HarvSFC

Got a good first time assist. Kelleher looked as poor as Bazunu has for us at times this season. Latvia scored 2 out of their 3 shots on target. But, Bazunu does it against Premier League opposition and Latvia just aren't that, while Kelleher warms the Liverpool bench. More big club bias on the old international stage. Another Saints link with Pahars still being part of the Latvia coaching setup.

No more "punts" in the summer, if we stay up. We need four quality £20m+ players, rather than eight £10m punts. It's where last summer went wrong and has been the case for a few windows now.

Palace are in their Ankersen-Jones era. Just got to hope Hodgson performs just as badly, which he did at Watford last season, losing 13 of his 18 games, winning 2.

Ran out of favourites.

Mitrovic only has two league goals since October. Compared to our forwards that's world class form, but he's reverted to type a bit after a strong start.

The Ross Wilson effect.

I don’t get the Elyounoussi selections either. The argument against Edozie and Djenepo is that they give up possession too easily, which they do. However, to my eye Elyounoussi surrenders possession for us just as much and brings nothing and we all know it’s absolutely nothing going forward either. The only thing with Elyounoussi is that he loses the ball a lot of the time indirectly. Indirectly when he can’t get to a through ball because he’s too slow against any full-back in the league. While he also loses it directly because he moves at a walking pace when he does have the ball and he’s also a bit crap on the ball. Leicester being the most recent example. He was brought on to help us defend a lead. We defended the lead, but it wasn’t any thanks to him as the ball was coming straight back down our end every time it went up the field. Now, I also know that Edozie and Djenepo are a bit crap. But, for now they are Southampton players. They are two options and two better options than Elyounoussi and they’d have given the Brentford players a lot more to think about than what we offered up last night. Heck, they’d at least win free kicks and that’s our best scoring opportunity at the moment, while opposition defenders take the ball off Elyounoussi with ease. You get nothing from not taking any gambles and this shit risk averse football that we play is leaving us rooted to the bottom of the league table.

Need to appoint an attack minded manager in the summer. Selles is safety first and it will be even more dour to watch us play sideways football against Rotherham. Adkins set us up to win every game, we were the highest scorers in the league in 2011-12 and that's what we need.

We lost the game before kick off. Unforgiveable to start Diallo and Elyounoussi in any fixture after being here for 27 league matches, let alone a fixture of this importance. The one winnable fixture of the three this week. Diallo's comfortably the worst central midfielder in the league. Can't make a simple pass and gives up possession every time, meaning we had no control of the game in the first half. Whilst, Elyounoussi is a trier, but he can't move. Our passes to feet weren't working, so when we did try to pass into the space on the side that Sulemana wasn't on, Brentford were just mopping it up as neither Elyounoussi or Adams have any legs. I guess Edozie and Djenepo were too forward thinking for our manager, as even though they do lose possession more often than not, Elyounoussi also does, but also doesn't create any excitement either. Too many sideways safety passes that gets you nowhere against Premier League defenders. I made a joke in the week, but how Toney continues to play after admitting to 200+ betting offences, only the FA knows. Best bit of the match was Bednarek giving him a bit after he left a boot in on Bazunu towards the end of the match. KWP going off injured was shit. He should've also been brought off straight away after going down, don't know why we kept him on for a few extra minutes. Nathan Jones' son looked crap. Can't carry the ball and just hits the ball and hopes for the best, even when he hoofed what should have been a simple pass down the line to Walcott. Ref was shit. Predicted it on Sunday, we've been false dawn football club this season. Only show up against the big boys.

Time for Toney to finally be banned from playing football, I reckon.

Very good result and performance to boot. Only complaint we can really have is that we didn't take all 3, which I wasn't even thinking of prior to kick off. Almost exactly a month ago we were playing against a 10 man Wolves team with a goal advantage at home and lost 2-1. We were by far the worst team in the league, had no fight in us and were sinking without a whimper. Now, we're fighting again and that's the main thing. We're fighting at the right time, while the likes of Leicester, Palace and Forest after a little resurgence are struggling when time is running out. Yes, we could have scored today and a better team would have, but we also had to get through Varane, Martinez and De Gea, who are all playing at the top of their game, barring last week and currently up there with the best. Shaw's back to his best also and Wan-Bissaka is known for being one of the better defensive full-backs. Their strength is their defence, while Rashford is in the best form of his career and scoring everything, which we stopped today. One thing that always leaves me perplexed is how Walcott's technical ability has diminished almost over night. He's lost the explosive pace he had, but I always felt he was a bit underrated for his actual footballing ability at Arsenal. It was only 2017 when he hit 19 goals in 37 appearances in all comps (10 in 28 in the league) and some of the goals he did score were of a high quality. But, today, nothing fell for him. The header, the 1 v 1 and the failed through ball on the counter to JWP. You expect a player to lose pace, etc. as they get older, but he's not playing like a player who spent 13 years at Arsenal and won 47 England caps. But, ah well, suppose his footballing brain is still good and he's better than a lot of our other number 10s who can't even work a chance. Key thing now is that we give a similar performance against Brentford in midweek. We've had plenty of false dawns this season, beating Chelsea twice, beating City in the cup and then following it with an amateur performance where the players don't look like they've seen each other before. We need to make this the start of a good run now, up the Saints!

