.fawanews.com/

Hard to disagree with that, MG and SA.

The club’s PRESENT department has been hard at work to talk up Tyler’s value: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cn4yen2xgrxo

Victor Wanyama looks set to play in Scotland again. Apparently, he’s only 33 - I had thought he was older. A bit of a comedown to play in the Scottish Championship, though. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cp8l6k88xg3o

England squad for the Latvia game. According to the BBC: Southampton stopper Ramsdale is the only player from the original 26 not to be included in a matchday squad. Another commentary on our season.

Interesting article on pages 6 and 7 of the sport section of Saturday’s Times: all about TransferRoom and its (presumably annual) summits, which attract about 300 clubs, started by Rasmus’s brother. Apparently, THB’s deal between MC and Saints emerged from a pitch from Citeh to Saints at a TR summit. That was news to me; I had thought it arose through Wilcox’s connection with both clubs. I’m not an online subscriber and so cannot give a link. The accompanying photo shows almost 100 tables with two or three blokes sitting at each in what looks like speed-dating for middle-aged men, not that I would know what that looks like of course. (Yes, I am an old codger who reads a Saturday newspaper, not necessarily on a Saturday.)

38,502 attended Newcastle v Sunderland earlier today in the women’s championship, a new record figure. Now, that’s a proper derby and puts our attendance figure on Saturday into perspective. The previous record was 15,387 in the reverse fixture in October in Sunderland.