Saxon

brilliant. could so see that.

MOTM Bertrand for me. That clearance was essential. Did a lot of good things. Busted a gut for the 90 mins. All of the defence was superb. Wanyama's goal was brilliant too excellent result!! Love to see grinding wins, not because they're exciting as much but that its nice that we can do them! Excellent show of character.

Mayo & Ketchup on chips = :thumbup:

Actually, the fact we get mentioned all the time in relation to the ex players is good and bad. Good because it gets our name out there to european football fans. Bad if the players name checked to us play like utter sh*te

Looking at our fixture list again, we really have a pretty good one for our situation. Yes we have the difficult Christmas period, but, we have such an amazing opportunity to build up a real head of steam over the next 8 league games [sWA (A), QPR (H), TOT (A), SUN (H), STO (H), HUL (A), LEI (H), AVL (A)] before we hit City at home. Apart from the Tottenham away game realistic aims would be to win every one of these matches. Now obviously that is unlikely to be the case in the real world, look at Swansea this weekend for an example of a tough one, but we can definitely still win it. But the squad will be approaching these knowing they have a very realistic chance in every single one. This is the stretch of the season I would compare us to next season with. I think Sunday 30th of November, our home tie with Man City, would be a good assessment date for how we will have compared with last season. Hopefully, it will be better or equal! And if it was similar to last season we should hopefully have a good amount of confidence to go and attack the Christmas fixtures against the bigger teams and hopefully do better than last season, especially considering we dropped points in games against bottom half opposition we shouldn't have. Winter/Christmas Fixtures: Man City (H) Sun 30/11 - City come into this on the back of a CL home tie with Bayern Munich on Tue 25/11 and follow it with Sunderland (A) Wed 3/12 Arsenal (A) Wed 3/12 - Arse come into this on the back of WBA (A) Sat 29/11 and follow it with Stoke (A) Sat 6/12 Man Utd (H) Sat 6/12 - Utd come into this on the back of Stoke (H) Tues 2/12 and follow it with Liverpool (A) Sat 13/12 Burnley (A) Sat 13/12 Everton (H) Sat 20/12 C. Palace (A) Fri 26/12 Chelsea (H) Sun 28/12 - Chelsea come into this on the back of West Ham (H) Fri 26/12 and follow it with Tot (A) Thurs 1/1 Arsenal (H) Thurs 1/1 - Arsenal come into this on the back of West Ham (A) Sun 28/12 and follow it with Stoke (H) Sat 10/1 Man Utd (A) Sat 10/1 - Utd come into this on the back of Stoke (A) Thu 1/1 and follow it with QPR (A) Sat 17/1 So there's 3 blocks of 3, going hard, easier, hard. Its too early really to predict form at this time obv but just very prospectively I would say that the first thing to remember is that its tough for the big teams too, playing this many games in a short period, and they will mostly have the added pressure of CL. But I reckon we will still get something from the harder 6 games. Not all the big teams will be on form and the home games will help in those fixtures. This season also we will also have a much deeper squad to cope with the demands of this time of year. I reckon we could swap the whole team just about and still be competitive with clubs around and below us. Forster, Clyne, Fonte, Alderweirald, Bertrand, Spider, Wanyama, Davis, Tadic, Pelle and Boruc, Cork, Gardos, Yoshida, Targett, JWP, Reed, McQueen/Isgrove, Mane, Long, Gallagher/Rodriguez Reorder as you like (I've really just tried to list the players so dont read into who i've put in which half too much), but you could pick two team sheets out of those players and juggle them to make two good teams. Anyway jut to quickly state the targets to better next season. First four games, last season: 5 points (WDLD). This season: 7 points (LDWW). Next 8 games, last season: 17 points (WWWDWDWL). - Would be a realistic target to match this based on our fixtures. 9 winter/christmas games, last season: 8 points (LLDDLWLLW). - Surely we can improve on this. 2 points from the first five games we should be able to improve upon for a start. Anyway just a long rambling post, apologies, just was looking at the fixtures and think we do have a good chance this year of improving on last year. Better than we could have hoped for I would argue. And the Christmas season, who the f*ck knows what will happen, but we did pretty poorly last season, so there's not much we'd need to do to improve that period! And I reckon we will.

sorry, I meant 7:15 or 7:30 are those times too late?

