Tim Southampton Rover

Alright Saints. I'm a Blackburn fan and I know we signed Shearer, Flowers, Kenna all those years ago...but let's not hold a grudge. Stop trying to sign our top players on the cheap. Just remember you also sold us Davies, Østenstad and we sold you Ripley, Slater....it's very tit for tat but let's stop this right now! 😉😂 WOW, firstly, what a story Ben Brereton-Diaz is having. If you haven't read much about it then I will summarise his entire career here: He has Man Utd pedigree as a youth player. Didn't work out at his boyhood club, Stoke City. Signed pro for Forest, made a name for himself in some high profile games, Blackburn signed him on loan. He was a complete flop. So, we spent our entire budge and signed him for £6m. Once again, he was a flop. Booed on the pitch, booed off the pitch. Couldn't score to save his life. He was on the verge of going on loan to Ado Den Haag to escape and rebuild his career under ex-Saints manager Pardew. Suddenly, Boom! Pandemic hit. No loan spell, no fans. After the lockdown, he returned to the Rovers team slightly bigger in size, stronger, faster. He started putting in good performances. In the meantime, and i'm not bulls****ing you here, a Chilean playing Football Manager noticed he was half Chilean. Suddenly there was a huge social media push to get Ben Brereton in the Chilean team. He continues to play well over the next few seasons linking up with Armstrong, Harvey Elliott, ex-Saints Sam Gallagher. Ben Brereton gets called up to the Chilean Copa America team and scores on his debut. Wild scenes everywhere. His is now the talk of the nation. Starts playing with the likes of ex-Arsenal/Man U Sanchez, Vidal, playing against Neymar, Messi and looking great. Comes back to Blackburn as Ben Brereton-Diaz. This season he has been on fire and unstoppable. The fans love him. He has energy, power, goals. The lot. Goes back to Chile and gets their faltering World Cup Qualification back on track. He is now a God in Chile. No joke. There are pictures of him as God, his social media went from 10k to 1.2m overnight. Whenever he is in a poll for best player of the week the Chileans go mad and vote for him. It's mental, slightly weird, but I bl**dy love it. He's still only a youngster as 22 years old. Importantly though. He is out of contract this season but we do hold a 1 year option on his contact. It's a bit like the scenario we had with Armstrong. We are in negotiations with him, and from what I've heard, he really enjoys being at the club, but money talks. With his new found fame in Chile, sponsorship deals, scoring goals etc then it will take a huge contract for us to keep him here. Unfortunately, I believe it won't happen unless we get promoted this season. My gut feeling is that he will not go in January but he will go in the summer. Whatever happens, he has the attributes to become a top player. Do I think he will sign for Southampton? Who knows? Leeds or Sevilla are probably ahead of Saints right now. Bielsa, a huge figure in Chilean football, has been watching Brereton for a long time and is a huge fan. Sevilla, again, huge links with South American football, are a big draw for a guy with a huge Spanish following.

I'm a Blackburn Rovers fan and came on here to see what you guys think so far. Please don't be offended but after reading through the pages (on this thread and others) if he's had a good game, he's Prem class. If he's not scored, he's Championship level. The honest answer is that he is probably still transitioning between the two levels. Had he been promoted with Rovers then I would have expected to have seen him take on more chances and perhaps score more goals than he has. Let's remember though, he's signed for a new team, new style, new players. It takes time. I appreciate in the Premier League you have less time to adapt but unfortunately, it happens to most players whether they're Prem class or not. I can only really talk about the time he was with Rovers. He joined us after a disastrous loan spell at Bolton where he was played out of position and it just didn't work. Since then he played for us on the wing and scored single figures for a few seasons. It was when Bradley Dack, our best player, got injured for 2 years with ACL injuries that he actually really stepped up and became the main star. The added responsibility to score goals meant he couldn't shy away and he hit 17 and then 29 goals last year for a poor Blackburn team. Living in Southampton I see a lot of the games and have kept a close eye on Arma. The main difference I can see is that he is trying to adapt to a completely different team style. He is being less selfish than he was at Blackburn and I am wondering whether that's because he's still trying to form relationships and partnerships within the team or perhaps the manager is trying to tweak his game. Personally, I think he's at his best when he wants the ball all the time and is greedy in front of goal. I can kind of see him doing that more but maybe, as mentioned above, he isn't quite as relaxed as he knows he may not play the next game. Anyway, at the end of the day, goals do the talking for strikers. I really hope he does well for Saints. He was well liked at Blackburn on and off the pitch by both the players and the fans. Hopefully with the support from Saints he will go on to become a player that you head into games hoping he is the person a chance falls to. Just give him time because he's proven already that he has explosive pace, an eye for goal in a difficult league, and he is a top lad. He will deliver. If not, send him back to us! 😂 Good luck guys!

Does he record in the Champions League against the top clubs prove that it doesn't matter whether the defenders in the Spanish League are sh*te or not, he's blummin' fantastic even against the world's best. It's impossible to tell who's the greatest player EVER but it's easy to say that he is without doubt the greatest player of his generation, same as Maradona was in his generation and Pele in his. The exciting thing is, who's going to be the next player to step up? Neymar???

SIGHHHHHHHHHH! I hate pointing out this fact but let's forget the "myth" that Blackburn are a badly supported club just because you see a team playing in a stadium which is too big for the club. I'm going to compare Blackburn, a town, to Southampton, a city. Blackburn = 105,000 population Blackburn Rovers ave attendance = 22,000 = 1/5 of population attend games. Southampton = 240,000 population Southampton ave attendance = 25,000 = 1/9 of population attend games If 1/5 of the population of Southampton attended the games then their average attendance would be just around 48,000. Not bad for a small town club, don't you think? Let's give their fans some credit where it's due and not fall into the trap by assuming they're badly supported when in fact you could say the same about Southampton.

Any local radio broadcasting the game?

Daddies

BREAKING NEWS: I've just been told that the attendance will be above 1 and below 600,000.

Just a suggestion which is free and can involve anyone who is attending the game and also those who might wish to join in and aren't attending the game: When Southampton fans wanted to protest against the club, everyone met at the Bargate and marched to the ground singing songs and protesting. Why don't Saints fans all meet up and as one march to the ground singing songs about the great man. This would also get a lot of media coverage and would be a great way for everyone to get involved. Just a thought

On behalf of all Blackburn Rovers fans, who went through a similar time when our former owner Jack Walker (Rovers no.1 fan) sadly died, can I offer our condolences to all of you during this tough period of time. Let's hope Southampton FC carry on his wish and see them rise up the divisions to where they belong. RIP Markus Liebherr.

Just re-signed Franny Benali. He's now the oldest player in The Championship. Played him in 1 game and got a rating of 6.93 with 1 pace. Might throw him up front if i'm thrashing someone and see if he can get another goal :-)

Liebherr for England!

Phew, at least we can wear our hats with bells on.

We were in first class too on that train and had enough room to fit a couple of elephants in there despite the rest of the train being packed like sardines. Obviously we did the most sensible thing in that situation and play volley ball with some balloons across the first class carriage

It's entertaining radio. They say silly things to wind callers up and everyone falls for it time and time again.

Couple on there with ML taking some pics. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=408477&id=670125703&l=fafb678ec5