Tom & Gerry

Saints have a habit in recent seasons of having prolonged bad spells followed by prolonged good spells so I'm hoping we will now see an improvement. Of course it wouldn't take much to be better and it's got to the stage where any win we get is a shock win. Still it would be nice to take a few unexpected scalps even if staying up is beyond us.

If we can't afford a Championship manager how about we look a little lower. Kelvin your time has come ( again). Or how about Jimmy Ball , fighting relegation would be in his DNA, and we know the tactics- just give it to Tyler at every opportunity.

He has started for another Premier league team and did very well as I recall.

I don't mind us conceding a few daft goals if we score enough of the brilliant goals we did last season. What is enough? Well one in three games obviously isn't. Enough to win us the 12 games or so to keep us up is, for this season. RM needs to concentrate on getting the attacking side right and to some extent the defence will take care of it's self.

I think after a few more zeros the penny will drop with some that with a great goalkeeper you can't win many matches unless you score some goals. It takes good players to score goals whilst average players can defend if disciplined and well organised.

If we sign a new goalkeeper he will hopefully cut down on the number of errors playing out from the back, but don't expect them to be eliminated altogether. There is no super keeper that makes no errors. As Downes said, it's the way we play. If Ramsdale, for instance was so good at playing out from the back he'd be in the Arsenal team. The hardest thing in the Premier league is scoring goals as we saw yesterday when the goalkeeping mistake shouldn't have been crucial. Getting that right should be our number 1 priority.

Fair enough. Some people on here express their fears, others their hopes. Today the fears won, that's football.

A coach shouldn't ask a player to do something he can't do. Martin didn't last season so there's no reason to believe he will this. Martin may be stubborn but he isn't stupid. He wants to win the game whatever he might say about playing a certain way.

Is this the same McCarthy that was so sound at the end of last season that everyone is rubbishing or have we signed another one? People seem to have been spooked because in a few practice matches he practiced doing a few things he's not very good at and found he's not very good at them which is what practice matches are for, I thought. So he won't do them in a league game, I hope.

I don't think that's fair. He has all the attributes, but we've had players before from George Lawrence to Michael Obefemi who had all the attributes to be a great player but weren't.

I think I've laboured the point enough, but all I'm saying is that to call us the 4th best team in the league is not particularly relevant to how we will do this season. By the end of the season our form was on a par with the other 2 teams behind Leicester who also had some bad results. I think we were a better team by the end of the season than at the start, that's all.

They were better over the course of the season, but by the end of the season there was not much in it. It's the direction of travel. If 2 teams finish level in the table and 1 starts well and then levels off and the other starts badly but finishes well, the team that finishes well is going to feel better about it's future prospects.

There's an argument for 2nd. I know we lost at Ipswich but we were by far the better team.

We may have been the 4th best over the course of the season but by the end of the season we weren't 4th best. How many times would we have had to beat Leeds to convince you of that? To improve players need to improve not necessarily be changed. Just like runners or swimmers they do improve and we have a number with the scope to do so. Big money signings have never really worked for us so I am excited to see who we will undoubtedly bring in before the end of the window.

Probably no point having an academy then. Even a genius needs to learn the game and will be inconsistent at that age. There's no hope for late developers.

Smallbone not only passes the ball but makes himself available to be passed to. He also gets in to goal scoring positions. Vastly underrated and hugely important to the team.

Yep, just as I remember looking for a linesman's flag all those years ago.

2 great moments of my Saints supporting life. Stokes to McCalliog, he's onside 1-0. Smallbone to Armstrong , he's onside 1-0

It's scary if we win, it's scary if we lose yet we all (nearly) just want to win and worry about the consequences later.

Thanks, I won't bother going.

0-0 is such a horrible result. If we had lost 2-0 we could be properly pessimistic and if we had won 3-0 we could be ever so slightly optimistic, but 0-0 anything could happen and probably will.

He had the dregs of a failed premier league team, loan players that were surplus to requirements, ie not good enough for their premier league team, and some wet behind the ears youngsters who may or may not make good players. I don't see any top clubs rushing to sign any of our players like they use to in the past.

The most goals scored by a Southampton team for 60 years. Not bad for a team that spend most of the game tip tapping the ball around in their own half.

Has anyone considered that maximising the home atmosphere may be a good thing if the team is doing well but could make it more toxic if the team or individual players are doing badly?

Of course we probably won't beat Watford, and of course winning 6 in a row looks impossible., but how about we win the next 3 and then anything will look possible