Nordic Saint

I had a look at a Blackpool messageboard. The fight took place outside the designated away pub. Presumably, the Burnley fans who'd been told that was the designated safe pub for them to drink at would not have gone there looking for a fight. Of course, it's very sad that anyone should die in a fight between groups of football fans. The victim was a legend known to all Blackpool fans. Blackpool attack: Football fan dies after post-match brawl at pub - BBC News

If Forest beat Everton by 2 goals, we move up to 18th.

McCarthy is the worst goalkeeper we've ever had in the top flight. Bazunu may well prove to be the next worst but at least he's so young that there's still hope he might improve; McCarthy never will.

Our most vocal fans do that for themselves. Instead of forming a large group behind the goal at the home end (the Chapel), they divide themselves into 2 small groups and lurk in the corners of the away end, where they are easily drowned out by a large united group of away fans and are least likely to be seen or heard by the rest of the crowd, the players and most importantly, the referees. When there's a big away following for an FA Cup game, they disappear completely. The only reason they seemed louder in the Championship was that away teams brought far fewer fans there and so home fans filled most of the Northam. I say, 'they' because I'm an old man now but when I was younger I used to stand behind the goal and sing louder than most. When we were at the Dell, we dreamed of having a large covered home end like we now have at St Mary's, which makes it all the more galling that it isn't used. At away games our most vocal fans are forced to stand together in one large group so at least our away support is not too bad. Hopefully, the Club will put the safe standing area in the middle of the Chapel and create a proper home end. But, the fans have to play their part.

I guess if Caleta-Car had dived first when he was more firmly tapped on the back, there would have been no penalty. The lesson, as is often reiterated on Match of the Day, is that if you feel contact in the penalty area, you have to go down. It's very silly ( a bit like a Monty Python sketch) but, unfortunately, that's the way it is nowadays.

1. A. Armstrong 2. McCarthy 3. Bednarek

But the stats show he also struggled at Man City. Saints B team put 6 goals past him in his last season there before he went on loan to Rochdale, where he also struggled: Gavin Bazunu - Stats 19/20 | Transfermarkt Gavin Bazunu - Stats 20/21 | Transfermarkt

GK? We haven't really got anyone you'd trust in that position, have we? I guess Caballero appears to be the least inept of the three but maybe that's just because we haven't seen much of him.

He needs to grow into Fraser Forster fast. No normal person has his superpower to dodge shots that look certain to hit him. He's like Keanu Reeves in the Matrix.

Goalkeepers usually don't reach their peak until they are at least in their late 20s. The best ones are mostly over 30. In 10 years' time, we'll find out how good Bazunu is. Right now, he should only be used sparingly in cup games, like the one against Grimsby, to build his confidence. Meanwhile, the clean sheet king, Fraser Forster has racked up another two in the last 7 days, taking his total to well over 200.

Teams that win trophies tend to have some older players. Real Madrid have Modric, 37, Benzema, 35, Kroos, 33, Nacho, 33, Hazard, 32, Carvajal, 31, Vazquez, 31, Alaba, 30 and Courtois, 30. I've noticed this especially when a surprise team wins the FA Cup, like Saints in 1976 or Pompey in 2008. A few old pros iin your team give you an advantage if you want to win trophies.

A career record of 202 clean sheets and an average of less than a goal a game conceded would suggest otherwise.

Forster and Hojbjerg helped us by beating West Ham: Tottenham player ratings vs West Ham: Excellent Emerson Royal justifies Antonio Conte’s faith | Evening Standard

And this time that tw@t Nathan Jones wasn't there to stop him going for goal.

Does that mean Beattie hasn't had his booster jabs?

Who knew? There's a parallel universe out there.

We should all be happy that after the unpopular Jones appointment, we dodged another bullet with Marsch. Neither of them had much to commend them and neither will be missed.

He took them from 16th to the bottom 3 and was only saved on the final day of the season by coming up against a lower mid-table Brentford with nothing to play for, who conceded a penalty and were reduced to 9 men. Even though he made them worse after he took over, he got very lucky on the final day with a 94th minute deflected shot against 9 men. "Even when Brentford were reduced to nine men, Raya's goal rarely appeared in serious danger until Dasilva's clearance from a last-minute corner fell for Harrison, whose 25-yard effort took a slight deflection to beat the goalkeeper inside his near post" So, it was a sheer fluke.

This is very good news. We've dodged a bullet there.

They were 16th when he took over. He took them down one place. At least he can't do that here. 11v11 league table generator

I agree. He failed at Montreal, he failed at RB Leipzig and he failed at Leeds. His record at Leeds (29.73% win rate) was worse than Ralph's record at Southampton (34.19%) and his record at RB Leipzig (38.10%) was much worse than Ralph's (48.19%). So, why would anyone think he'd be better than Ralph here??? The same red flags of previous failure are there that were there for Nathan Jones, only there are more of them. For those who say he saved Leeds from relegation, they weren't even in the bottom 3 when he took over in February. The one thing in his favour is that he is a more likeable person than Nathan Jones. I actually felt sorry for Marsch when he was at Leeds, because you could see he was a decent bloke finding it hard to cope.

He wasn't at RB Leipzig and he wasn't at Leeds so why should he be here? Have we got a better squad than them?

On this day one year ago we drew 1-1 at Man.United in the middle of a 7-match unbeaten run: 2022 22 January Southampton 1–1 Manchester City 5 February Southampton 2-1 Coventry FAC 9 February Tottenham Hotspur 2–3 Southampton 12 February Manchester United 1–1 Southampton 19 February Southampton 2–0 Everton 25 February Southampton 2–0 Norwich City 2 March Southampton 3-1 West Ham FAC "impressive Southampton" 44 Forster 2 Walker-Peters 35 Bednarek Sub Stephens 45'minutes 22 Salisu 15 Perraud 17 S Armstrong 8 Ward-Prowse 6 Romeu Sub Diallo 90+5'minutes 24 Elyounoussi Sub Livramento 71'minutes 18 Broja 10 Adams Man Utd 1-1 Southampton: Jadon Sancho and Che Adams score - BBC Sport

We've got some good new players now. Ralph would have kept us up with this squad. Thank God we were only playing against 10 men today or we'd have been annihilated in the second half.

Jones is a bit odd, don't you think?