Saints 1-3 Bournemouth - Match Thread

[Lord Duckhunter]

7 minutes ago, Badger said:

Singing “ there’s only one south coast derby …”,

That was peak Noddy imo. Embarrassing.
 

I could just about understand it we were patting them on the head in a condescending manner, but they’ve fucking dicked us 3 games running and are 5th in the fucking league. They haven’t just beaten us lately, they’ve fucking pissed all over us. The last 2 games we were lucky to keep it down to 6, that’s how dominant they’ve been. 
 

We really are becoming a noddy club…

Edited Sunday at 12:14 by Lord Duckhunter

[beatlesaint]

The thought of having to watch Smallbone and Stephens as the spine of the team next season makes my decision on whether to buy a season ticket get a whole lot eaiser.

To quote Dragons Den - "let me tall you where I am......I'm out"............(after 47 years) 😒

Edited Sunday at 12:14 by beatlesaint

[Ken Tone]

The only way I'm coping with this bloody awful period on our history is by pretending we're playing a run of pre-season friendlies before starting in the championship in 25/26. 

Results don't matter,  and we're seeing various different players trying out in unfamiliar positions to gain fitness. 

Plus Juric appears to be going for a record number of full backs on the pitch at once. 😉

[Gloucester Saint]

18 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

We really are becoming a noddy club…

Arguably an insult to Noddy too. I liked the vans parked outside the King Power against Jon Rudkin yesterday. Humorous but targeted. You can’t imagine most of our lot being able to spell the words let alone design the clown images.

Edited Sunday at 12:31 by Gloucester Saint

[BarberSaint]

2 hours ago, Chez said:

I remember watching him in his first few games and saying he simply wasn’t good enough. Too slow of body and mind. He was always desperately throwing himself to the ground, which sounds good but a good defender is on his feet matching his opponent. At that point he was a £5m punt on a young back up and it didn’t matter too much, but when he’s your so called first choice cb you have a big problem. He’s too weak to match big powerful strikers, too slow to match quick ones. He makes too many errors. He’s not up to Premier league standard.

 

When we first bought him and I saw him I thought it was £5m wasted. I still do. He's passable in the league below, but he really is a very poor defender. Please sell him.

[Fabrice29]

1 hour ago, Gloucester Saint said:

Agree with you on Smallbone, plenty of players I’d be giving stick to ahead of him, but can’t agree that the fanbase is toxic. Look at the Leicester targeted protests against Jon Rudkin yesterday, should have done that vs Rasmus ages ago. West Ham protests 4 years ago, Everton when we won at Goodison under Nathan Jones. Ours are like church mice.

By toxic I don't mean protesting and all that jazz. I mean just a weird, unconnected, waiting to be angry about anything they possibly can vibe about it (and as you say not doing anything about it). Even on the outside there's people whipping up far right protests around the ground, it's weird, unconnected to anything about the club and just wanting to be angry at something. On the inside it's the same, nobody actually being arsed enough to protest as you say, just an odd in-between vibe but no sense of togetherness with whats happening on the pitch. Obviously thats largely down to the results and performances but the fans have been so quick to detach themselves from it and it manifests itself ironic cheering. We had a good spell yesterday of 10 minutes or whatever it was and it felt like there was a combined purpose and environment whipping itself up and then the very moment the ball hits the net there was mass walkouts. Completely detaching itself from whats happening again. 

42 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

You’re joking, right?

Please tell me you’re joking.

This is a fine example really, just completely detached from the reality of what happened because the default setting is to be pissed off. Quite sad really that people like this guy couldn't enjoy last season because he convinced himself and continues to convince himself that everything that happened last year was terrible.

[SaintsBarry74]

41 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

That was peak Noddy imo. Embarrassing.
 

I could just about understand it we were patting them on the head in a condescending manner, but they’ve fucking dicked us 3 games running and are 5th in the fucking league. They haven’t just beaten us lately, they’ve fucking pissed all over us. The last 2 games we were lucky to keep it down to 6, that’s how dominant they’ve been. 
 

We really are becoming a noddy club…

This club and embarrassment have become increasingly synonymous in recent years.

Back to back 0-9's... Derby...

[Fabrice29]

Can I also just add that in addition to what I've said above, I'm not surprised by it because as I explained in the January transfer window thread, apathy will very quickly spread throughout the club if the club decide to not try and improve on the pitch by signing someone who might score us some goals. Some people on here actively advocated that approach too. It's not surprising but it is disappointing and it's just going to be taken out on the players and in this instance a genuine Saints fan who is probably the one who cares the most.

