Nordic Saint

I think you'll find the entitled one who sacked Puel and weakened our squad whilst waiting millions was Les Reed, not any fans.

Pity Old Les sacked him. But, to be fair, Leicester have got a much stronger squad than ours. You can't really compare the likes of Shane Long, Steven Davis, James Ward-Prowse and Fraser Forster to Jamie Vardy, Riyad Mahrez, Demarai Gray and Kaspar Schmeichel. We simply haven't got a rich owner prepared to pay for players of that calibre.

If it's Old Les, I wonder how many other clubs he's asked for a job, without any success? As for the 'there's one very good one' bit, don't all of the other clubs above us, like Man City, Liverpool, Spurs, Burnley, Watford and Leicester, have directors of football? If they do, even though they are more successful. I wouldn't know as none of them do as much self-publicising as Old Les

Looks like it's going to be a perfect storm tomorrow: gale force winds, torrential rain and sleet, trains cancelled, road traffic affected by the terrble conditions... A lot of Arsenal fans with tickets are not going to be able to make it. All this should work in our favour and help us get a good result, although a lot may depend on winning the toss as playing into the 45mph winds in the first half, which are expcted to moderate significantly after 1pm, is going to be a hell of a disadvantage for one of the teams.

There were quite a few, like Terry Paine, born in places like Winchester, Basingstoke and Petersfield. This is a list of players who won England international caps in their time as Saints and Pompey players. If you look them all up on Wikipedia, you can find out which ones were born in Hampshire. Of course, there were also many England internationals born in Hampshire who won their caps as players of other clubs. CB Fry is debatable as some say he was a Corinthians player at the time. Southampton David Armstrong James Beattie Ryan Bertrand Wayne Bridge Arthur Chadwick Mick Channon Nathaniel Clyne Peter Crouch Bill Ellerington Tim Fowers Fraser Forster C B Fry Kelly Houlker Kevin Keegan Adam Lallana Rickie Lambert Bert Lee Matt Le Tissier George Molyneux Terry Paine Tom Parker Alf Ramsey Bill Rawlings Nathan Redmond Jack Robinson Jay Rodriguez Luke Shaw Alan Shearer Peter Shilton Fred Titmuss Arthur Turner Danny Wallace James Ward-Prowse Dave Watson Steve Williams Mark Wright 36 Portsmouth Jim Allen Sol Campbell Peter Crouch Dan Cunliffe Jermain Defoe Jimmy Dickinson Jack Froggatt Peter Harris Mark Hateley Kelly Houlker David James Glen Johnson Arthur Knight Len Phillips Jack Smith Fred Worrall 16

Peter Sillett, Bill Ellerington, Bert Lee.... and probably a few more from the 1890s and 1900s

Martin Chivers

Is 'the headmaster' nudge, nudge, wink, wink, you know what I mean, Old Les? His insistence on his 'teachers' playing Academy products in the team, regardless of whether they were the best options was a major cause of the dispute betweeen Old Les and Koeman.

All strikers who score regularly at Premier League level have to be very fast over 5 to 10m or they wouldn't ever beat defenders to the ball. It's certainly not beyond the ralms of possibility that Austin is faster than Long over a short distance like that, even if he's not so fast over longer distances. He also accelerates when approaching the goal whereas Long tends to decelerate once he's reached the penalty area and starts looking around.

Yes, 50,000 was the planned capacity. There was a photo on the front page of the Echo, so there should be a copy in their archives. The major stumbling block was that John Deacon, the chairman of Portsmouth FC, who'd been turned down for a place on the Southampton FC board, was the head of Southampton City Council at the time and saw to it that planning permission was denied.

I think Charlie Austin would get into my list of 20 all-time greatest Saints strikers, based on their whole careers, not just with Saints. In no particular order (just as they came to mind): Alan Shearer Kevin Keegan Mick Channon Ron Davies Matt Le Tissier Martin Chivers Rickie Lambert Ted Drake Peter Osgood Marians Pahars James Beattie Graziano Pelle Ted MacDougall Charlie Austin Steve Moran Rod Wallace Phil Boyer Sadio Mané Gareth Bale Terry Paine

I was there too. We had great away support in those days, often bigger than the home team's as it was at Fulham that day. We took 13,000 to Forest the season before.

"More than 34,000". For a club which has always had smaller average gates than ours, that shows ambition.

Give van Dijk a break. IMHO, he played much better than Hoedt today. A lot of this cr@p about players giving less than 100% is simply in the imagination of fans who are prejudiced against certain players. I remember hearing the same bullsh!t about Mane and Wanyama. As long as he's with us, he desrves our full support and I'm sure he's giving his full effort to every game. You should see how happy he is when we score a goal.

I really like Charlie Austin. He's not only a great goal scorer, fixated on scoring goals and winning games but he's also a hard man who roughs up and unsettles opposition defenders: the exact opposite, if you will, of James Ward-Prowse.

When he starts regularly, Austin is a 15-20 goal a season Premier League striker.

They've got a very good squad, although they obviously miss Lukaku. I'd expect them to finish in the top 8 again this season. I'm not a big fan of Allardyce but remember he was the manager who led Bolton to their run of 4 consecutive top 8 finishes.

Sunderland and Hull are living your Championship dream. Their fans must be loving it.

Attendance: 1,780 (128 away fans) https://www.portsmouthfc.co.uk/news/2017/december/match-report-for-portsmouth-vs-northampton-town-on-02-dec-17/

Two players who used to be criticized a lot who are now really good: Raheem Sterling and Ashley Young. Sterling never used to have any end product. Now he is a deadly finisher. Young used to have little impact on games. Now, he is arguably the best crosser of a ball in the country. Maybe there is more to come from Redmond?

He's beginning to show us what he can do now.

City scored in the SIXTH minute of injury time. where did all that come from??? There shouldn't have been more than 4 minutes at tops. Feeling cheated of a well-deserved point by the officials.

In fact, Lukaku's scored 8 goals and had 3 assists in 13 Premier League games so far this season and scored 12 goals in 20 games in all competitions. But, you can't even spell his name and think "Jason Dodd is a legend". Whatever. You really don't know much about football, do you? https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/romelu-lukaku/profil/spieler/96341

We would have done if he hadn't taken off Gabbiadini and brought on Shane Long at a crucial moment, just when we were closing in on victory. That substitution gifted the game to Man U. He snatched defeat from the hands of victory.

Saints couldn't score goals this season with Shane Long up front; with Charlie Austin they can. Having a goal scorer up front makes a massive difference. Look at how Everton are struggling, now that they have lost theirs, Lukaku. We certainly struggled for goals after our 2 top goal scorers, Mane and Pelle, were sold. The crucial difference between the top teams and the bottom ones is that they have great goal scoring strikers, like Aguero, Kane, Vardy and Lukaku. With a Premier League goal scoring rate of a goal every 2.5 games, Austin is a fantastic asset for a club like ours. Of course, when he isn’t selected Austin can’t score and when Long is selected he can’t either