HarvSFC

Alongside the previous two months where clubs were postponing matches with minimal COVID cases, but citing injuries and internationals to ensure those players were back for the rearranged fixture, which gives them a far bigger advantage than a 30 second break. While, we were what looked on the outside following strict COVID regulations to ensure there wasn't an outbreak at the club, which there wasn't. It's no surprise that COVID/injuries hasn't affected clubs after the postponement rules got stricter and football got out of the hectic Christmas schedule.

Looking at who's coming up, Fulham are. You never really know what to expect from them. They usually spend good money and go down. It's got to click at some point, you'd imagine? They aren't like the yo-yoing Norwich, unfortunately. It would be good if the south coast's number one club, Bournemouth failed to come up after gambling on promotion on deadline day, although they're four points clear with two games in hand. Can see them going straight back down under Parker. Then QPR, Blackburn and Huddersfield are all clubs who are having unexpected seasons given the resources available to the trio, they may not survive up here though and Sheffield United won't likely stay up with Heckingbottom having another shot.

I wonder if we would negotiate a release clause with Salisu to extend his deal, seeing as we negotiated a buy back clause for the first time to secure Livramento. I don't think we'd get Salisu's true value this summer and then the next he goes into his final year. Of course you'd also have to make the release clause enticing for the player, so he's not going to accept a release clause of say £60m-£75m. But, then of course, his agent could just be in his ear now telling him that he'd net at least £20m as a signing on fee if he sees out his contract here, which comes with its own risks (injuries, etc.) I guess we could work a gentlemen's agreement like we apparently did with Van Dijk without the circus of then rejecting a deal following, and Kane's situation last season also might dissuade players from that route. Arghhh, too many scenarios! I don't envy the decision makers, but will be delighted if that announcement of a new contract comes up. (It's like his signing all over again).

Some say they were calling for more flexibility and being harder to beat, while others were calling for John Terry to take charge. 🤣

That win was dedicated to @Dorchester Saint. Going to be a tough ask for Everton to finish above us now. At least Alli got a good run out. Previously I compared Romeu to Wanyama and how much better Romeu is. But, that now feels disingenuous. He’s playing like Schneiderlin was, now. All over the pitch, wins tackles for fun, passes the ball silkily, he just needs to add the trademark cross field balls. Like I said last week, he’s elite, his best season here. MotM today. The other player who impressed me the most was the other experienced head in the team - Armstrong. Was playing like a man possessed in the first half, beating players like Lallana/Mane would, always looking to attack, playing good passes and was rewarded with a goal. Made up for last week’s performance against United. Looked a lot more on it today. Good performance overall and Long showed his experience at the end, even getting a rare goal! Both Everton and Newcastle are 5 points off 20th, what a dream that would be. @Lord Duckhunter’s favourites Lampard and Howe, while Hasenhuttl sits comfortably in 10th with the rest of the “cult”.

There’s also the chance of getting to the semi-final, being the only Premier League with Championship Barnsley, West Brom and Cardiff being the other semi-finalists. Would be laid on a plate for us. 🤷‍♂️

I enjoyed the JPT for a season, count me in for the Conference League.

Why hasn't the FA kept tabs on this? Has far more influence on a match than our little one minute breaks.

Yeah, Hooiveld was better suited to the Championship, while Fonte suited and adapted to the Premier League better. Good player and was exactly what we needed at the time of his signing.

The magic sponge/spray didn’t gain its title because it’s actually magic… This isn’t a revolutionary thing and I could write the same article about the other 19 Premier League clubs and feigning injuries. We see it every week as fans and always have done in the modern game. We’ve just been taken over… Surely there’s something more interesting to write about?

Dortmund are consistently within the top three of the Bundesliga despite being a stepping stone club. It is a less competitive league, but they’ve shown you can succeed even when selling your best players. It’s all about getting the replacements and the scouting right. That’s where clubs fail. If you have a supply chain of Lewandowski, Gotze, Hummels, Aubameyang, Dembele, Sancho and now Haaland, you won’t go wrong. Atalanta are following a similar pathway, breaking into Serie A’s top four and competing in the Champions League, despite having a 21,000 seater stadium and being a yo-yo club in the 2000s. Its no secret that our best period of recent years came when we had the brain of Paul Mitchell heading our recruitment. Replacing Lovren with an Alderweireld and then replacing Alderweireld with a Van Dijk was fine. It’s when you start replacing Van Dijk with a Hoedt/Vestergaard that the problems arise.

Schneiderlin had his best season following the summer he was told to stay and earnt his move the year later, Van Dijk had his worst half season the summer he was told to stay and was gone before the January window opened. Unfortunately in today's football, the latter is more often the case if you don't grant players their moves, they just stop playing. Look at Kane... JWP has more league goals than him this season. The key thing is not letting them all go at once. I know that we survived it before and even improved, but it's a risky strategy.