[Badger]

2 minutes ago, SaintsBarry74 said:

This club and embarrassment have become increasingly synonymous in recent years.

Back to back 0-9's... Derby...

Bad results,freak results,  shit results even, happen. Sometimes twice. I can live with that, especially when one is Mike Dean inspired.

What I find more difficult to accept and find an ‘embarrassment’ (of sorts) at the club  is the continued downward spiral, poor recruitment and appointments, dickheads in charge, all fiddling whilst Rome burns … all you expect congratulating themselves on how clever they’ve been with a fucking spreadsheet 

Then there’s the acceptance of it by the fan base. 

 

[TheAlehouseBrawlers]

1 hour ago, Badger said:

Support is far too passive and unimaginative. Singing “ there’s only one south coast derby …”, seems to elevate the skates status beyond their worth.

Yep, cringey. One moment singing how they gonna shoot 'em, the next almost affectionately blaring that shit out.

Someone earlier said how the Bournemouth fans were mostly quiet, no they weren't, they were almost non-stop and were understandably enjoying their 'cup final'. And they had a wide variety of chants (mostly generic but no different to to the rest of the country) with nothing, other than a 10-min spell, coming back at them.

At least they did bin off that 'Pride of the South' banner in the Northam. What a mess.

[TheAlehouseBrawlers]

Probably won't happen again but this time I agree with the condescending club stooge - that was a shit reaction to Smallbone being substituted. Like most of this team, he ain't good enough for this level but doesn't deserve to be scapegoated. I like to think it was more a convenient conduit at the time to channel the fans frustrations on the day and for this wretched season. It's about as angsty as our crowd get these days.

[Wade Garrett]

The reaction to Smallbone getting subbed was out of order.  Don’t get me wrong,  don’t rate the guy at all, but he’s still our player.

I also don’t like the ‘we’re fucking shit’ chant.  Makes us look like a bunch of idiots.

Minor gripes though.  Thought the red wall sounded pretty good yesterday.

Edited Sunday at 13:34 by Wade Garrett

[Wade Garrett]

1 hour ago, beatlesaint said:

The thought of having to watch Smallbone and Stephens as the spine of the team next season makes my decision on whether to buy a season ticket get a whole lot eaiser.

To quote Dragons Den - "let me tall you where I am......I'm out"............(after 47 years) 😒

If that was the case, there would be plenty more of us jacking it in as well.

[sfc4prem]

58 minutes ago, Wade Garrett said:

Thought the red wall sounded pretty good yesterday.

Could be really good in years to come with a decent tifo, some creative songs added to the classics and every willing singer to get a ticket there consistently.

[Whitey Grandad]

1 hour ago, Fabrice29 said:

This is a fine example really, just completely detached from the reality of what happened because the default setting is to be pissed off. Quite sad really that people like this guy couldn't enjoy last season because he convinced himself and continues to convince himself that everything that happened last year was terrible.

Detached from your reality of what happened maybe. Not everything was terrible but not everything was marvellous either.

Ive never been Impressed by Smallbone ever since he first came on for us at halftime for his first appearance. He’s too slow, too lightweight and too reactive. 
 

I'm not pissed off. I’m too old for all that. But I am disappointed and disillusioned. This will be my last season as a season ticket holder. I’ve had one for over 30 years, two actually. When we moved to St. Mary’s I kept both tickets in the central Kingsland through all the thin years but then the club decided that they wanted to sell my seats for far more than they were worth. There’s no point in having a ST for the cup games because they close the Kingsland anyway.

I’ve had enough.

[Whitey Grandad]

1 hour ago, TheAlehouseBrawlers said:

Probably won't happen again but this time I agree with the condescending club stooge - that was a shit reaction to Smallbone being substituted. Like most of this team, he ain't good enough for this level but doesn't deserve to be scapegoated. I like to think it was more a convenient conduit at the time to channel the fans frustrations on the day and for this wretched season. It's about as angsty as our crowd get these days.

 

1 hour ago, Wade Garrett said:

The reaction to Smallbone getting subbed was out of order.  Don’t get me wrong,  don’t rate the guy at all, but he’s still our player.

I think that reaction was more about the decision to do something about our non-existent midfield than against Smallbone himself. It took two thirds of the game to get some sort of sensible shape into our team. 

