East Kent Saint

As a goal scoring , penalty taking and attitude on the pitch coach then yes !!

So far this year Saints have beaten Watford , WBA and Wigan just West Ham for a full set begining with W !!!

Things we haven't heard this season : "and Southampton with FIVE men forward" "Stephens wins it " and "Stephens has been good for Southampton today"

Good luck to our traveling fans safe journey , hope you get rewarded with a win esp after the 6 nations disaster yesterday which I had to watch in odd 5 mins bursts to avoid a meltdown.

One of my regular pubs is "closed for refurb" , Googled it and it is for sale !! also usually applied to food outlets that have failed an inspection but I bow to your superior ITK local knowledge on this .

Closed for refurbishment is standard retail jargon for we are selling up !!

"This is a nice little earner " "You're not wrong there Mark "

The word we have received from the street is that Southampton are hoping to have a replacement for Mauricio Pellegrino in place by the weekend. They face Wigan on Sunday in the quarter finals of the FA Cup. The club has confirmed Assistant Manager Carlos Compagnucci and Assistant First Team Coach Xavier Tamarit have also parted company with the club. Dave Watson and Kelvin Davis both remain on the coaching staff at St Mary's More from BBC in Stoke match commentary !

er that table is of Saints permanent managers in the prem (copied from BBC Sport)

Games Wins Draws Losses Win % Points Points per game Ronald Koeman 76 36 15 25 47.4 123 1.62 Glenn Hoddle 45 18 11 16 40 65 1.44 Mauricio Pochettino 54 19 18 17 35.2 75 1.39 Paul Sturrock 13 5 2 6 38.5 17 1.31 Gordon Strachan 93 31 29 33 33.3 122 1.31 Alan Ball 59 18 22 19 30.5 76 1.29 Claude Puel 38 12 10 16 31.6 46 1.21 Dave Jones 98 31 19 48 31.6 112 1.14 Graeme Souness 38 10 11 17 26.3 41 1.08 Ian Branfoot 66 18 14 34 27.3 68 1.03 Nigel Adkins 22 5 7 10 22.7 22 1.00 David Merrington 38 9 11 18 23.7 38 1.00 Mauricio Pellegrino 30 5 13 12 16.7 28 0.93 Harry Redknapp 22 4 8 10 18.2 20 0.91 Steve Wigley 14 1 6 7 7.1 9 0.64 oops doesn't line up !

Gills 3-1 up against ****** Hull 4-3 up v Norwich (just to cheer you up )

I can't believe anyone thought we would win this match . Rafa v apprentice , no chance , same duff front 3 etc . I'll still go and watch in the championship though !!

We seem to be copying Liverpool's performance according to the stats !!!!!

Another air shot from Gabbi , does he need an eye test ??

This is all a bit distasteful , we were singing the family's praises not so long ago , now we seem to be rewriting history . ML was a businessman but he did keep his loss making printing firm going for sentimental reasons , Kat soon closed that down esp when the business turned out to be worth less than we thought. Kat kept the club going NC was said to be spending beyond our means , the club took out loans from offshore banks etc! The club had been for sale for some time but they could not find a buyer , it was a poor outcome indeed , wrong person another failure by the PL for allowing him to own the club.

Fulham's 17-year-old £50m-rated English full-back Ryan Sessegnon says Luke Shaw was his football idol growing up. (Telegraph) Sign him up !!!

Of course the club/prem will say the game is on even is only 500 people turn up . No need to refund tickets reschedule match etc prem get their TV money and FU fans risking life and limb to get there. WH saying are we supposed to coach to Swansea despite police saying don't travel ??? If we get 3 points OK but we won't be there.

The rules will need to be changed if VAR is the way forward , giving off side when a player is a few millimeters more forward than the defender is daft . The rule was brought in to stop attackers goal hanging , it should not be a photo finish over an imaginary line which is determined by when the ball is played . How accurate is is the moment the ball is played anyway ?? At least in American football the ref announces his decisions with an explanation , even at college level . In tennis everyone seems to accept the hawkeye line calls and the crowd get to watch it in action. In rugby the game suffers from delays while they try to see if the ball is grounded and also was it a forward pass / offside etc in the build up. They show the slow mo on the big screen but the crowd doesn't always agree with with the decision , so not good plus England had 2 disallowed tries which would have been given in the past so even worse !

Er snow bomb this evening plus further heavy snow Friday evening plus snow showers Sat ! of course weather forecasts do change but this is the current one 18:30 Thursday.

It's one thing thinking you are world class but another thing to demonstrate it at a new club that is playing at the top end of the league . They didn't pay £75M for you to jog back to your position or leave large gaps in the defense while the opposition score . Therefore you might have to try a bit harder than you were at the start of the season.

BBC confirm http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/43225939

In my Ipswich days as an apprentice we used to go to Portman Rd in the early seventies . There was some minor stuff going on but you could easily avoid it . However when Man U came to town the shops shut early due to what became to be known as 'steaming' , no one went to the town and were cautious when we went to the match . Fortunately we managed to avoid being done over , Man U were the one's to be waru of.

MotD pointed out how well Stoke were defending at the back in Saturdays game , a bit of pace required to get through them I think NOT endless high balls . Adam looks a weak link as he is slowing down ! Hopefully we will scrape 3 points especially as we have tickets ! Let's hope the snow has melted .

It sounds familiar though , players out of position , best players on bench and possession football with no final third action ..... We knew JRod was a shadow of his pre injury self .... So Fonte advised by NC , no wonder he wanted out !!

I think he was quite keen to leave for a better payday , he had been showing signs of being past his best for a while and was getting away with alot of fouls/penalty shouts etc . At WH he showed again he was well past his best and has left early for a final payday in China. Lambert was also past his best but I would have been happy for him to stay as a sub instead of failing at several other clubs before disappearing .