Nordic Saint

Did we ever discover he had a long throw while he was here or was it only after he went to Stoke? Incidentally, why doesn't every team train a long throw specialist? It's another means of attack and they lead to quite a few goals.

We're lucky Austin wasn't picked for England or we might have been left with no strikers at all for the Burnley and Inter games. The first half of our season depends on him staying fit until we can buy a replacement for Pelle and Mane in January.

89 caps and 9 goals for Northern Ireland. That's a lot of international experience, which will be very useful in the Europa League. I've never noticed him getting stick at St Mary's He's always seemed to be a fairly popular player, altough players who stay wih us, like Davis and Fonte, are sometimes perceived as beng 'not good enough' for a big club to buy by a mnority of our fans who only seem to prefer the latest buy. Judging from some of the stuff posted here, Boufal is already more popular with them than some of our long-term players like Fonte and Davis. Even Alderweireld is more popluar with them because a big club bought him so fast. Personallly, I prefer the players who stay with us for many years like Davis.

Fonte starts for Portugal in their World Cup qualifier v Andorra, giving him his 18th cap, all won as a Saints player. Van Dijk also starts for Holland v Belarus, winning his 9th cap.

Pellè starts for Italy in their World Cup qualifier v Spain. It's his 20th cap (he had none when he joined us). Will he score his 10th goal for them? It's live on ITV4 at 19.45.

It came up on a Google search when I was looking for Saints and Pompey's lowest gates. Theirs is definiteley smaller But I still wonder what that mysterious pre-war gate of theirs, smaller than the 1,355 they had last night, was. Presumably it was a league game, as the FA Cup attracted big gates back then and there were no other cup competitions. Google brings up nada.

I'm not sure any other Premier League club would buy him and foreign clubs don't pay big transfer fees so he may be here longer than you think. Most players seem to improve while they're here so maybe in another 2 years time he'll be ready for sale. Usually, it only takes 2 years to get them ready but Clasie is a slow developer. Van Dijk will definitely be ready next summer and if Romeu keeps improving at the current rate he may be too but not Clasie. It's all a bit like fattening turkeys for christmas except instead of christmas it's the summer transfer window.

That match was played on a Monday afternoon and the crowd was still bigger than the 1,355 at Fratton Park last night, which apparently isn't Pompey's all-time lowest home gate, which must have been in the pre-war years. Does anybody know what it was? Incidentally, although Saints' smallest home gate in the top flight was 9,028 v Ipswich, Pompey's was only 4,031 v Liverpool in Divison One on Sat, 25 Feb, 1933, which is always worth knowing when they harp on about the Ipswich gate;) http://pompeyrama.com/pompey-fc-match-3682-25-Feb-1933-Pompey-2-Liverpool-1.html

Perhaps, on the other hand, rather than being prejudiced against him because he is only 2 years younger than Ibrahimovic, they watched the match today or the European Championship finals, and saw what a great central defender he is, even if he is sadly underappreciated by some of our fans.

We already have one of the best pairs of central defenders in the Premier League, evne if some of our fans don't realize it. It's in attack that we need 'competition' i.e. another striker who can score goals.

I'm not sure they'd want him. They are serious title challengers nowadays and are well stocked with defensive midfielders. If he's not considered good enough at Man United, I doubt he'll be good enough for Spurs. Everton might take him but we are the right level club for him. It's unlikely his pride would let him come back here though. If Everton don't take him, he'll end up somewhere like West Brom. But, Wanyama, who was underrated by many of our fans, is having a superb season at Spurs. "Wanyama never gave the City attackers a moment’s peace." "Victor Wanyama – Superb display from the Kenyan destroyer who is fast becoming a fans favourite."

Trevor Kettle only ever refereed 2 Saints games and we won them both. As has been pointed out, we also have a good winning record with Martin Atkinson.

It's a pity the name of Southampton FC gets dragged into it. Whose bright idea was it to bring Black here anyway when he had such a terrible career record? Most insiders know who the dodgy characters are in football, which is why the Telegraph targetted the ones they did.

