kitch

It is if you're a natural pessimist like me, and assume that's the last victory we'll have in that cup

Good man!

Still buzzing now! I convinced the wife to let my young boys stay up and watch until the full time whistle, on a school night. So glad I did! They won't get to experience many moments like that lol! Bit of a nightmare getting them ready for school this morning though! I voted Yoshi for MoM, but in reality there are 4 or 5 candidates for that. Nobody played badly, though I don't think Tadic had has best night. Don't care! They're all heroes. I told my wife I was considering leaving her to become a homosexual and set up home with Shane Long. Brilliant setup from Puel, everybody knew their role, kept the organisation. I've remained in the pro-Puel camp, and recently I've felt a bit of a loon for doing so. Last night was badly needed! Ref had a good came too. Showed real backbone, and didn't favour the media-darling side at all. Lastly, our fans. Wow! If you were lucky enough to be there, hold your heads high. We could hear every word on the telly, and at times all you could hear at Anfield was OWTS. Brilliant! I'm glad I wasn't there, as I'm **** at singing and would have let you all down! Legends.

Starting with Clasie and JWP in the same lineup is never a good idea. I'd swap in Hoj for Clasie and then be prepared to switch them at 60mins or so. Can't decide if I'd put Bertrand in where Stephens goes, and stick McQueen on the left or not. McQueen's good, deserves a run, but at the expense of Bertrand in his strongest position? Would stick Long on for Redmond or Tadic in the second half, assuming we're not trailing, have him up top with JRod and tell everyone else to stay the **** back, just lump balls to those two!

But even less right with one...

That really grated on me. Little chav *****! Forgot to say something positive! Thought Cedric was our MOM today. Industrious workrate, covered defence and attack brilliant. As good a performance as we ever saw from Clyne, IMO. Hojbjerg and Romeu both good too (PEH needs shooting practice though). JWP had a good first half, died off in the second. JRod's goal was excellent too. I didn't think he got enough praise for it what with the focus on JWP's. Yes, that was good too, but the keeper should have done better. JRod's was akin to trying to fling a Frisbee sideways through a letterbox. To be fair, there were no bad performances today. I really think Puel has to think twice before playing Martina over Cedric now though. There is a massive gulf between them. Enjoyed the game. On to Liverfool!

Agree with that, especially the Hojbjerg comments. I thought he oozed class and quality when he first played, but he does seem to have regressed. Could that be down to all the rotation? i.e. he doesn't get a chance to get a string of games together?

Spot on.

I was in the corner of the Chapel/Itchen. It was like a library, really, and I'm not the vocal type. Wasn't much to get excited about though. Me and my brother said next time we're gonna sit in the Northam and see what it's like. No one will be able to hear me chant the wrong thing!

I don't get a chance to get to many games, and last night was the only one I've managed this season so far. What a game to pick! It was brilliant................as a demonstration of what a really boring match looks like. All joking aside, happy/relieved to get the win. Norwich didn't seem to want it, and were there for the taking. We looked really poor IMO. Totally devoid of ideas or creative spark. Whether that's because the players aren't on the ball, or because they've been told to stay regimented and play it safe, I don't know. All I do know is that last night, most of them looked properly miserable. Something's definitely off the boil with the team, and I'm no bedwetter. I've remained upbeat about the season, but actually watching first hand last night just showed how frustrating we are to behold. Somebody! Anybody! Please, please try and shoot! I don't know if it's a confidence thing, or what. But it is dire to watch. Still, a win, is a win, and a fair few players did put in a shift. Lewis - had nothing to do, so couldn't put a foot wrong! Martina - OK in parts, but slows the attack down so badly. None of the decent crosses we've seen him do in the past. Stephens - Composed, looked decent when called upon, but wasn't really tested. Yoshida - Likewise. A couple of missed passes, but looked cool and had a pop at Lewis (who I'm guessing wasn't instructing the wall concisely) when we were defending a freekick in a captain-sort of way. McQueen - Best player for us. Worked his socks off, gave his all. My only grievance was the quality of his crossing and shooting. He didn't look left-footed (he may not be?) Otherwise, decent performance. Clasie - OK, nothing amazing. Couple of sloppy passes, closed down quickly and aggressively though. Useful. Reed - Not his best came. Ineffective, lucky not to get booked. JWP - Incisive runs, long-range diagonal balls, some killer through-balls and was unlucky not to score 3 or 4 times* Sims - Did well. Lots of energy, ran the ball to the box plenty of times, looked up, and found nobody to pass to. Norwich had everyone defending, and our forwards weren't doing much to make room. Inevitably lost the ball. Felt for him. Long - Completely ineffective on the left. Better when moved into the centre, but didn't really do much. Ball played to his feet all the time, which, with all due respect, is not something he's good at. Didn't do much, fortunate he got the goal. JRod - Didn't offer much. Fed scraps at times, but didn't do much to try and make the best of them. Pea-roller shot in the first half about all he did. Gutted, I was hoping he'd make the difference. Romeu and Redmond - Big difference when they came on. Romeu actually tries to pass through the opposition, rather than just around them. Redmond didn't seem to do much himself, but the team definitely pressed a lot more when he came on. If we'd have played Newcastle last night, we'd have been spanked silly. * not really.

