saintwbu

Giving him MOTM feels like it diminishes how good we were today as if we were lucky to get a point, but he was still my MOTM. That save from Fernandes was top drawer. This is the first clean sheet it feels like he’s earned himself.

He does sometimes

They played the exact same 11 as the Liverpool game, with Bruno playing 90. Surely suggests they’ll have to make some changes for Sunday.

All I see on this forum is about how stats are rubbish and a waste of time - yet i’m seeing some absolutely pointless stats on here like ‘Fraser Forster, who played most of his career for by far the best team in a terrible league has conceded less goals than a young goalie in a terrible team’ and pass completion stats from goalkeepers with no context about whether any of those passes didn’t go straight to the centre half 5 yards in front of them. There’s plenty to bash all our goalies with, you don’t need irrelevant stats to do it with.

Looking at the trend of our season, it would seem we’ll find it easier to beat good teams than we would do shit ones anyway.

I’ve thought we’re down for ages, but people saying we won’t get 14/15 points to stay up must be confident that Leeds, Everton and West Ham will get 12/13 points to stay up given they’re only a point or two above us. I bet their forums aren’t showing the same level of confidence! Most of these teams are only above us because of the points they’ve taken off us this season, without that they’d be below us.

I completely understand a lot of the scepticism/criticism over Bazunu. What I do find interesting though is how calm he seems all the time, and unflustered by mistakes. It gives me hope that he has the mentality to overcome a tough season, and we will hopefully see why he was signed over time.

You forgot Lambert! Some of that will be coincidence of course, but i definitely imagine there’s an element of those guys having nothing to prove to their fanbase. The Che we have now is a world apart to the one that arrived, he looked so short of confidence in his first season. Armstrong has always looked like his confidence is shot from about 5 games into his Saints career.

I’m not normally a pessimist but can’t help but feel with the way the season is going that he’s going to miss the rest of it or something silly!

Of course - but I don’t remember us losing the ball from the short goal kicks, but I do remember Souttar happily nodding back aimless lumps forward.

So the alternative being lump it long to their massive CB’s to head it down to their midfield to continue dominating us? Whilst also creating a tense, nervous atmosphere in the stadium. Leeds, Everton etc have managed to galvanise at home when it really matters (tail end of last season for Everton) and get the stadium absolutely rocking - why can’t we do the same.

At one point in the second half Selles was literally jumping up and down in the air waving his arms about, to get Prowsey to switch it to Sulemana on the left wing. It still didn’t come, you’re right that most of our play yesterday seemed stuck down the right.

Without checking the stats i’d bet Moi has appeared in all of our wins this season, I know he started both Chelsea wins. I also know he wasn’t playing in the Grimsby game or the Newcastle semi second leg, when we were absolutely piss poor in both. I get it’s trendy to moan about him, and he doesn’t set the world alight on the pitch, but maybe we should wonder why three managers in a row now are picking him regularly - it’s clearly not to win over the fans.

I understand people wanting McCarthy in, and i’m not against it. Not Caballero though, he isn’t better than Bazunu, regardless of what people say - the mistakes he made yesterday are par for the course for Willy, he’s been doing stuff like that regularly throughout his career.

People who say things like ‘the fans have every right to boo’ are clearly idiots who boo. The crowd noise when Bazunu was playing those short goal kicks was pathetic, clearly that was an instruction from the manager - he’d said in his pre-match conference about us not drawing Leeds onto us enough, and clearly this was a ploy to get Leicester to press us high and leave gaps. Then to boo Elyounoussi was just a disgrace - anyone booing a player who gives his all for the club, should just not bother going to the game. Whether you think a player is good enough or not is another matter, but the reality is we’re not a good team, haven’t been all season, but the least you can do is support the team when they’re trying (which in my opinion they have been all season).