Two tickets ordered Very excited for this.We have a real chance! People who have been to the Emirates before, how long before kick-off would it be worth getting there for, so that you get in on time? If KO if 7:45, then would 6:15 be ok? or even 6:30? Thanks in advance if anyone can let me know

Put the fear into them from last season.

Ah cheers, couldn't quite tell, my stream quality had dropped by this point.

Gardos has come on for Cork. Has Toby moved up to more of a holding Mid position now?? Interesting. Good to see this sort of flexibility! And nice to see Gardos get some time!

On BT Sport, they mentioned the europa league with RedBull Salzburg... With an image of Sadio Mane f*ckin morons.

Yeah I didn't think of that, you raise a good point.

Sports direct in Salisbury sells friggin Newcastle kits and not Saints kits. Pretty sure Swansea kits are more available nationally these days as well thanks to their reputation in the league. Surely saints, if this season is good like last season with attractive football, could build commercial based on the reputation like swansea have? Plucky underdogs that play attractive football?

Liked the "stay for the four years and make history" part. There's clearly something still resembling ambition at St Mary's. Look at the players we've brought in, and the manager.

With regards to the number of decisions, SB referenced tennis. What he didn't reference was how the tennis challenges work, and I think that is how it should be done. Maybe something like 3 challenges for the whole, match, not per half,and then if you challenge and the decision is changed, you keep the challenge, if it remains the same and your call was wrong, then you lose a challenge. That way you have to think about if its really important and if you're really sure you're correct, and it also means if there's a freakish string of incorrect decisions, if you correctly challenge them they are all accounted for, you don't run out of challenges. It should pretty much just work like tennis in the number of challenges respect.

He's predicting us to be 9th. Would love another of these videos though so hopefully a steam roll

I'm still gunning for 7th I reckon we could be in with a shout if everything goes well this season. The potential is definitely there on paper. Top 5: Chelsea City Arse Scousehampton Spuds Then in some order, Saints, Everton and Utd. Hopefuly us 6th or 7th 7th more likely, 8th at least hopefully. 9th if Swansea continue their form. Relegated: West Ham Palace Burnley

No idea if anyone's posted this yet: From good old Ed Chamberlin, in hos article about the top 5 stars of the season so far. http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/15197/9455592/premier-league-201415-ed-chamberlin-picks-five-stars-of-the-season-so-far "The gloom that descended over Southampton this summer has well and truly lifted. Ronald Koeman has conducted himself immaculately throughout and he's already got his new-look team exceeding expectations and proving the critics wrong. The stick I took on Twitter for predicting Southampton would finish in the top half at 6/4 with Sky Bet seems to have died down. They have also added quality. The capture of Sadio Mane and Toby Alderweireld on Deadline Day has added to the fans' excitement and finally puts to bed any talk than the owner was asset stripping this summer. Ralph Krueger and the hierarchy also deserve credit for keeping Morgan Schneiderlin and the player deserves credit, too, for knuckling down after initially throwing his toys out of the pram. As important as Adam Lallana, Dejan Lovren, Luke Shaw and Rickie Lambert were, Schneiderlin has been the Saints' most consistent player over the last four years. Despite the exodus, the club has kept its biggest asset. Fraser Forster is going to make a big impact in goal but the player to really catch the eye has been Tadic. The players rave about his ability in training and there have been flashes of brilliance on the pitch so far. Graeme Souness liked what he saw at Anfield. There is much more still to come."

Yeah I would agree with this. I think we should definitely be achieving 7 points, aiming for 9. Newcastle is the must win I think, we if do well in that the team will get a lot of confidence and we'll really give it a go at Swansea who will be a tough challenge. The steam we could build up from a good win against Newcastle would be especially important as hopefully Chelsea can take the wind out of Swansea's sails a bit before we play them. QPR should be a nailed on 3 points (they have a tough 2 games before us as well, so hopefully confidence will be low for them). I think we have a very good chance of getting the 9 points Lets just see how we go. But we all know football rarely works like that

Really hope this goes on general sale!!

