Nordic Saint

How quickly things can change. Under Pochettino and Koeman we regularly beat top 6 sides and we expected to; under Puel we don't. I'm not sure it's all his fault. The squad has been severely weakened by the sake of our best players and the failure to replace them with players of a similar calibre, although perhaps we have also failed to appoint a manager of a similar calibre to the last 2. As you say, we can expect more of the same this summer.

Well, they certainly can't defend themselves.

If we had a decent goalkeeping coach, he would surely tell Forster to stand in front of his goal line instead of behind it. The recurring problem of Forster standing behind his line happened yet again for City's first goal. When the oppostion are pressing for a goal, he often retreats more than a foot into his goal, from which position he can save nothing.

A Saints fan running on the pitch, winning the ball during the game and attempting to score the winning goal v QPR during the Mick Channon Testimonial, at which the referee abandoned the game.

ALL of them aren't: just the ones it was fairly obvious from their recent form and injury record, were dodgy buys.

He seems to have found some form: http://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2017/04/11/southampton-flop-juanmi-scores-again-was-he-sold-too-soon/

I doubt many people have. He hadn't played for a year before we signed him. I'd class him as semi-retired. At the other end of the career spectrum is, as others have said, is Josh Sims: one of the most promising youngsters we have ever had at Southampton.

I was pleased to see that the Chapel kop did actually sing and chant a couple of times during the Palace game. If some of the singers tucked away in the corners of the away end, where nobody notices them, moved to the Chapel end next season, it would, of course, vastly improve the atmosphere and help the team.

A good win against an in-form Palace side. Redmond, Ward-Prowse, McQueen and Stephens are all improving, which bodes well for the future. We never used our 3rd sub and it would have been good to see Sims come on.

Thank God we got a point today but we're still only 7 points off the bottom 3 As in many games this season, we dominated possession for the first 60 minutes and created lots of chances but had no goal scorer to finish them then Bournemouth's superior fitness began to show and we were just hanging on at the end As well as the penalty, they missed the 2 easiest chances of the game and fluffed a free-kick right in front of the goal. Let's hope Gabbiadini comes back soon We need his goals to get another win

If they did retrospective video reviews of past season, it would be interesting to see how many trophies would have to change hands. We might even have a couple more. In the interest of fairness, video technology can only be a good thing. The sooner it comes, the better, except for the 'big clubs'. who might lose some of their advantage.

"Southampton FC - Brasil 1 hr · OFICIAL: Chelsea chegou a um acordo com o Southampton por Virgil van Dijk! Os Blues pagarão £40M em Julho para o Saints e emprestarão Nathan Aké por uma temporada. Virgil, que não joga mais essa temporada, realizou sua ultima partida em janeiro, na vitória por 3-0 diante do Leicester. O que não podia piorar, ficou pior. Official: Chelsea came to an agreement with the Southampton for Virgil Van Dijk! The Blues will pay £ 40 m in July for the saints and lend Nathan Aké for a season. Virgil, that doesn't play anymore this season, has done his last departure in January, in the 3-0 win in front of the Leicester. What couldn't get any worse, it got worse." I copied that from the Saints Brazil fan site. I don't know where they go their info from. But £40M sounds about £20M less than we could get if we waiited for a bidding war in the summer. So, let's hope it's not true.

My grandfather lived at 457 Scotswood Road more than 100 years ago and his grandfather lived in Pudding Chare back in the 1840s. It's changed a lot since then. Quite a lot of young men moved south from Newcastle in the pre-war era, looking for work in the docks. I always think there's some affinity between the 2 cities and there has never been any real animosity between the fans. In the first match I saw at the Dell, John McGrath was playing for Newcastle. Not long after he moved down here too.

A lot of people, my grandparents from the Scotswood Road included, moved from Newcastle to Southampton in the 20th century, mostly following the dock work. The first football match I was taken to see as a boy was Saints v Newcastle. I think a sizeable percentage of Sotonians have Geordie roots.

