Nordic Saint

After all the years he's been with us, he gets taken a bit for granted. But, we'd probably miss him more than any other player, as we did this season in that 6-1 league cup defeat to Liverpool. Even Lovren used to get most of the credit for our strong central defence. Then it was Alderweireld and now it's van Dijk. But, nearly every time one of them had to play without Fonte alongside him, we shipped loads of goals.

Yes, what a fantastic buy Kirchhoff has been for Sunderland, and he's still only 25. He's definitely one of the best defensive midfielders I've seen at St Mary's this season, and would be the obvious replacement for Wanyama if he left. But, if Sunderland stay up, they won't need to sell him.

He's not in the same class as Pelle and certainly no upgrade on him. He's scored just 1 goal in 8 games for Scotland. There are lots of strikers younger and better than Martin we could buy, like Borja Baston and Vincent Janssen.

Kieran Trippier but Paul Mitchell took him to Spurs.

We lost Paul 'black box' Mitchell to Tottenham. Luckily for us, he identified Van Dijk as a key target before he left.

True, Sour Mash. I think this has been a great season in the Premier League, but the refereeing has been very inconsistent, and that has been the one sour note.

Great post. Totally agree with everything in it. The quality of the Premier League is very good. English clubs are through to the semi-finals of both European competitions. There were plenty of journeymen in the Liverpool sides which won the league nearly every year in the 70s and 80s who were nowhere near as good as the likes of Schmeichel, Mahrez and Kante. What p!sses the naysayers off even more is the fact that there are so many great English players coming through like Kane, Vardy and Alli. For the first time in decades, England could actually win a major competition.

Everton seemed to set out in the first half to injure as many of our players as possible. Fonte and Wanyama were subjected to some nasty fouls. I've noticed it's a tactic of dirty teams to target key players early in the game when there is less chance the ref will give them cards.

Yes, it would have been better if he'd subbed Clasie instead of Wanyama. I thought Wanyama was outstanding yet again today. He's another player, like Tadic and Mane, some Saints fans seem reluctant to give credit to.

Such a pity though that he put the ball out for that corner when he could have cleared the ball upfield. And that gave Everton their only chance to score, which they took.

Seriously, he's survived here for the last few years by being a nice bloke, but now is the time to let him go. He's the last person I'd want coaching goalkeeepers at the club. Surely, we're a bit more professional than that.

I think we should wish all our former players well. It enhances the club's reputation. More than 90% of all professional footballers play for more than one club so it's the norm. Turning against players when they leave us just makes our fans look bitter and envious. Also, when players look back on their careers, their memories of their time at Southampton are going to be tainted by the attitude of some of our fans towards them. Lallana is a classic example. He gave us many years great service and was our Fans' and Player's Player of the Season. He has moved on to one of the most famous and successful clubs in the world. If you had a similar opportunity in your career, would you turn it down? I wish him all the best and hope he helps Liverpool win the Europa League and England win Euro 2016. Few players have played so well for so many years for us as Lallana did.

The father of one of our Academy lads told me about that. It's why our Academy products speak so well when interviewed.

I was a big fan of Wijnaldum early in the season, but he has been awful lately and, surprisingly, considering all the goals he scored, Newcastle fans want him dropped from their team. They say he is lazy and disinterested, and that's how he looked yesterday. Janmaat was shockingly bad yesterday and he is another player the Geordies are very unhappy with. The foreign import who has made a difference in the relegation battle is Jan Kirchoff at Sunderland. He has been superb since they signed him in January, as he was when they played us at St Mary's. http://www.themag.co.uk/2016/04/give-us-newcastle-v-southampton-player-ratings-todays-match-newcastle-united/

Yes. This is certainly his time of year. As soon as the weather warms up, he hits top form. I wouldn't be surprised to see him star for Italy in the hot summer sun in France, while some of the English players, like Vardy and Kane, may struggle in those conditions. Forget his midwinter slump. Pelle is worth every penny we pay him for all the goals he gets early and late in the season. Hopefully, Austin will fill in midseason next year.

