vince

Our last 7 games are about as good as you'd want as a newly promoted side, tbh.

Chelsea fans do a "music man" song which works reasonably well and could be adapted... He's Morgan Schneiderlin, and plays the Saints way, and he can play.... What can he play? He plays football.... Spider, spider, spider man, spider man, spider man, spider, spider spider man, spider, spider man...... It's alright, I've got my coat.....

Just back from doing the nippers U7 training, being picked up in 15 with 3 others to drive down the M3 and watch us stick 5 past saggy chops. Come on you saints!!

Surely the "follow Moneyfields" bit should just be replaced with "turn around"

BBC matchday thread says Taarabt is lucky to still be on the pitch, as he has already been booked for kicking the ball away and was then arguing with the ref - that would be a nice result if he picked up another card.

That's what I thought!

On the subject of bets, thought sky bets 3.5 on Spider to pick up a card was too tempting to miss for today.

Not worth starting a new thread over, but got an email today from the FA about a goalkeepers conference at St Georges Park in April, where NA is listed as a guest speaker on the Sunday session, doubt anyone on here is going, but you never know.

Cheers - will try that one, we do do a lot of SSG's. The kids quite like this one as well, which gets them passing and talking - again, an achievement in itself for U7s! http://www.footy4kids.co.uk/don%27t_let_the_ball_stop.htm#

Thanks for that. The "get between the ball and goal" bit (and the game of thirds) is an attempt to start to give them some idea of basic positioning and to stop the "quick kid" emerging from the bunch and running unopposed to score every time - I appreciate they are U7 and are doing the bees round a honey pot thing, but it seems to have worked quite well so far. Speaking to the coaches of the older groups (we do U6-U11) they have talked about telling the defenders to pretend to be attached together by elastic, to introduce the movement you talk about, and I will try that too. The one thing the Level 1 taught me the most, and changed what I did the most, in a session was to debrief them after a drill/game, getting them to think and answer/ask questions about it - basically get them to work it out for themselves so they think about it more during the play, rather than look to me to tell them.

Didn't he also say something like we'd already played all the easy games at home before he got there and he had no chance with those that were left??

There's been a few threads recently about people on here taking the FA Level 1, starting coaching nippers, etc, maybe a thread with drills, ideas, resources and the like would be useful for some, so I'll start with a couple.... I coach my lads U7 side (have done the Level 1, will be doing the youth modules in the summer), and one game they like we call "sharks", where you have an area coned out in a suitable size for the kids you have in the session to be able to dribble around freely in with a bit of space. I pick two boys to be the "sharks" and give them bibs to wear and they come outside the area with me, while the other boys dribble around inside the area. The sharks and I run round the edge, until I shout "go!" and then the sharks try to kick the balls out, while the boys try to defend their ball. I tell the sharks that they can't run forward, they must run another way - side step or similar, just to make it harder for them and easier for the boys to defend their ball, giving them a little more time. After a brief "attack" you change the sharks. The kids seem to really like that one, and I debrief them at the end by asking them how do they protect their ball, how do they move out of the way of the shark, how do they know where the sharks are, just to get them thinking about the exercise. We end the session with a free for all game, but just before that, I get them to play a game of thirds, where we cone of the pitch in thirds, and put the kids in a specific third - so for 6 a side, you have a keeper and two defenders in the last third, two midfielders in the middle third, and a single attacker in the final third and they are not allowed to leave that third. This makes them pass between the areas and think about movement within their area. When we go into the free for all game (i.e. remove the cones separating the pitch into thirds) I've recently asked one of the boys in turns of a couple of minutes or so, to "play the final third" for me, asking them to stay at the back and take them through what they should think about (can you see the nearest attacker and the ball, are you positioned between the ball and your goal, is there anyone behind you, are you too deep) and this is beginning to work really well for that age group, they take their turn and they defend their goal. I do a load more things with them, but would be interested in what others do - even for different age groups, just to get a few more ideas.

99 after today, I believe.

Looked to me like Shaw and JRod had been told to defend corners with Shaw on the near post, JRod on the corner of the 6 yard box. For the first Wigan goal, they are set up like that, but a Wigan player makes a run to go short - Shaw runs out to prevent a two on one with that runner and the corner taker, which is why the space is opened up for the header to go in at the post Shaw left. Bit unfortunate for us, but Shaw had to go once the runner went.

A better result for Norwich that QPR, that's for sure. Now lets do our job this afternoon and put some daylight between us and the rest.

You've not read many build up threads in the last year, have you.

There's some tight games on Saturday around us - a win will be absolutely massive and on tonight's performance, well within our grasp.

Tempole Tudor - Swords of a Thousand Men (who saw them in Woolston, 86ish do this live, quality stuff) When Morgan makes a tackle at the end of the play, some will chicken out, some will run away, Hear our triumph, hear our roar, He'll probably take you out or much more, more, more, Hoorah, hoorah, hoorah, yea, Morgans gonna get ya with the strength of a thousand men, ba dah da......ba dah da..... Hoorah, hoorah, hoorah, yea, Morgans gonna get ya with the strength of a thousand men....... (clap clap clap, on your own, on you own........ knock knock........who's there's?..... owen, owen who?..................and fade.....)

I did a cruise down the Nile a few years ago and loved it, the teenagers may actually enjoy the sightseeing tours too.

He was at Palace for a while when Jose was there. The fans called him "Font B" apparently.

Spider got MotM from Sky last night, and his contribution was highlighted quite extensively in the post match disection on there, so it doesn't appear that his contribution is going unnoticed in some parts.

This is the harsh reality of the football world, unfortunately. Regardless of whether or not you agreed with his team selections or substitutions, he always came across as an honourable and decent man, so to be treated like this is a poor reflection on the club. I hope he does well in where ever he goes next and will always get a warm reception from me if he returns as an opposing manager one day. But as others have said, the king is dead, long live the king, and if we are to stay up, then we will simply have to get being the team - Chelseas recent home form show you exactly what happens when the crowd turn on the manager.

Not London, but I know a few on here are reasonably local to me - Bulls Head in Dorking, will have it on.

It was £150 last summer, but you get a discount if you are associated to a Charter Standard club of about £30. The course I did was every Monday/Wednesday night for 4 weeks, 6:30 to 10, although none of them ran that late, which makes it easier if you don't want to do full days straight through.

Did mine last summer - well worth doing and helped a lot with the u7's that I'm coaching. Hoping to do the youth modules next summer as the instructor thought that is more appropriate for me for the age group - would be interested in hearing about those if anyone else has done them. The Level 1 course book has kids in Saints kit on the cover too, which I happily pointed out to the mainly Chelsea supporters out of the other 20 blokes on the course.