[tdmickey3]

2 hours ago, Fabrice29 said:

By toxic I don't mean protesting and all that jazz. I mean just a weird, unconnected, waiting to be angry about anything they possibly can vibe about it (and as you say not doing anything about it). Even on the outside there's people whipping up far right protests around the ground, it's weird, unconnected to anything about the club and just wanting to be angry at something. On the inside it's the same, nobody actually being arsed enough to protest as you say, just an odd in-between vibe but no sense of togetherness with whats happening on the pitch. Obviously thats largely down to the results and performances but the fans have been so quick to detach themselves from it and it manifests itself ironic cheering. We had a good spell yesterday of 10 minutes or whatever it was and it felt like there was a combined purpose and environment whipping itself up and then the very moment the ball hits the net there was mass walkouts. Completely detaching itself from whats happening again. 

This is a fine example really, just completely detached from the reality of what happened because the default setting is to be pissed off. Quite sad really that people like this guy couldn't enjoy last season because he convinced himself and continues to convince himself that everything that happened last year was terrible.

Club groupie talking shite, who would have thought it

[Saint Fan CaM]

2 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

That was peak Noddy imo. Embarrassing.
 

I could just about understand it we were patting them on the head in a condescending manner, but they’ve fucking dicked us 3 games running and are 5th in the fucking league. They haven’t just beaten us lately, they’ve fucking pissed all over us. The last 2 games we were lucky to keep it down to 6, that’s how dominant they’ve been. 
 

We really are becoming a noddy club…

Err, got news for you…we have become a fucking noddy club…no question. It’s pitiful how low we’ve been allowed to fall.

[Football Special]

1 hour ago, TheAlehouseBrawlers said:

Probably won't happen again but this time I agree with the condescending club stooge - that was a shit reaction to Smallbone being substituted. Like most of this team, he ain't good enough for this level but doesn't deserve to be scapegoated. I like to think it was more a convenient conduit at the time to channel the fans frustrations on the day and for this wretched season. It's about as angsty as our crowd get these days.

Yep very disappointing to see that 

[Football Special]

1 hour ago, Wade Garrett said:

The reaction to Smallbone getting subbed was out of order.  Don’t get me wrong,  don’t rate the guy at all, but he’s still our player.

I also don’t like the ‘we’re fucking shit’ chant.  Makes us look like a bunch of idiots.

Minor gripes though.  Thought the red wall sounded pretty good yesterday.

Yeah annoys me, also hate hearing "you're nothing special we lose every week" and "how shit must you be it's only 1-0" 

I know it's gallows humour trying to laugh at the awfulness of it , but it add to the spiral of negativity at the ground 

Enjoyed the 10 min spell when we actually started to go for it and crowd really got behind them 

Edited Sunday at 15:26 by Football Special

[Lord Duckhunter]

That “one south coast Derby” has to up there with “we sing our own songs” against spurs. I’m also getting fucked off with “he’s one of own” as well. The Southampton firm, fuck me. We’ve a decent home end now, but it’s full of pound shop Green Street Nods….

Edited Sunday at 16:11 by Lord Duckhunter

[Midfield_General]

.

Edited Sunday at 17:16 by Midfield_General
Nah

[madge]

I saw one of two supporters having a right pop at those in the directors box yesterday at half time, fair play to them… the northam end was as quiet and blunt as our attack and should be directing their anger to the directors box and the booing of Smallbone was pretty poor.. this is all on Sports republic who have absolutely zero idea when it comes to transfer policy or engagement with a fan base. 

Edited Sunday at 18:23 by madge

[Football Special]

[Badger]

25 minutes ago, madge said:

I saw one of two supporters having a right pop at those in the directors box yesterday at half time, fair play to them… the northam end was as quiet and blunt as our attack and should be directing their anger to the directors box and the booing of Smallbone was pretty poor.. this is all on Sports republic who have absolutely zero idea when it comes to transfer policy or engagement with a fan base. 

One or two.... that's a start then.

Out of interest who was sat in the Directors Box to take this ?

[Lord Duckhunter]

I see a couple of people on social media sticking up from Smallbone because he got booked early doors, so had to be “careful”. The booking was 100% down to him, unprofessional and summed up his embarrassing performance….

Edited Sunday at 18:47 by Lord Duckhunter

[revolution saint]

Think the reaction of fans is probably the least of our problems.

[LGTL]

7 hours ago, Badger said:

Support is far too passive and unimaginative. Singing “ there’s only one south coast derby …”, seems to elevate the skates status beyond their worth.

As protests, you wonder when and what it would take to spark it. I’m looking to the younger generations who have the energy for it. What’s their problem, too much time on PlayStations ? 

