Shandy_Top_89

Tricky as I think playing behind closed doors is sensible and probably necessary, but I agree that I’d be hacked off if the rest of the season was played behind closed doors and all we get is a stream / no refund given the extreme cost of season tickets these days. Not that going to watch Saints at home is a particularly enjoyable experience anyway.

I highly HIGHLY doubt Jack Ma is interested in buying Saints. However, if he is I suggest the clubs employees invest in union memberships...

Solid defensively display with 10 men and then bang...... McCarthy deserved more. Any clowns still blaming the fans? Absolutely brilliant effort from the crowd today to help foster the bunker mentality, unfortunately let down again by the worst home players in English football over the last three years.

Tbh if we were to drop a midfielder I’d rather it was Højbjerg, offering absolutely nothing and might as well be a training cone in terms of resistance offered. Prowse and Smallbone at least have some creativity. Hideous from McCarthy and the defenders for that second, notice when the ball comes back down everyone is stood totally still. West Ham have pressed well and it looks like we haven’t prepared for it.

Selfish bastards wanting better than worst home form in the league and expecting not to have the worst home result in top division history, who do they think they are?

It’ll be what we make it to be. If we sold him for anything less than £50m I think there would be a backlash, he’s gradually becoming our most important player. Getting slightly concerned that we will struggle to keep him in the summer, maybe the interest in Højbjerg will shield us for a season.

Can't be many players out there who have a greater disparity between their own opinion of their ability and their actual footballing ability?

A lot is made of poor / great support relating to different teams, but bar the odd exception most clubs are pretty much the same. Good atmosphere when on a good run, bad atmosphere when on a bad run, indifferent atmosphere when middling. I think we are pretty average tbh and no different to other clubs of the same size and actually given the absolute ****e we have been treated to when for a prolonged period, including the worst home result in top flight history I don’t think that’s a bad effort. I’d also say our away support is above average when we get the numbers.

I don't blame the fans one iota for the poor form of the team at home, this one lands straight at the feet of the players and they deserve no excuse for the ****e they have subjected us to over the past three years at home. I think given the tripe on display we have actually stayed behind them very well, plenty of other clubs would have seen fans boycotting after three years of bottom three home form on the bounce with little sign of effort to turn things around, especially given we are in the top 10 for season ticket costs. Of course thats not to say we don't have idiots, but we are no worse than any other club in that regard.

Burnley (h) - d Villa (h) - w West Ham (a) - w Newcastle (h) - d Norwich (a) - d Going to be optimistic and say 9 points. That would get us to the magic 40 with 8 games left, which would be totally miraculous given where we were.

Ignoring potential outgoings we need: 1 x RB 1 x CB 1 x CM I would have said LB, but I think Vokins is establishing himself as back up. Then if the following leave; Bertrand - x1 LB (Personally I think he will be here next season) Højbjerg - x1 CM Long - x1 Striker (I think Adams and Obafemi will stay) Yoshi is definitely off, Boufal highly likely, but we may feel we already have enough depth on the wings.

Odd really as I would imagine Scouse - Shrews would be the shoe in for BT.

Bad news all around really. Similar to Watford - Wolves in the FA Cup last year in that a team capable of beating Man City capitulated to cannon fodder. Then in the off chance Villa actually win then that is a Europa League spot taken. /Misery.

Doubt we will get near filling that allocation at £25. At £10 that would have been a different matter.

Agreed, it looked like he was standing proud, soaking in the plaudits to me. Not all celebrations have to be all singing and dancing. Someone raised a point about atmosphere which I think was interesting. Without the Northam the chanting was less frequent but when it kicked in the whole ground was much more involved and a lot louder, strange what removing the ‘Home End’ can do.

I feel a bit sorry for Danso having his only chances out of position, but he was definitely the weak link today, caused the whole back line problems as Stephens was having to run out to cover him causing gaps in the centre. Felt like he was certainly fouled for their goal too, but was in the wrong position regardless so I think Son was in whether or not he got bowled over. Hard to see where he fits honestly, he isn’t breaking in at CB and he has struggled at RB when given the chance, appreciate his age but I don’t think he has done enough (whether he has had adequate chance or not) to earn a permanent move. When he came off and JWP slotted back at RB our defence immediately improved. Outside of that an entertaining game, Ings off the boil but it had to happen sometime. Armstrong injury a blow but Djenepo is good enough cover on the right hand side. Good to see Boufal get a goal. Also thought Obafemi had a decent second half and Prowse is at peak performance. Strong showing in the second half, fancy our chances away.

Yeah but when the summer comes we would only have Stephens, Bednarek and Wesley ****, so would need two new CBs, which would be a difficult task to face when we also need a new RB and possibly a CM to challenge Højbjerg.

Having had an evening to unwind, I think that was a bit of an isolated incident (hopefully). Overall I think Hasenhuttl should have taken off Long for Romeu at 2-1 and packed the midfield. They caught us because we continued to press unnecessarily. We will learn more from how we react against Palace. Re: Cedric and Bertrand - Both offered a lot going forward, but were not tracking back and Wolves exploited the gaps in the flanks repeatedly.

Re: Those comments about the kid running on to the pitch. Was it the kids parent that got into that almighty scrap with the stewards down towards the family section? Looked like a pretty violent episode.

That is laughable I’m afraid. At least Adams has some assists.

Boufal definitely has something, but Redmond is clearly the better all-round player of the two. Also Boufal only has 18 months left on his contract and there’s no way he is signing a new one, so the club might want to recoup some money.

If the club override Hasenhuttl in this scenario, that sounds like a sure fire way to unsettle our best Manager in years. Adams is obviously improving, unless they have something very special in the fire, we would be daft to sell him especially at a loss.

Last night was another example of VAR doing its job correctly, under the rules that is a handball. The issue is the rules are too pedantic, accidental handball needs to be considered as such (although even an accidental handball shouldn’t be allowed to give you an advantage), and if you are getting frustrated at the very narrow offsides, then it’s the offside law you want to change, not VAR.

I’d suggest you are just looking for conflict, which says more about you than anything else.

Wonder if a home draw against a decent WSL team might land them a game at St Mary’s? I’d be up for it, they are playing so well that they deserve some love, doing Saints proud atm. With regard to the FA Cup, did a mock draw (yes, I’m that sad) and we had the Hamptons derby at home. I quite fancy Oxford actually. In reality we will probably get City away again or something like that.