Was against Jorginho at Chelsea.

Now that's a depressing stat!

Been banned from Fratton Park three times this season and six matches in total. https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/football/portsmouth-fc/john-westwood-banned-for-third-time-this-season-as-portsmouth-fc-fanatics-handbell-gesture-to-friend-caught-on-ifollow-4032417 You'd struggle to find someone dimmer than him.

Van Dijk having a shocker.

Not quite another game and I haven't watched much of MotD over recent years for obvious reasons, but Lineker's not presenting this weekend, or the foreseeable and Shearer and Wright have both said they aren't doing it without Lineker. Could be the beginning of an end of another footballing era.

Would be better to play Forest when they're on holiday mode at the City Ground, rather than a decisive match. They've only picked up 6 points away from home this season. Of course 3 of those were against us. Their other 19 have come at home, so a tough place to go, made easier if they have nothing left to play for.

One day we're going to get a comfortable victory. When we missed the penalty and VAR popped up after our goal, I thought it wasn't going to be our day. But, because we sacked Nathan Jones, God was surely looking down on us today as we really rode our luck. On the penalty, we haven't had a good penalty kick taker since Lambert left. Tadic, Ings and now Ward-Prowse who has missed his last two have all missed their fair share of them from what I can remember. Let somebody else take the next one, please. Maitland-Niles gave their attackers the freedom of the city and Bazunu did his best to give Leicester a goal, but other than that I thought the rest did their jobs okay. We didn't test Danny Ward in the second half and I'd have personally brought on Onuachu instead of Mara to give us an out ball and some hold up play, but we'll take the three points however we can. Alcaraz has been our best January signing by some distance, so weird he was the one that was dropped after he scored against Wolves. Hopefully his injury isn't too bad and we need to keep him in the team now. Leicester fans can keep singing about the 9-0 all they want. They only get 3 points for that. Our two results this season have generated more points than they got against us in 19-20. As I've always said, losing 9-0 once is better than losing 1-0 nine times. The table looks a lot healthier now. A Forest 3-0 win tomorrow would be fantastic. Two points from safety due to GD, no more cup distractions, so lets turn Wednesday's tragedy into a positive. Up the Saints!

Edozie, Djenepo, Sulemana. No end product between the three of them, but they do always look to take on the opposition and do cause problems at times. Elyounoussi and either Armstrong are too easy to defend against and bring the ball right back to our own half. With Onuachu and Adams as well, who aren’t that good at carrying the ball, then we need the carriers around them, rather than a static front four that we have started most of this season with. Even against Grimsby there wasn’t enough movement up top, so hoping two of the three start today with the other coming off the bench.

Semmens used the fans forum last year to critique fans stating a negative home atmosphere doesn't help the team, despite the team not turning up for the last two months of the season and picking up their £50k+ a week, while we're paying good money for a shit product. Then came Nathan Jones, who went to war with the fans every week in his press conferences for three months, even after a win against Blackpool, despite only winning one league match and losing the rest in his three months in charge. Although, he did have a 100% league record if you didn't include Liverpool, Brighton, Fulham, Forest, Villa, Brentford and Wolves. Now, you have the club's mouthpieces trotting out every week that the team needs the fans, etc. Well, I hope on Saturday that the atmosphere starts toxic from minute one. It won't, but I wish it did. Last night's performance was unforgiveable. Players on 100s of thousands a month being made to look like amateurs by League Two footballers who play three times a week for a pittance of what the Southampton players are undeservedly earning. We're relegated. Support isn't going to change anything now, it's too late. We've directed our anger at Hasenhuttl and Jones. The boardroom and the players have had an easy ride up to this point. I support the club and the city I was born and still live in, but these individuals who simply put on the logo aren't deserving of any support.

Remember when we appointed Selles until the end of the season because he got a flukey win against Chelsea? Soft as shit penalty and the ref didn't even blow straight away, but Grimsby deserve to be leading. We aren't staying up, the club's mouthpieces can stop harping on about needing the fans, that boat has now long sailed. All vitriol now needs to be aimed at the board and the players. Make it known that this is unacceptable, as we've been putting up with this since February 2022.

The Grimsby right winger stopped the ball from flying right past him with his arm though?

Someone go through that Maher for Grimsby, not interested in playing football.

I reckon he'll go to cement his record above Beckham's and become the best Premier League free kick taker of all time. Would be some legacy and need someone extraordinary to take the record if he doesn't waste a year in the Championship. Surprised he's been here for this long to be honest and was surprised he signed the new contract a couple of summers ago. I thought it was a statement of intent, but we've gone backwards massively for a player with his unique ability, which is world class level.