The problem amongst the younger generation is that there just aren’t enough young lads from the actual city who are engrossed with the football team. Most of our 18-25 age group would rather have a latte before the game, clap every dreadful pass from Smallbone or Aribo and try and condescend the rest of us by telling us to ‘get behind the lads’.

We should be a working class club with a working class fanbase, but they’ve all been priced out and replaced with those from Salisbury or Winchester who just don’t care as much. 

 

 

[Badger]

13 minutes ago, LGTL said:

The problem amongst the younger generation is that there just aren’t enough young lads from the actual city who are engrossed with the football team. Most of our 18-25 age group would rather have a latte before the game, clap every dreadful pass from Smallbone or Aribo and try and condescend the rest of us by telling us to ‘get behind the lads’.

We should be a working class club with a working class fanbase, but they’ve all been priced out and replaced with those from Salisbury or Winchester who just don’t care as much. 

 

 

Possibly true. Is it different elsewhere, and why ? 
 

Saints had a large support from Winchester and Salisbury in the 70’s as well though. 

[disconnect]

20 hours ago, BarberSaint said:

 

When we first bought him and I saw him I thought it was £5m wasted. I still do. He's passable in the league below, but he really is a very poor defender. Please sell him.

Is this Bednarek or Wood? Thought Wood was awful on Sunday (with Bedders not much better), always looks panicked and can't seem to run properly?! 

[danjosaint]

Wood really isn't very good just another of Martin's mates 

[S-Clarke]

48 minutes ago, danjosaint said:

Wood really isn't very good just another of Martin's mates 

It would have been an odd signing last season, so it was even more of an odd one this year. He's a pretty low-end Championship CB, but this is the problem we lumbered ourselves with in the summer - no proper DoF, so these sorts of things were driven by Martin which shouldn't have happened. 

He signed a decent sized contract too, so he'll be around next year.

[Gloucester Saint]

2 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

It would have been an odd signing last season, so it was even more of an odd one this year. He's a pretty low-end Championship CB, but this is the problem we lumbered ourselves with in the summer - no proper DoF, so these sorts of things were driven by Martin which shouldn't have happened. 

He signed a decent sized contract too, so he'll be around next year.

Quick though for a centre back and can actually play. A decent manager might turn him into a decent higher-end Champ CB. Not sure his concentration is PL level and has a touch of the Stephens in his ball-watching.

[leesaint88]

14 minutes ago, Gloucester Saint said:

Quick though for a centre back and can actually play. A decent manager might turn him into a decent higher-end Champ CB. Not sure his concentration is PL level and has a touch of the Stephens in his ball-watching.

Agree with this, he needs a bit of work on his positioning but if he can get that right he'll be half decent. 

[LuckyNumber7]

21 hours ago, Football Special said:

Yeah annoys me, also hate hearing "you're nothing special we lose every week" and "how shit must you be it's only 1-0" 

I know it's gallows humour trying to laugh at the awfulness of it , but it add to the spiral of negativity at the ground 

Enjoyed the 10 min spell when we actually started to go for it and crowd really got behind them 

Yeah, agreed. But it just shows what slim pickings it's been this season when we're getting excited about a 10 minute spell of slightly more pressure, where we still didn't really look like scoring. We've even been starved of that this year, there's been so little to cheer about.

19 hours ago, madge said:

I saw one of two supporters having a right pop at those in the directors box yesterday at half time, fair play to them… the northam end was as quiet and blunt as our attack and should be directing their anger to the directors box and the booing of Smallbone was pretty poor.. this is all on Sports republic who have absolutely zero idea when it comes to transfer policy or engagement with a fan base. 

Who are we supposed to be giving stick to? Dragan has poured millions in and seems to genuinely care and be doing his best. Mistakes have been made but he is trying to rectify them. Rasmus seems to be the popular hate figure but not sure how much day to day involvement he has now. This feels different to the Lowe protest days tbh. I don't think protests now will achieve anything, and even if Dragan did decide to sell up, there's no guarantee we'd find someone better. Let's see how the summer recruitment and next season goes now we have a proper DoF.

19 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

It would have been an odd signing last season, so it was even more of an odd one this year. He's a pretty low-end Championship CB, but this is the problem we lumbered ourselves with in the summer - no proper DoF, so these sorts of things were driven by Martin which shouldn't have happened. 

He signed a decent sized contract too, so he'll be around next year.

Wood was poor on Saturday, but had actually looked pretty decent before then until Juric dropped him. I think there's a player in there, and he'll be fine for the Championship if he stays.