A good opportunity to sack him. Let's face it, none of us really wanted him here.

I agree with you about Austin. He needs to play at least part of every game we want to win as he is our only reliable goal scorer. Played ss a Saints striker, Redmond looks like a Norwich midfielder. As for Boufal being one of our best finishers, he's a midfielder who's only averaged 4 goals a season in his career in the French 2nd and 1st divisions and he didn't score at all in the 2 games he played for Morocco. We should have kept one out of Pelle and Mane but as we didn't, we'll have to buy another striker in January. Fingers crossed Austin doesn't get injured before then.

In spite of the fact that you seem keen to start a personal feud with me, I agree with you about this, Angelman. Nearly all of the past Saints players we have good memories of, like Mike Channon, Terry Paine, Ron Davies, Alan Ball, Kevin Keegan, Alan Shearer, Steve Moran and Rickie Lambert, at some stage became ex-Saints, some of them with Pompey, with very few exceptions like Le Tissier. Just because one of our best players is sold to another club doesn't mean it's obligatory to either completely erase him from your memeory or hate him forever.

Our central defensive pairing is the key to our success in recent years and this one. The negative attitude of many of our fans towards Fonte appalls me and it will come as no surprise if he agrees to a move to Man United in January, where he might be better appreciated. Whoever his current defensive partner is, Lovren, Alderweireld or van Dijk, gets all of the credit for our outstanding defence and none of the blame for any errors made, and van Dijk has made some bad ones recently. Stats show that Fone makes fewer errors than just about any central defender in the Premier League and he isn't a Europena champion for nothing. Many of our fans clearly do not appreciate player loyalty and whoever the latest signing is instantly becomes their favourite player. Fonte deserves to be better appreciated. Perhaps he will be at Old Trafford.

Lee Mason was born in Portsmouth. Based on those stats, if he was the referee for all of our games, we'd be relegated. Should he be allowed to continue officiating our games? I think the club should appeal againts him on the grounds that he is clearly not neutral. Even the 1 of those 15 games we won (2-1 at home to Stoke), Mason did everything he could to stop us, wrongly sending off Mane and denying Tadic a penalty: http://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2016/03/14/lee-mason-banished-to-the-dugout-after-dismal-refereeing-display/

We have only won 1 of the 15 games when Lee Mason has been referee and only won 3 out of the 14 when Mark Clattenburg was the referee, and he usually gives our players a load of red and yellow cards. If we make it to the League Cup Final, we need to hope it's Jon Moss and not Lee Mason or Mark Clattenburg refereeing. You can usually tell which team the referee favours by his body language. Most of the game he will face the goal they are attacking. Clattenburg nearly always faces our goal, no matter where the ball is.

I posted this in the West Ham match build-up thread: "We have a fantastic record with John Moss refereeing, including our 4-0 win v Arsenal, 3-0 win v Everton and 3-0 win v Norwich, and we've won nearly every away game he's reffed, including the 2-1 win at Tottenham and 1-0 win at Swansea earlier this year. We won every game he reffed last season." We can now add a 3-0 away win at West Ham to that. So, does anyone know which referees we have the best and worst records with? Our winning percentage in matches with John Moss as ref must be hard to beat.

The West Ham crowd is very good at winning cards and their target is obviously a red. They react outraged every time one of our players tackles. It's a tactic the St Mary's crowd should adopt. Every little helps.

Fonte has been our best player so far. He's starting most of our moves but they're breaking down with poor passing from Redmond and Davis.

We have a fantastic record with John Moss refereeing, including our 4-0 win v Arsenal, 3-0 win v Everton and 3-0 win v Norwich, and we've won nearly every away game he's reffed, including the 2-1 win at Tottenham and 1-0 win at Swansea earlier this year. We won every game he reffed last season.

Nearly half their team are ex-Saints players. Is Les Reed going to claim the credit if they win the Premier League? He tried to when Leicester won it, claiming they'd merely copied Saints.

The combination of Mane and Lallana is lethal. It's a shame we never saw them play together for us. Liverpool could win the league with a team nearly half made up of ex-Saints players.