HarvSFC

Got to feel for Bree. Hopefully Manning’s learned not to give his winger the freedom of the city, how to play simple passes and put in a dangerous set piece over the last few days, although I doubt it. Really need a motivated Adams to turn up today too.

Remember when Ryan Manning said he had interest from the Premier League… Yeah, nah.

We've tried to be smart and its backfired. Story of last season. Fortunately, Downes and THB look like very good signings, albeit loans.

Bazunu man of the match, didn't think I'd be saying that. The first half is lost without him. Other than that, still pretty boring wins and still feels like we're winning because we have a better eleven and players capable of what KWP produced today, rather than putting the opposition to the sword with our play.

I wanted VAR to come in, in order to stop the big mistakes like Doucoure scoring with his hand, or Gabbiadini having a perfectly fine goal ruled out in a cup final. However, it looks to get too involved. The two above examples were big, but really they were the only two incidents where we were really hard done by off the top of my head, so not really groundbreaking. These days, VAR looks for reasons to disallow a goal, the whole enjoyment of the sport and will get involved during moments where nobodies really appealing for a decision to be made. The refereeing standards in this country are just really poor. It’s a job for the boys setup where if you make a mistake you go to the Championship and then back to the Premier League a week later. The amount of money in the English game, refereeing standards have seemingly always been left behind.

A repeated criticism this season for Martin is that he doesn't always need to make 5 subs. Good teams coped perfectly well before lockdown football with three subs for years and the reason why friendlies often descend into drab affairs is due to the amount of changes leaving the 11 on the pitch disjointed. Yes, we were poor before the equaliser, but the triple sub just made us worse. On that topic, there are on occasion players who are better at coming off the bench than they are starting. Fraser is one of those and despite his good form in recent weeks he shouldn't have started today. Really disappointing to drop points considering how easy the first half was for us. Positive is that we're still unbeaten, but feels like we need 6 points from the two home games this week now.

Rotherham did to Leeds exactly what they did to us. Must practice it.

Imagine getting to an FA Cup semi-final and the three other teams remaining are three from the Championship in Barnsley, West Brom and Cardiff. They just about beat United in the sixth round with Rio Ferdinand in goal. We never got such luck in our cup runs.

His scoring record definitely catches the eye and my heart says he deserves a squad role in our team at the moment. However, my head then reminds me that there are plenty of players who have scored for fun at the younger level and then struggled to make it as a professional. Most recently, Ryan Seager. Sekou Mara also dropped down to the Under-21s once and banged in four goals, giving us a better insight into the levels they play at each week. Agreed, that I don't think Reading was the right move, though. A club in a state off the pitch with a manager who doesn't really value attacking football, or attacking players.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/67490620 13 Premier League clubs voted against it, but Newcastle are about to loan in some very good players to get around FFP.

Aribo and Mara have a lethargic playing style that isn't really suited to English football, it's better in Europe where players get more time on the ball. Pretty poor from the recruitment team when they were signed for a manager that likes his attacking players to press from the top. The two had question marks hanging over their heads in the summer given they showed moments of quality last season and you could forgive some for being poorly managed last season, while Mara himself is still young and moved to a new country. However, neither have really answered those questions in a better team who are lacking a bit of a killer instinct at the moment and neither Aribo nor Mara have shown anything to say they can provide it. Two luxury players who are being carried in the squad at the moment and blocking Amo-Ameyaw in the matchday squads. If we don't sell them in January then they'll surely be sold next summer given the intention to move forward.

Went to Wembley tonight, had hoped to see Bellingham live before he pulled out. Fairly boring game and poor atmosphere. Bring back the Saints.

Yoshida was quite lightweight and occasionally beaten in the air in the Premier League. Probably rank him alongside Stephens. A sometimes dependable third choice centre-back who also had the occasional mistake up his locker.

There’s a chance Sulemana goes to the AFCON in January isn’t there? Could miss him for a fairly important part of the season. For SAA, we should offload Aribo, Mara and Adams in January. Think they’re probably all ahead of him in the pecking order at the moment due to what they’re costing the club in wages. Wouldn’t sit well to have their big wages doing nothing every Saturday. Offloading the three who had offers in the summer, but still had question marks of whether they could do it in a lower league, to which they’ve answered (they can’t, barring Adams who stopped playing as September started). Then that creates the space for SAA to sit on the bench on a Saturday and potentially get minutes should we hold a comfortable lead.