I hope the people banging on about how lucky we were last night have held the same energy in the games we’ve lost this season when we’ve been unlucky. The Grimsby game (not wrongly) has really turned some fans on every aspect of the club if they hadn’t already, and now some seem to be almost bemoaning a victory. The facts of it are, we have 2 wins from 3 league games, we’ve conceded 1 goal in 3, and we’re now off the bottom of the table for the first time since boxing day. Selles is currently responsible for a third of our wins this season, and he’s only been in charge 3 games. If anyone had been offered that when he took charge, not a single person would’ve passed it up.

Would love him to make a significant contribution to us staying up, would be a great end to his time with us

Well our ‘fans’ have been doing stuff like this for years so it’s clearly not that they’ve decided 3 years of shite is the tipping point. It’s fucking embarrassing.

Personally i think it’d have been more acceptable for him to have sent DCC off (still incorrect, when you see what Ziyech got away with at the weekend) than it was to give a penalty. A red card would’ve been soft as shit but kind of logical, the penalty was completely ridiculous.

I didn’t realise them being League 2 and us being Prem was factored into whether the penalty gets given. You will never see a penalty (or free kick for that matter) get given for someone slapping someone’s back nowhere near the ball, ever again.

Feel like St Mary’s has been pretty shit since Virgin Media made that mental decision to subsidise away fans for two seasons. We are just the dream away day. We’ve had our moments in that time don’t get me wrong, but generally it is just so flat and devoid of excitement. I didn’t want Ralph sacked but even I thought during the Newcastle game ‘this is so shit and flat, maybe a change will bring some life back at least’ - little did I know!

I said if the market is kind to us - But if you said the first 5 went for £30mil each i think that’d be conservative on the side of JWP and Lavia particularly (considering his buy back is way above that) given the length of contracts. Equally £30mil might be a stretch for each of KWP, ABK and Salisu given their respective experience and contract length, but it wouldn’t be a million miles away. Then Tella and Che are both £15mil players at least in the modern game. That’s £180mil just on that basis.

I get the focus being on our performance but that second penalty was an absolute farce in every way. If McCarthy had the ball in his hands and DCC had done that on the halfway line, would the ref have moved the ball up there for a free kick? Not a chance. Every game these things happen and the game gets stopped, players get a talking to, play restarts from the keeper. It was obviously a stupid reaction from DCC but if every player got penalised for stupid reactions we’d have 4 red cards a game and penalties every 10 minutes.

I also remember that United chance and have wondered what his season would’ve looked like had he scored that winner. Prior to that he’d scored on his debut and looked lively in both those games. If you’d have asked me 5/6 games into his time with us i’d have said he looked like a decent signing. You don’t go from scoring 30 odd goals in the Championship, to looking completely out of place against a mid table League 2 side without some degree of it being mental surely. When Che plays against lower teams in the cup he looks a class above and normally bags against them - Armstrong has not had an impact against any of them from what I can recall.

Personally despite what some are saying I actually think we have a number of players who will do well in the Championship, and the Championship will do well for them. Mara, Edozie, Bazunu, Larios (and Alcaraz if he sticks around) in particular I think are unlikely to get interest elsewhere but will do well at that level, and could do with it for their development. There are also some fringe players that I think would impress down there; Diallo, Djenepo, Perraud if they were willing to stick around. The problem would be some of the more experienced players, probably on the bigger wages, who have not done enough to get PL moves but also probably don’t want to play in the league below; DCC, Lyanco, Orsic, Bednarek, Sulemana, Aribo, Tall Paul, Elyounoussi. I imagine we’ll be loaning that lot out for years to come, like we were with Lemina etc. Thankfully what we have this season that we haven’t in previous is some genuinely saleable assets - Lavia, JWP, KWP, Salisu, ABK and perhaps also Che, given previous PL interest, and maybe Tella too now, would probably fetch us the best part of 200mil if the market was kind to us. As such, i’m not as fearful of our impending relegation as I would’ve been a couple of seasons back.