Yes, Clasie and Ward-Prowse were really shown up by Townsend then. The lesson is you can't afford to play both of them. You need a bit more physical presence in midfield. That was possibly the worst I have ever seen Ward-Prowse play. If he continues like that, we should consider selling him. As for Clasie, the jury is still out on him, but he has got one of our worst player ratings in just about every game he's played this season. He'll need to improve a lot in future to merit a place in a Premier League team. At least he tries to get stuck in a bit more than Ward-Prowse does, even if he does get easily brushed aside. Fortunately, Wanyama gave a MOTM performance yesterday.

"sadly he had a teenage brainfart and blew it, but he knows his onions when watching football and his analysis of players is pretty spot on (great to sit next to at a game) when Luke Shaw was with us on more than one occasion he would ask "whats the name of the young blonde left sided defender from your academy?" I would reply Luke Shaw to which he would reply with a grin "no not him he's rubbish!". When I said Matt Targett "yup that's the one' Sounds like he may be getting onions and footballs a bit confused.

I would move to a Chapel kop too. The Family Stand is not a major problem as it is only in one corner. The big empty fan 'segregation' area directly behind the goal at the Northam end is a far bigger problem.

Why do we have to get our 'home' atmosphere from the away end? We're not only going to watch the away fans. Home support can help a team and it's worth a few points a season. That's why we should have it. I'm in the Kingsland and I do sing and shout at every opportunity. But, the silence around the stadium does, as you can tell from my posts, really p!ss me off. Our cynics take the p!ss out of clubs like Leicester and Palace because they have organised and taken action to improve their home support. But, we really should do something.

sour mash, I guess that you are one of the fans who sits in the corners of the away end at St Mary's, where you probably can hear some noise. But, in the rest of the stadium, you really can't hear much noise at all, apart from the away fans. You can tell the home fans in the Itchen/Northam and Kingsland/Northam corenrs can't even hear each other above the away fans because they are often attempting to sing completely different songs at the same time. If the two small corner mobs joined together and got behind one of the goals, they would actually be able to outsing the away fans, and would probably get the rest of the stadium joining in more. We'll only ever have a decent atmosphere at St Mary's when we have a proper home end, and that has to be the Chapel because the Northam is the away end. Divide and rule, they say. Our kop has divided itself and so is easily ruled by every set of away fans.

Our home support is terrible. I've been supporting Saints since the 1960s and this is the quietest I've ever known it. The only people who think it's 'decent' are the ones who sit in the corners of the away end because they can hear themselves. The problem is because they are hidden away in the corners, the rest of the stadium can't hear them and so there is very little to join in with.

One of the reasons for this is the pricing structure at St Mary's, which encourages younger fans to sit quietly with their parents in the Family Stand. The prices for unaccompanied youngsters are ridiculously high so young fans never get used to going to games with their mates and making noise. Leicester's owner has worked at encouraging support the home support there. Unless the club takes some steps to encourage a home kop in the Chapel Stand, it's never going to happen, and we're going to go from the near silence at games this season to total silence in future, apart from the songs about Pompey that is, which seems to be the only team our fans sing about nowadays.

One of the disadvantages of not having a home end at Southampton is that those of our fans who do sing have got used to lurking in the corners of the away end, baiting the away fans. If you ask them why, they say this is what creates atmosphere. Not, it isn't. This is what stirs up even more support for our opponents, It would be great if our young fans learned to support Saints but it just doesn't seem to be part of their culture nowadays. Also, they may have noticed yesterday that when you stick the away fans in the corner of the stadium, which is where our singers choose to sit at home games, you hardly notice them. It's been known for decades that you have most influence on the game directly behind the goals, and that's why the best kops all over the world choose to locate there.

I also preferred the 7.30 pm midweek kickoff times and shorter half-time breaks, which made it easier to get back from away games by train. 8pm kickoffs mean it's too late even for many home fans to get home by public transport, but I guess they fit in better with TV schedules. Also, there never used to be an 'obligatory' 5 minutes+ of added time in games back then. Add all those factors together, and evening games nowadays finish nearly half an hour later.

Yes, the roses on the club's traditional badge are indeed the red and white roses of Lancaster and York, which symbolise the fact that after the Wars of the Roses their armies were united and set sail from Southampton to invade France. When the new badge was introduced in the 70s the red roses were replaced by a football and a tree. Men went to war from this city, you know. We don't even need to make up any Alan Ball quotes about it.