SotonCherries

Cheers. We put in one of our better performances of the season and we found Saints on one of their poorer days, but pre-match I assumed that would be required to get a draw never mind a 2-0 win. Regarding the run-in, this season has been so odd that it's hard to call which games are tough and which are 'easier'. Everyone is beatable just in general throughout the division, and we ourselves are easily capable of beating or spectacularly losing to anyone as well. Just need to take it as it comes.

I was quite startled to read Koeman's comments about changing his system mid game to cope with our left back Charlie Daniels. He's not exactly a secret, he's been excellent all season. Surely Koeman should have expected Daniels to be one of our main threats, I mean Saints have scouts yeah.

I should point out, that there were a group of Saints kids on the late train sat near me who were quite excited about the little scrap they've just had with some Bournemouth kids. At least this time nobody ended up unconscious in hospital. It was just kids not grown men.

Hello again chaps. Have been interested in watching your impressive last couple of months from amongst you locals, at one point we thought you might just join the dogfight but just a few weeks later and you're in the hunt for Europe! Funny how quick things change. We're in a far better state than when we came to St Mary's full of injuries and with no idea what our best 11 was. But I suspect you guys are in the better state than back then also. We've done quite well for the last couple of months, kept the points total ticking away, but with quite a lot of draws. If we could have just turned two of those draws into wins we'd be well clear of the fight. As it is our cushion is unfortunately small. Fundamentally we're a decent enough side, trouble is we have one defensive error per game in us, and we tend to need a couple of good chances to score. Hence a fair few draws. If something could just *click* we'd be a pretty decent outfit, like many sides on our day we are excellent and can beat anyone, but this is a tough level to maintain any consistency an our errors are ruthlessly punished. If you offered me a defeat tomorrow but a win on Saturday at Newcastle, I'd take it all day long. But its impossible to predict where we might pickup points or not, and we'll be giving this everything as you probably expect. Dean Court under the lights has been the stage for plenty of cracking games for us down the years. But anything we can get tomorrow is probably a bonus in my book. Try not to take the **** too much as I get the train down and back amoung you all

Brighton are losing over £10m each and every year since moving to their new ground, and are over 150m in debt. They need promotion to the PL and the serious money that brings, a few million from Saints isn't any good to them if it in any way damages their chances of promotion.

As a Cherries fan, I thought the day passed off fairly peacefully. Police seemed a little over bearing perhaps, horses and dogs a bit over the top. The only issue I saw all day was the bloke sparked out from a punch after the game, which I gather was a Bournemouth fan who got into some row with a Saints fan and got a smack for his trouble.

From our point of view, it's the worst timing for this game to come around, and so from your view the best timing? Due to a mixture of 5 key injuries, moral sapping defeats to good opposition, and utterly daft errors in the process, we have little idea what our best 11 is or what formation to play. Even as fundamental as which goalkeeper to start? Surprised it's category A for you guys and costing us an arm and a leg, but guess you want to make your money from a sold out away end, can't argue with that. We'll do our best to enjoy and have a laugh around Southampton for the day. But fear Saints will waltz to a comfortable victory in the actual match.

Nice to read all your loving comments on here fellas! The reason you heard all our various noise, and are able to jump onto the few bits that related to Saints due to all the Saints connections on the pitch, is because Anfield is apparently silent. We may poke fun at Lallana (can't even take a corner without falling over, LOL) but we like him because he earned his way up the leagues and earned AFCB a **** load of money. We love Boruc, what a character and what a goalkeeper. Surman is a Saints product and very important to us. We're not trying to be Pompey guys, chill out about it. I've certainly felt a lot more heat from you lot since our promotion as I go about general life in Soton. If you want to call us bucket rattlers or Bompey or whatever, that's football isn't it. We need to do a little more in the final third, but our defence is holding up surprisingly well so far considering it's the same back 4 we had in League One. We'll stick at it, it's early days at the moment. Maybe it'll start to click or maybe we'll fall just short - not going to worry too much about it, this season is a bonus. Yes indeed. I feared this before the season and so far it's been true.

In a question limited to the 20 PL clubs, almost all of which we've had nothing to do with for all of history, of course Saints being local and the only club we have contact with, were going to come up top of that list for us. Who else is there for us to vote for. An odd poll in the first place. Although I can understand Saints finishing high up the list, you play great football and produce decent players for all the better supported clubs!

Surman won the "player's player of the year" award and is an important cog in the machine. He knits it all together, rarely losses the ball and does an excellent job at covering the full backs when they fly forward. Very intelligent player tactically and positionally. We hear from Wolves, Norwich and of course Saints fans that he's an excellent Championship player but probably not good enough for the Prem. Well, I'm sure he will get a fair crack at it next season, and maybe we'll find out for sure either way. For 400k from Norwich, he's been superb business so far.

Delighted to have won the title as well, seeing that trophy held aloft in red and black was some sight. And one thing I believe Saints have never done? Now the real hard work begins off the pitch, it'll be a hectic summer if we can get the club into some sort of shape ready for the top flight next season.

The mayor has been separately pictured in both a Saints shirt, and an AFCB tie recently. Make of that what you will. Flip flop I believe is the term.

A Bournemouth fan here, who lives in Southampton for my sins. Have long flicked through the pages of this site to vaguely keep up on events at Saints, if just to know what the blocks down the local are moaning about! Thought I'd sign up finally, having come across this thread. In the money v miracle thing - it's a mixture! It's easy to see from the club's history that there has always been a glass ceiling for us towards to top end of the third tier, or at a push the lower reaches of the second flight. It now goes without saying that Howe is the greatest manager we've ever had (sorry Redknapp). It's speculation, but Howe likely could have taken us into the Championship without the improved budgets afforded by the owners - but there's no chance we could challenge for promotion again without. That said, we have these owners before Howe returned from Burnley, and we were still crap. It's the alliance of proper investment (for the first time in our history) AND the genius of Howe that has made this ridiculous success possible. On the 'rivalry' thing. You ask different AFCB fans and you'll get different answers - there's certainly going to be a few that have a real bee in their bonnet for Saints. Generally younger lads who've grown up in the mass media age where Saints news is everywhere. But there's also going to be plenty who don't care, and others who actively like Saints. Dare I say it, those who might remember the naughty days where Saints and AFCB would get involved in situations alongside each other. What I would say though, is that when our fixtures come round and we play each other, as a club we will throw the kitchen sink at Saints. That doesn't mean we hold any hatred for you - we'd just love to get one over on you. Like brothers who get hyper competitive when they're pitched against each other. It's enthusiasm, it's not vitriol. Otherwise, on the whole we'd wish Saints well (again, the brother analogy). Particularly in Europe next season when it'll have no affect on us and be great for the representation of south coast football if Saints could progress. In League One when you met us last, Saints were really the only big fish and the only interesting opposition to us. So that all became very concentrated. Every other club down there we'd played a million times over. Next season - almost every club we're going to face is going to be new, bigger, wealthier, and interesting for us to see.