[leesaint88]

46 minutes ago, LuckyNumber7 said:

Quote

Who are we supposed to be giving stick to? Dragan has poured millions in and seems to genuinely care and be doing his best. Mistakes have been made but he is trying to rectify them. Rasmus seems to be the popular hate figure but not sure how much day to day involvement he has now. This feels different to the Lowe protest days tbh. I don't think protests now will achieve anything, and even if Dragan did decide to sell up, there's no guarantee we'd find someone better. Let's see how the summer recruitment and next season goes now we have a proper DoF.

This, i'd be worried regarding any new owners....it seems the only ones interested in English football at the moment are the Americans and they are never in it for the long term. 

Let's see how the summer goes, got a good chance to shake things up a bit. 

 

[OldNick]

19 hours ago, LGTL said:

 

We should be a working class club with a working class fanbase, but they’ve all been priced out and replaced with those from Salisbury or Winchester who just don’t care as much. 

 

 

I now live in Salisbury and went in by train Saturday. Most if not all were working people who went in. All this 'working class' crap gets on my nerves. Gone are the days of urchins queing up and jumping over the walls to get in, nowadays the kids are chuby little sods who have grown up on MacDonalds meals and pot noodles. The majority want to sit at home on their ipads or play stations and dont want to go and watch football. Times have changed from the days when I was kicking a washing up liquid bottle around Shirley school playground as nobody could afford a ball, or in the middle of the street. Now unless they have an all weather pitch and the latest boots there's no way they will set foot out the door. 

A 'working class' kid doesnt love Saints anymore than a middle class or upper class kid if they get the bug. My grand-daughter travels the country watching Saints and her life is centred around our team. 

I saw on Xa fan claining to have punched a load of Cherries fans, I assume he should get the red carpet treatment, as that is the only difference I can see is that of a working class kid ( if thats how you want to brand them) and one who takes the time and cost to travel a long way.

[OldNick]

On 16/02/2025 at 13:15, TheAlehouseBrawlers said:

Yep, cringey. One moment singing how they gonna shoot 'em, the next almost affectionately blaring that shit out.

Someone earlier said how the Bournemouth fans were mostly quiet, no they weren't, they were almost non-stop and were understandably enjoying their 'cup final'. And they had a wide variety of chants (mostly generic but no different to to the rest of the country) with nothing, other than a 10-min spell, coming back at them.

At least they did bin off that 'Pride of the South' banner in the Northam. What a mess.

Yep they sung until they got nervous as they thought we were going to get a 2nd. Once they got a 3rd they were full of it again. Only thing was they did join in the minute applause, that was decent. They were pretty quiet outside the ground after the game

[Chez]

6 hours ago, Gloucester Saint said:

Quick though for a centre back and can actually play. A decent manager might turn him into a decent higher-end Champ CB. Not sure his concentration is PL level and has a touch of the Stephens in his ball-watching.

He's got some good physical attributes, but he looked really poor last year at a lower level, making all kinds of basic errors. It therefore looked like we had missed a bullet when not signing him the summer before. Obviously, Martin had seen those attributes close up and I can see why he/we took a punt on him, but from the little I have seen of him since he came here, those issues - poor decision-making and pass selection for example - still need resolving. 

[Gloucester Saint]

15 minutes ago, Chez said:

He's got some good physical attributes, but he looked really poor last year at a lower level, making all kinds of basic errors. It therefore looked like we had missed a bullet when not signing him the summer before. Obviously, Martin had seen those attributes close up and I can see why he/we took a punt on him, but from the little I have seen of him since he came here, those issues - poor decision-making and pass selection for example - still need resolving. 

Of itself it isn’t a bad signing for £3m, but when you’ve already signed Edwards for similar, renewed Bednarek and tied in buying THB, it made less sense altogether than as a single transaction.

Which summed up the whole window - a trolley dash at Lidl item by item rather than thinking about what the meal needed and was going to look like at the Michelin Star restaurant, even on a budget.

Edited Monday at 19:33 by Gloucester Saint

[Chez]

8 minutes ago, Gloucester Saint said:

Of itself it isn’t a bad signing for £3m, but when you’ve already signed Edwards for similar, renewed Bednarek and tied in buying THB, it made less sense altogether than as a single transaction.

Which summed up the whole window - a trolley dash at Lidl item by item rather than thinking about what the meal needed and was going to look like at the Michelin Star restaurant, even on a budget.

Yep, wIth Taylor offering cover, and no one going out the door, I just don't understand why we needed Wood. I guess Martin knew he was going to play five at the back, and he will have wanted lots of cover.