If you think this forum is bad, you want to see the bed-wetters on social media. Saints fans on Facebook - replying to stuff the club or various news sites have posted - nothing short of embarrassing. Half the ****ers can't even spell!

Risky, but I like Sean Dyche.

I'm guessing they want to fill out the rest of the ground and have the only empty stand as the one that isn't facing the cameras. (assuming it's filmed/broadcast). There will be some financial/image reason as to why they've done it. Personally I think they'd be better off just opening the whole thing, try and spread the atmosphere a bit rather than having one silent stand (that isn't the Chapel).

Signed for Wycombe permanently now: https://southamptonfc.com/news/2017-01-07/dom-gape-southampton-wycombe-wanderers-transfer-announcement

On the flipside, we can get Osvaldo back now....

+1.

The only bump with this is that I've also heard one or two players talking Puel up, though that's in interviews and phone-ins. Austin was singing his praises a month or so ago. Said he's very quiet to camera and one to one, but is anything but in training and on the side of the pitch. Certainly, I've seen him up and about and positively charged, as opposed to Koeman who seemed to have a flat battery. I'm not sure what to think, but my gut feeling (and I'm in the 'Remain' camp) is that it's probably true. There's too much to make up, and if it is true, then keeping him and EB on until the end of the season is risky business. It's been up, up, up since 2009. There was bound to be a hiccup somewhere along the way. Hope it's just Chinese whispers and there's nothing to it, but Puel needs to get this shown on the pitch.

Boufal vs. Sunderland for me too. I loved J-Rod's against Bournemouth, but Boufal's was sublime. It was also the winning goal. Close, but of those two it's Boufal. The remaining two were good, but not amazing, for my money.

Spot-on there.

The railways were a MASSIVE deal. They changed so much about the way people lived their lives, not just the way they got to work. Utterly fascinating when you get into it. The fact that we wouldn't have had The Dell if it weren't for the railways is just a tiny piece of a much bigger jigsaw!

We play like I play on FIFA 17. Too much passing, nothing going on up front, defend like hell and too often make a mistake that lets another team score with their first shot. I can't change the way I play, for love nor money. Try as I might, it's still the endless dross that becomes so boring, I get bored watching myself play it. That's how we play now. Sorry lads

Didn't know that, cheers! Found some pics on the DNSR here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/91463401@N08/sets/72157667823506732/with/26800669321/