Should probably look to offload Aribo and Mara in January and get SAA back in the first team match squads, as he could start to look elsewhere and given his talent and age he won't be short of suitors. Perfect to give him minutes if we're winning comfortably.

Season making three points that. West Brom being the best and the most in form of the teams we've played on this run and today showed we have turned a corner from September. We lost a bit of the game when Smallbone had to go off. I didn't think Faser for Smallbone was the right sub and it did lose us control of the game and West Brom scored from that with a slight momentum shift also, hitting the bar. But, we responded well and executed the gameplan near perfectly. A few scares at the end with headers, but think given the first half we deserved the three points today. Harwood-Bellis is top class. Should we get promoted he'll be absolutely fine at the back and making the step up like Fonte did. Downes has also been a very good signing. Hopefully West Ham's good form and competition in the centre means they're willing to sell him next summer. Good to see Stewart on the pitch also, who also looked as though he has a bit about him and Holgate having a good game as fill in for Bednarek after his earlier shockers. We aren't putting teams away, but neither did Reading when they pipped us in 2011-12, they were just consistently grinding out wins, like we currently are. 8 games unbeaten, 3 wins on the trot. Need to be near perfection with Leicester, Ipswich and Leeds currently. A tough top four in the Championship. The top club after 16 games last season was QPR on 30 points. We're equalling that, while Leeds, Ipswich and Leicester all have more. Could be another crazy points total needed for the top two this season, like League One last season. Most important thing is that we are good again and watching the football is enjoyable again. Up the Saints.

Recency bias, but playing Elyounoussi every single week despite him contributing absolutely nothing going forward, which you kind of need an attacker to do to win matches.

11 years ago Billy Sharp was integral in helping us get over the line after signing in January with 9 goals in 15 matches. No complaints if Stewart has a similar impact.

1 match, 1 clean sheet.

Deserved three points, felt like it wasn't going to drop for us, but Fraser has that Premier League composure and finishing in his locker, something our other attackers lack. Hopefully Stewart replaces the goals we lost when we sold Tella and is the missing piece in the squad. Unbeaten in 7, a tough game against West Brom coming up next, 4th vs 5th. Leicester and Ipswich drop points. Up the Saints.

Yesssssss!!!!! Ryan Fraser super sub.

KWP gets rugby tackled and Millwall get a free kick.

I think we get fewer Saturday 3pm kick offs down here.

Nigel Pearson's got the sack today, we play Bristol City in a month's time.

Today was fantastic. First half up there with the Leeds first half performance. Second half a bit more of a difficult watch, but ultimately it was a comfortable victory. Nice to see the summer signings Downes and Harwood-Bellis coming into their own now. Both showing why they’re on the books of Premier League clubs. I wasn’t really a fan of Bree last season, he didn’t look like a good footballer and I suggested Meghoma against Preston instead. However, Bree’s proving me wrong and he’s taken his chance well, looked very comfortable today, which is the opposite of Manning. Credit to Martin too as he could have easily put Manning straight back into the 11, but he’s going to have to fight to get back in the squad now. Loved seeing Pahars at half time. I started going to St. Mary’s in 2005 and Pahars was the name I got on the back of my second Saints shirt, Phillips was the first. Unfortunately, Pahars was injured for a lot of that period until he left, but I remember his lap of appreciation then when he left. He also seemed genuinely touched on the pitch today that the club had asked him to come back for this event. One of the good things at the club in recent years is that they’re now acknowledging former favourites and often bringing them out at half time. On a tactical front, I noticed we’re putting a hell of a lot of crosses into the box, we scored from three of them, but there were also a few where it just needed a bit better movement and we’d have scored. Stewart’s YouTube highlights suggest he knows where to be, so hopefully he can convert a few more of the crosses coming in. As we saw today, Sulemana got an assist from a cross he’s played a few times in recent matches without an attacker getting on the end of it. Also shout out to the subs. When Aribo came on, I groaned, and not from excitement, but he was good. Don’t want to see him start, but he has a place in helping us to see out matches. Fraser also, showed his good and bad points (the attempted chip). We’ve also escaped a few penalty calls so far this season. Stoke, Preston and now Birmingham today. Big club bias? We do seem to be on Sky every other week. Unbeaten in six, Ipswich are riding the momentum that we had 11 years ago, but our form dropped and we finished two points above West Ham, hopefully we can be the ones to take advantage when Ipswich lose their form.