Nordic Saint

What is our weight? Our average position in our 40 seasons in the top flight is 11th and we get the 12th biggest gates in the country. An occasional foray into the top 8 is hardly punching above our weight. For our size, we are, along with Birmingham City, one of the the most underachieving teams in English football history in terms of trophies won and that seems to have conditioned some of our fans into thinking the club and its fan base are smaller than they really are.

Yes, Saints would be a lot higher up that table if pre-war estimates weren't included and Pompey would be a lot further down it. Our post-war-average is over 20,000 while Pompey's is less than 17,000.

Look on the bright side. We'll be able to watch an ex-Saints XI dominating English football for years to come. Admittedly, the fact they'll all be wearing Liverpool shirts puts a bit of a dampener on it. Kat has already sold our attack. IF, and that's a big if, she also sells our defence and follows that by selling what's left of the club, she will have shown considerable ambition for making money. We have to balance this by taking into account the fact the last 3 years have been great and we did beat Inter Milan. So, it's certainly not all doom and gloom.

Only one club on the south coast: http://www.nufc.com/2016-17html/attendance-all-time.html

Yet how the refs don't spot the shirt pulling from van Dijk must be something to do with God. The hate campaign against Fonte on her from some of our so-called fans is pathetic. He was superb today.

Our best players today, imho, were Fonte, Cedric and Forster. Those 3 really were exceptional. Forster made several excellent saves, the best of which was a diving save of a powerful Mane shot heading for the top corner of the goal. Cedric showed great pace and skill, and Fonte made some unbelievable saving tackles and interceptions to keep us in the game.

I really think a game in the Checkatrade Trophy might be good for him. At least he might start taking a few shots. His lack of pace and skill is always going to blunt his usefulness against the very top teams though.

We have got a few youngsters who have been struggling to cope with the pressures of Premier League lately, and Hjobjerg and Redmond are two of them. A couple of confidence-building games in the Checkatrade Trophy would do them the world of good,as would a Wembley final for all our players and fans.

We should sign Moussa Dembélé from Celtic as a replacement for Mané.

Ryan Bertrand has missed England’s training session on Monday afternoon and is now a doubt for Southampton’s match against Liverpool on Saturday. Bertrand seems to be coming aprt at the seams: one injury after another.

Fonte wins his 20th cap for Portugal tonight in their World Cup qualifier v Latvia, which is on live on ITV4 at 19.45.

I was happy for us to sign Redmond as a midfielder but, played out of position as a striker, he simply doesn't look up to it at this level. He seems a bit short of pace and his decision making in the final third is poor. Also he doesn't seem to have a particularly good shot or heading ability. He is a reasonable midfield runner, open to improvement but he is never going to fill Mane's shoes up front. I've thought that for a while now but seeing him in the England U21 game confirmed it for me. Even at that level, he didn't look sharp enough to be a striker, in contrast to Demarai Gray, who was everything I hoped Redmond would be. It is a cop out to say we have replaced Mane with Redmond. We haven't.

Another MOM performance for England from him tonight. Lallana is about the only England player who is clearly skilful enough to get into just about any team in Europe. Mane, Clyne and Lallana must all be worth twice what we sold them for. Just 1 or 2 more players from Saints - van Dijk & Bertrand - and Liverpool could totally dominate English football again.

The entire Lander company is valued at only half of Kat's estimated personal wealth, and as they are running at a loss, they would have to borrow heavily to raise the funds to buy the club. It looks very much like a Chinese equivalent of SISU.

He tackled and ran well but his passing was awful so I'm not sure he's enough of an all-round player for the very top level. The best player by far on the night and the only one who looked ready to step straight into a top Premier League team and the full England team, was Demarai Gray. Will Hughes of Derby was good too but he's another one of those attacking midfield players who can't shoot and we've got enough of them already. On a couple of occasions he was a few yards in front of goal and passed the ball out wide away from the danger area when it would have been easier for him to score. I was expecting Redmond to really stand out at this level. He didn't. He just lacks that bit of pace and sharp reaction to really make an impact even at this level. He still looks like he's not developing into much more than a fairly average midfield player and is nowhere near being a Premier League striker. Although Stephens scored the winning goal, he was very dodgy in defence. The Italian team reminded me a bit of Inter Milan: they showed a lot of individual skill but poor team work. However, they had players who were sharp up front and were always ready to take any chance they got. It was a very entertaining game though and it's a pity there weren't more fans there to see it. I'm not sure the FA will award St Mary's another England game after that poor attendance.

What's his name? Good luck to him. I'll be there. Like most things in life, football competitions are constantly changing. The Europa League used to be the UEFA Cup and before that it was the Fairs Cup. It doesn't mean we should boycott it.

Weren't you there when Saints won the Premier League Cup? I must admit it was something special to see a Saints team lift a cup. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_League_Cup_(football)

If Liverpool can build a team totally made up of ex-Saints players they'll be nailed on to win every trophy going.

It's the same competition that attracted the greatest number of Saints fans ever to a Wembley final. As for who will ridicule the attendance figure, Pompey fans for at least the next 20 years. I think that's how long they kept the Bolton away thing going, and the home gate v Ipswich for even longer. If they get a bigger gate for their Checkatrade game the night before, we'll never hear the last of it. I'm going to the game anyway but a little bit of promotion from the club and advance online ticket sales would probably add a few thousand to the gate, which is now likely to be less than 2,000. I can't understand why the club has made no effort whatsoever to promote the game or even make tickets available.

Liverpool could get that much for Mane alone of they chose to sell him in January. He'll score 20+ goals this season. We wuz robbed!

I thought we played very well today except in the final third where we missed Mane and Pelle. Redmond is not an upgrade on Mane. He is a good replacement for Juanmi, being played out of position. The club's decision to sell our 2 best strikers and not buy a decent replacement has made life very difficult for Puel.

How we miss Mane and Pelle on a day like today. We should have been 3-0 up.

That must be the same one who was taking photos of the Kingsland stand at the Sunderland game.

Portsmouth 1 Wycombe 2 attendance: 8,130 Boos at half-time and full-time Southampton 2 Inter Milan 1 attendance: 30,389 Media plaudits for the home support with the crowd singing before kick-off and still singing after the final whistle. The gulf between us is massive. They really will have to start worrying about Eastleigh coming to get them.

When are tickets for Wednesday's match going on sale? If we beat Crawley, we'll finish top of the group and have a good chance of a Wembley final.