Alderweirald replaces Chambers surely? They can play the same exact positions. Jos was just a squad player. I was excited by the prospect of Toby, but now I hear he covers right back too, hell of a coup to get him in! I think we've done exceptionally well considering the circumstances. 10/10, if you look at the judas's leaving as out of our control as being a situation we had to deal with. Even if we did choose for them to leave I think we're looking at at least a 7 or 8. Key improvements from last season that get me very excited: We have Boruc AND Forster. That's one of the biggest successes of the window for us, that we have massively improved keeper competition. So Keeper = strengthened. I would strongly argue defense is stronger. Lovren and Chambers out, Alderweirald and Gardos in. Shaw replaced with Bertrand also looks good, with a bit more prem experience, something we'll need. The fact we're keeping clyne anyway and injuries notwithstanding, we basically have massive competition all along the back four now, more than last season in terms of quality, plus we have Targett and we have a much improved Yoshi. Defense = strengthened. We have kept Spider, Cork, Wanyama and offloaded Gaston (who is basically like a Torres to us) and replaced him with this Mane fella. We have replaced lallana with Tadic which looks very very astute. Midfield = strengthened (as we have basically replaced Gaston for Mane). We have replaced Osvaldo with Shane and Lambert with Pelle. Plus we still have Rodriguez, Gallagher and er Mayuka? But since we now have a third forward in the shape of Long instead of none in the shape of Osvaldo. Forwards = Strengthened. I really think we've done exceptionally. Considering we lost the players we did, which I don't think wee could have stopped in most cases (Chambers is a funny one), plus we've kept onto Boruc and Spider and JRod. I really think we're in better positions in every part of the pitch, at a slight profit! I think we should be looking top 10 hopefully. Ideally 9th or 8th (depending on Swansea maybe) but possibly even 7th, you never know Also LOL at Man Utd. Yeah, you really needed another forward, that was the part of the field you needed strengthening. Maybe they're hoping to do a Liverpool and just out score everyone?? Except Man Utds defense is a few orders of magnitude weaker than Liverpool's was last season... hope we actually manage to finish above them this season! And finally, never thought I'd see the day little ol Southampton spend £60mill in a transfer window and come out 5th highest spender in the league

Pretty sure Falcao and Welbeck signings haven't been officially announced yet either? So chill.

Well I put a cheeky punt on 7th in the pre-season prediction thread I think after this game 7th is looking more realistic though, 6th, not sure, could do if Everton struggle due to Europa, not sure they will though. I do think Man Utd may well struggle though. I've said to other people I think top 5 would be amazing for them this season, can't see top four, even with DiMaria. Looks lke an absolute shambles over there atm. I reckon, if we can start to get the players to start the games like they finish them, we could do well against the bottom half teams again, but its looking like we have a bit more resilience against tougher opposition and some guts to come back from going behind, add that in, I like our chances. I don't see why we can't do what we did last season. We still had plenty of sh1tty results, there's plenty from last season we can improve on IMO. I think the biggest challenges to 7th will be: Swansea; they look like they have a rocket up their collective arses. Lets see if they can keep it up all season (as with us ) Our squad depth; lets hope we don't get so many squad critical injuries at the wrong time like last season. Be interesting to see how we deal with that, but Yoshida is looking very good so far this season so that's a huge positive. Man Utd (obv), if they actually manage to get their sh1t together. Could well do, but at the same time, you never know, they are low on confidence, this is a brutal league, stranger things have happened in the world. Hope we do improve on last season, but ofc, this has a huge heap of salt with it just feel a little more light hearted about it after today's match (watch us struggle against Newcastle at home and then get shredded by Swansea away now)

That was a hell of a win. Should have been 4-1 with 2 to Pelle, stupid linesman, but with the chances we had, even more tbh, Long could have scored. Excellent performance. Feels like home again Everyone looked good, Long should maybe have scored, but very good to see Pelle technically get two even if one was mistakenly disallowed, shows its starting to click. Though yes we did benefit a lot from set piece goals, still we were unlucky with some of our open play chances. We bossed possession and oh my goodness how nice it is to give West Ham a hiding away, after our last dejected trips to that horrible part of the world, Upton Park.

I don't know what Fat Sam's training regime is like but every f*cking season they seem to have a metric-sh*tload of squad crippling injuries