Thanks for the link, Vectis. For those of us interested in football stats, it is an interesting list. As someone who started watching Saints when Terry Paine was our first England player for many years, I am really impressed that we have overtaken some of the traditional big clubs of the past in terms of the number of our players who've been capped by England. We're ahead of Leeds, for example, and not far behind Chelsea. That is one sign of our progress over the last 50 years. I've picked out the ones that are of interest to me, Norway, because I can Birmingham City (1908-2012), 17 Players Blackpool (1923-1966), 13 Players Bolton Wanderers (1885-2011), 28 Players Brighton & Hove Albion (1925-1982), 3 Players Bristol City (1901-1957), 4 Players Burnley (1889-2017), 27 Players Cardiff City (2010), 1 Player Charlton Athletic (1923-2006), 12 Players Chelsea (1907-2017), 44 Players Coventry City (1956-1998), 4 Players Crystal Palace (1914-2016), 13 Players Derby County (1891-2000), 38 Players Fulham (1922-2011), 11 Players Huddersfield Town (1919-1964), 21 Players Ipswich Town (1961-2000), 12 Players Leeds United (1926-2004), 31 Players Leicester City (1927-2017), 17 Players Manchester City (1904-2017), 48 Players Middlesbrough (1905-2009), 29 Players Newcastle United (1901-2016), 36 Players Norwich City (1976-2012), 7 Players Nottingham Forest (1879-1997), 36 Players Portsmouth (1900-2010), 16 Players Preston North End (1886-2007), 14 Players Queens Park Rangers (1908-1994), 15 Players Reading (1900-2007), 3 Players Sheffield United (1892-1992), 34 Players Sheffield Wednesday (1872-1998), 41 Players Southampton (1899-2017), 35 Players Stoke City (1884-2016), 24 Players Sunderland (1891-2012), 28 Players Swansea City (2015), 1 Player Watford (1982-2007), 3 Players West Ham United (1911-2016), 40 Players Wolverhampton Wanderers (1887-2011), 34 Players

Southampton David Armstrong James Beattie Ryan Bertrand Wayne Bridge Arthur Chadwick Mick Channon Nathaniel Clyne Peter Crouch Bill Ellerington Tim Fowers Fraser Forster Charlie 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 Does anyone have an updated list of other internationals? Saints have had so many recently.

Because we're playing a 'big club'. Anyone who thinks the officiating in the Premier League is unbiased, just has to watch our games against the 'big clubs' this season to see that it isn't.

Unfortunately, someone seems totally oblivious to reality: http://www.sportsmole.co.uk/football/southampton/news/reed-southampton-have-best-midfield-in-pl_276561.html

That's a real blow. Amazing what a difference the loss of our goal scorer makes. It's all about avoiding relegation now and we should have a enough points already to do that. The other results have gone our way. If we'd been told at the start of the season, we'd be playing nearly half the season with Stephens and Yoshida as our central defenders, we'd have been happy with just staying up anyway. Considering the financial reports that we've spent more on players we've bought than we've got for the ones we've sold, our dealings in the transfer market over the last 2 years seem to have cost us both on and off the pitch.

It seems to indicate that we have been selling players for considerably less than has been bandied about and buying them for more. But any accounts which show a profit have to be considered OK. I'd guessed the profit would be greater but the discrepancies in the reported transfer fees would explain that.

It's very similar to when they beat us at St Mary's, except we're a better team than Millwall. They camp their midfield deep in the opposition's half and spray passes from side to side until they find openings. If you let them do that, they'll destroy you. You really half to pen them back in their own half, which requires stiff, aggressive tackling from our midfielders on and in front of the halfway line throughout the game. That's something I've not really seen from our team this season. Romeu does it for 70 minutes until he tires as he gets little help in that department.

Yes, it looks like we only have to win 1 of our 2 games in hand to be fairly well assured of at least a top 10 place. A 4th consecutive top 8 finish for the 1st time in the club's history looks possible. We had 5 top 8 finishes in the early 80s but in the middle of them was the 12th in 1983.

Schneiderlin was very overrated by many Saints fans. His glaring weakness was always that he often lost concentration and was too easily dispossessed,as he was again today. Ironically, today he was up against a player who was very underrated by many Saints fans, Wanyama. Now, he really is a top class defensive midfielder: one of the very best in the game.

I'd pick Davis ahead of Ward-Prowse every time. If we can sell Ward-Prowse, than someone who can score goals from them, like Gabbiadini or Boufal, will be allowed to take the free-kicks, and that could be worth quite a few points to us over a season.

Clasie Gardos Martina Hojbjerg Reed Ward-Prowse Lewis Targett Isgrove Rodrguez