Barsiem

Nice for him to finish with us on a high, assuming he is going. I am a long way from his biggest fan, but he had some great spells for us (alongside some terrible ones). His command of the area was excellent yesterday

Anyone else think singing "We Are The Champions" in the aftermath was pushing it a bit?? 😂 Great day. Defended brilliantly so I was fairly relaxed throughout. No bad performances either, and THB has now signed permanently!

It states on the website you have to collect, but they also state you can collect from Wembley from 11am on the day

It's interesting to see the hype around McKenna - being linked with the managers job at Brighton, Chelsea & Man Utd! I can't remember Adkins getting the same hype, albeit social media was a lot simpler back then

Very important win. Need a couple more to drag us away from the bottom teams

Buy it and report the bastard to the club once you know the ticket number! Then get an eBay refund after their tickets cancelled Does it matter if it is true? I think it's good they recognise their staff like that. I'm sure the players receive even more tickets than that....

Can you not pay the £20 for the membership to get in the 9:30 queue? You can still buy a membership

Like the home semi final the people hard done by here are those who have memberships and have been to several games this season. Having to only have been to one game to be eligible first up means it'll be a real scramble. I've screwed myself anyway as none of the games I went to this season are on my season ticket number....

This is probably the single biggest improvement they could make. Stop acting like the guy running about the pitch and seeing things at crap angles is best placed to make decisions and overrule them like what happens in cricket. The worst thing about the pitch side monitor is that the ref always changes his mind in line with the VAR official anyway, so what's the point?

It could happen if 14 PL clubs vote for it... https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c4n1ndlknk1o Would be great if we go up AND don't have to deal with VAR next season! Here's hoping

I'm not going to argue it to death but I will point out that I never stated we don't give youngsters a chance... That would clearly be ridiculous. I stated ( although I admit looking back at my original post, not explicitly) we don't give our academy players a chance. I don't think our current academy players will be loving the fact that lots of young players are being signed from bigger academies and being played over them. The message that sends to me is your better off in a big name academy if you want a team like Southampton to play you. More money, likely better coaches, better standard of players to play with, more opportunities for decent loan moves or transfers. We also do not have a manager currently who is actively looking to give opportunities to these players. We had some dead games at the end of the season where none of the academy players were even on the bench. Adkins started JWP on our first game back to the PL in 2012 away to Man City, Shaw broke through a few months later - when we were fighting relegation. Poch continued this with Chambers & Reed, but since then, with a slight exception of Ralph on occasions, we haven't had a manager who has been prepared to give these players a serious chance. You could argue it was the standard of player that we have currently, but if this group is so great some of them should be getting first team minutes by now. Particularly given we're in the Championship rather than the Prem. But all of this detracts from my main point, which is that if another club is going to pay substantially more wages for you to be in their youth team over Southampton's 99% of players are going to take it, and IMO would be fools not to.

Irrelevant? Who was the last player to establish themselves as a first teamer from our academy? Genuine question as I can't remember! Shaw? Could say Harrison Reed but he was never a regular. Even Tella, who came from the Arse's academy, could only properly establish himself elsewhere. Every player we've given a pathway to in recent years has been a big money move from a big teams academy. This season we have given Samuel Edoize multiple opportunities and Tyler-Dibling an odd cup run out. Only young player who's played this season is Charles (bought from a big clubs academy), who cost us £10m, and even then he's mostly been on the bench. For saints, if you're paying that sort of money for a player, it's to be a regular starter. Only other player who has had a sniff was Amo-Ameyaw, who played a few games in August and was promptly ditched, again to get the odd cup game. Another player who didn't come from the Saints academy So in summary, the best path for a youth player to play for Saints is to sign for a big clubs academy and do ok there, whilst earning more than saints would pay to be in their academy. Then get a big money move, without even playing a senior game for that team, to Saints and be instantly in the match day squad! Anyone who thinks there's a pathway to the first team for our academy hasn't been watching us the last several years

How many of them were from the Saints academy? Precisely zero...

If he's offered significantly more money elsewhere he's going to go. It's a no brainer. I get some will argue it's better to be at a team that will give them first team opportunities but 1) that ain't saints currently and 2) most young players will believe they can make it anywhere and want to be rich. I'll be very interested to see how he develops. The few clips I've watched he's much bigger than everyone else on the pitch, and that isn't going to continue. Doesn't necessarily mean he won't be a great player, but does make me a bit sceptical

And that's why you can't really speculate whether Baz would've been better or worse today. The saves Macca made you would expect any keeper at this level to make, but as we all know it's a lottery with Baz as to whether he stops routine shots or not. Baz would almost certainly not have made the stray passes that Macca did, but he wouldn't have commanded our area the way Macca did either... Let's just be happy with the clean sheet, and hope we get 2 more in our next couple of games

Century for Orr now! Great stuff

Hopefully they're just being super cautious with Turner. We don't want him being as injury prone as Archer (will we finally see him in the Hundred this year?) Anyway we're 85-1 at lunch and Orr has his first fifty for us. Hopefully he's getting to grips with the higher calibre of bowlers in D1 and goes on to find some form. Another low score for Middleton though

Just watched the highlights. Wtf was Jack Stephens doing being furthest forward (and offside!) for our first goal?? Great result, and hopefully gives us momentum for the playoffs. I'm sure someone has pointed this out already, but last time we beat Leeds it was the start of our longest ever unbeaten run. Here's hoping lightning strikes twice!

Shame to hear that and I suppose time will tell next season if we improve dramatically. She won the double in the third tier and kept us well within the top half the last couple of years so she did a great job imo

They've barely spent anything to get to the brink of the PL (apparently c£5m in the last two years). It's not like they are a lower league version of Man City

She's done a great job for us over the years. Hope the new role is her choice rather than the clubs

Disappointing that none of them are even on the bench...

Just saw a lovely shot on TV of Jason Wilcox enjoying watching his new team play 😂

Saints Women showing the men how it's done by scoring a second goal whilst in the ascendancy today! 2-0 against London City so far. 30 mins in

Nah. Armstrong got good contact but it was the perfect spot for the keeper to save it. Not saying it wasn't a decent save but no more than that imo. Armstrong should have given him no chance with his header