Does anybody know why we couldn't have played Newcastle this week?

I'm hoping that the takeover allows us to go back to the Southampton of seven years ago. Selling a Lallana and getting a Tadic, selling a Lambert and getting a Pelle, selling a Shaw and getting a Bertrand (following initial loan), selling a Lovren and getting a Alderweireld (loan fee + wages) and then Van Dijk a year later, selling a Chambers and getting a Long. AND THEN still having enough to bring in Forster, Gardos, Mane, Taider (ermmm), Elia and Djuricic. Under Gao, we simply couldn't do that and had to keep the books balanced at all times regarding transfer expenditure and income, e.g. a Targett sale gets you an Adams, but nothing more and needing to spread out the Ings and Vestergaard money from this summer, but not going over what came in. It's similar to the Leicester model, but also, they've shown this season, like we have, what one poor summer window can do to your club. Maybe Les Reed was right that they are trying to copy us. I think that's the difference that the takeover has brought in. We'll still be a selling club, but hopefully we can get rid of the net spend trophy.

Why else did we sign Ollie Lancashire?

Howe had 1 win in 10 before 22nd January. Including an embarrassing defeat against Cambridge. Everyone knows what changed between his appointment and the 22nd January and it wasn’t his tactics. His record could have been worse had Newcastle played their two scheduled fixtures, but they beat Everton after pushing the game back. Newcastle would’ve remained in the same position as Norwich, Watford and Burnley had they not spent the most amount of money in Europe. The homesick excuse was coming.

RIP Minsk. Given the nature of the fixture list at the beginning of the season, we had a difficult start, spawning some negativity. Your thread provided some context to the results and brought along some positivity and belief that the situation wasn't as bad as it appeared. Thank you, true Saint.

I love this team. For years, we've have mediocre, big ego players giving post-match interviews promising changes and nothing happening. These guys do it on the pitch. Romeu's my man of the match. He's elite, better than Wanyama was in that he isn't just an excellent ball winner, but can play with the ball too and contributes in us keeping the ball up the pitch, which is another element of defending. He's not getting the big move at 30, so it's now a question of how long he can keep this up for, like it was with Steven Davis, albeit a different player. I think that McCarthy is unfairly criticised on here, like Stephens is, who put in another good performance today, coming on at half time with some calling game over at his presence on the pitch. But, Forster was on another level today and pulled off some very good stops in midweek too. He's looking like the Forster before the big contract again, who would pull off important saves if the Alderweireld/Fonte/Schneiderlin/Wanyama wall in front of him was broken and contributed to our brilliant defensive record of that period. Adams is also coming on leaps and bounds now. Today's finish was one you'd have expected to come from Ings in previous years with Adams known more for his power shots. But he put it away clinically. The goals compliment his all round game, which has been excellent in recent weeks. Broja's on another level. Once he adds the goals to all the chances that he creates himself, he will be world class. Four points from Tottenham and Manchester United away, we'll take that. Maybe our top form is to come in the second half of this season. 🤷‍♂️

Saints scoring soon after an unfunny “game over” post is becoming a nice theme.

Forster’s back to pre-big contract Forster and I liked him.

Martinelli sent off for two fouls in one phase of play tonight, which I haven't seen since Chris Baird playing for Northern Ireland many years ago. West Ham know what they're doing by deflecting the Zouma story and bringing up the race card.

Outstanding. Only criticism would be that Hasenhuttl didn't walk up to Conte with his finger over his lips after the way that bloke with the embarrassing hair transplant acted after going 2-1 up. We outplayed the cheats, the referee and got the result the match deserved. JWP is a Van Dijk money player now, considering how much goals and assists are worth today. We should try those crosses more often, both were right on the money and we were right not to sell him for £50m to Aston f**king Villa in the summer. Perraud's found his feet now after looking a bit Cedricy early doors. Hit the bar again, similar to the one against Wolves. If he can keep those long range shots up and turn some into goals, that would be very handy. Stuart Armstrong is finding his form again, such an effective player. Him and Broja are just so direct and attack minded and its the perfect trait to have as a footballer, rather than turning and playing the safe pass, which are eventually easy to defend. The takeover has seemed to lift the club on all fronts without many changes, which is what we wanted. We've broken back back into the top 10 of the Premier League, which is pretty remarkable considering we've had a bottom three net spend for a good few years now. Up the Saints. This is why we support Southampton.

Send Chelsea that miss.

BIG - He loves the hitting the badge celebration too. He was part of Spurs’ academy as well.