Ok, so possibly 99 out of 100 people will find this pretty boring, but I'll share it anyway just in case the 1% lurks among us! Being originally from Eastleigh (now living in a PO postcode, but Stubbington's a nice place - honest!) and having a family who pretty much originate from there and Southampton, it was likely in the event that I was the focus in an episode of "Who Do You Think You Are?", that you'd have quite a lot of railway-based history. And you would - generations of my family have worked on the railways in and around Eastleigh and Southampton. I'm not much of a train buff myself. I enjoy the Watercress Line and all that, but I couldn't tell the difference between different steam engines. Apart from Mallard. Oddly, however, I quite like disused railways, and tracing old routes that no longer exist. I quite enjoy local history and changing landscapes, so it probably stems from that. And the railway links, of course. So, potentially mind-numbingly boring fact no.1 - Rivalry: We're back in 1834. Some top hat-adorned gentlemen formed the London & Southampton Railway Company, one of the intentions of which was to build a network of railways around the Solent. They'd opened the main route from London to Southampton in 1840, and it was a roaring success. They wanted to build railways in the area quicker than their rivals would get a chance to, so formed plans to cover the south in their tracks. One of the most obvious routes here would be to link the two biggest cities (may have been towns back then, I'm not sure) together. Southampton (because they'd just built a railway into it anyway), and the hive of scum and villainy on the opposite side of the harbour which faces Gosport. A station was built at Eastleigh (then Bishopstoke Junction, as the town Eastleigh didn't really come about until the railway moved in), and the line was constructed south-east through Botley towards Fareham. The site of Fareham station seems a bit daft, if you're looking at Google Maps, because the track comes out and immediately has to turn sharply left to begin to head around Porchester Harbour. Would've made sense to position Fareham's station further north, making the route to Portsmouth more direct. Only, it was never going to go to Portsmouth. Why? Because Portsmouth's residents didn't want a railway company whose name included 'Southampton' heading into Portsmouth. So, the decision was made to take the line to Gosport (which Portsmouth still referred to as 'their' station, despite having to use a boat to get to it because of their pettiness) instead and the line was completed in 1841. That's why if you look at Google Maps, the route naturally flows into Gosport, and the Portsmouth bit looks like an afterthought. It only got extended to Portsmouth in 1848, just after the London & South-Western Railway name was adopted, and 'Southampton' was dropped from the company's title. The extension along the water through Swanwick, Sholing, Woolston etc came even later, in 1889. So, around 45 years before the young men of St Marys church began kicking pigs bladders around, the rivalry was very much there! Potentially mind-numbingly boring fact no.2 - A Small Valley: So, the L&SWR had a monopoly on the area. They were building railways at a rate of knots, even to complete ****holes like......well. They were knocking them together quicker than anyone else could get a chance to challenge them, and it was working. That didn't stop another band of top-hatted gentlemen deciding they could get in on the act, though. The fact that a network was already in place was irrelevant in the name of competition! And so, in 1873, and act of Parliament was passed that allowed the gentlemen to get their shovels out, and begin building the Didcot, Newbury & Southampton Railway. They'd had ideas about doing this almost immediately after the L&SWR had formed their network out of London to the South, but hadn't managed to get their ideas approved until the '70s. The 1870's, that is. So, plans afoot, they cracked on. They begin constructing a line out of Didcot, through Newbury and down towards Southampton. 'The Didcot, Newbury & Southampton Railway' name, then, was quite a good one. The line would go south through Newbury, Whitchurch, Winchester (a second station, not Winchester's main station as that was L&SWR), Twyford, Allbrook (where it would cross over the normal route still there today), Chandlers Ford, cross through Lordswood and through the sports centre site all the way through the edge of Shirley before heading up an embankment in Hill Lane. The Southampton station would be of a pier-type, and be located roughly where Mayflower terminal is now. It didn't get that far. The line was opened in 1882 as far as Newbury, and then extended through to Winchester (Cheesehill - now Chesil) in 1885. The Chesil Street multi-story car park now occupies the site of the station, and the tunnel that served it is still there. The council use it to store wheelie bins! However, money had now run out. Nobody was using the new railway, as it didn't actually go any further than Winchester, and if more people used the regular L&SWR line through Winchester city centre, the fares could be lower as a result. Thus, the DNSR couldn't compete. Didn't stop them trying though. They bought a load of land in the Milton Road & Hill Lane areas, and knocked down houses that stood in the way of the proposed route. They built the embankment in Hill Lane (still there today) and had every intention of following their dreams. Having spent £100,000 already in the Southampton area (Winchester council invested £15,000, and Southampton £70,000!) the company ran out of money. The existing line was struggling for the aforementioned reasons, and in the end a deal was struck to connect the DNSR line to the main L&SWR line just south of Winchester, north of Twyford. Great Western Engines would actually run the line with their coaches etc, but weren't allowed south of the near connection at Hockley as L&SWR didn't want GWR engines on their laaaaaaaaaaand. So, they used to disconnect before venturing onto L&SWR tracks, which, they accessed by a viaduct. The Hockley viaduct, was the last piece of the railway built, and you've probably seen it quite a few times already, just next to the M27. So why's this relevant to Saints? Well, all the land in Southampton that had been purchased for the new railway was flogged off in the late 1800's, to try and recoup some of the lost investments. One of the pieces of cleared land, was in a small dell, and was purchased by a recently formed football club, who moved in in 1898.

HAHAHAHA! That's the first time I've heard that!

Not Tadic! Either JWP, VVD or Bertrand for me. J-Rod's done fairly well in the past for us from the spot too, IIRC.