Nordic Saint

Most Kingsland regulars are voting with their feet. The Itchen is sold out and fans who are used to sitting at the side are not going behind the goal for this one. Most Chapel regulars would happily move into what are usually the more expensive seats in the Kingsland, but not the other way around. The closure of the Kingsland has knocked a few thousand off the attendance.

Newcastle, Spurs or Aston Villa? It wouldn't be a great surprise to see a smaller club, like Fulham or Forest, in the final though. It's as wide open as it's ever been. If you have any idea who's going to win, you can get good odds on any team.

More likely by stretcher bearers. We'd probably need them to get him onto the pitch as well.

You have to admire the upbeat use of "recent" though. This is a season SO bad that in the 140 years of our history, nobody could ever even have imagined it would happen. The lap the players do around the pitch at the end of the season is going to be 'interesting'. They could liven things up a bit by all wearing their 'Record Breaker' T shirts. One thing's for sure: Everton are never going to live this season down.

The funniest moment of the game came in the 79th minute when that fan who'd won a prize to play in a Premier League game came on and replaced Ugochukwu! The manager had obviously told him. "Jog around a bit. Don't get in anybody's way. No need to worry, the ball won't come anywhere near you and if it does another player will run and get it. We'll give you a shirt signed by all the players at the end of the game."

Fair point. I don't think Martin actively disliked any of the players; he just wanted them to play his way. I'll delete the bit about him not liking him. 90th minute now and Bournemouth are still attacking, trying to score a 3rd goal.

He's a VERY skilful player, who likes running with the ball and beating defenders. He's not going to walk around in his own half, passing sideways and backwards.

Let's face it, although, by our standards, we played well for 70 minutes in it, Man United v Saints was a game between 2 of the worst teams in the league. I'm currently watching a game between 2 of the best teams in the country, Newcastle and Bournemouth, and it's a different class: much faster, more competitive and more skilful, with great players, like Isak, Gordon, Guimarães, Kerkez, Zabarnyi, Kluivert and Semenyo, organised by top managers into entertaining, winning teams. There's no slow, sideways and backwards passing. Both teams are going at it like prize fighters, hell for leather, to win. How on earth did anybody ever see Russell Martin's walking football as being 'entertaining'?

Smallbone should never have been allowed anywhere near that pitch. We knew what he'd do.

I wouldn't get too carried away. This first half team might win, but the team after our subs come on is unlikely to. We'll end up with the likes of Smallbone, Armstrong and Archer looking lost as Man United players run by them.

As we saw against Swansea, it's Sulemana and Dibling up front that make the difference. They are our best attacking combination by a country mile; not that they have much competition. My concern tonight is when the subs come on. Again, as we saw against Swansea, we then turn into the toothless team we've seen all season..

I'd like to see Juric continue with Dibling and Sulemana up front. They combined very well today, with 3 goals and 2 assists between them, and were a much more potent attacking threat than Archer and Armstrong. There's nothing to lose, so it's worth a try and might just give us a much better 2nd half to the season.

Thank you, Whitey. It's nuggets of information like these that reassure me as I sing, "We're by far the greatest team the world has ever seen." I was beginning to have doubts: a bit like one of those singers at the end of the Lumberjack's Song.

Leicester also won the FA Cup recently. In fact, 5 different teams have won the FA Cup in the last 5 years. It's as wide open as it's been for years. Bournemouth are 20/1 to win it this year and I wouldn't be surprised to see Forest do at least as well in both the league and cup as Saints did in 1984.

How bad are Brentford? They only won 5-0 at St Mary's and now they've lost 0-1 at home to Plymouth.

Nathan Tella is beginning to establish hiself as a regular at Bayer Leverkusen. He's started their last 4 Bundesliga games and scored a good goal at Borussia Dortmund tonight.

Not only, Bazunu, but also the "FFS, is he still here?" McCarthy, will still be here. It's a depressing thought, isn't it? Newcastle want Ramsdale. At least it proves what a good goalkeeper we signed, even if we didn't know that already. I agree with you, he's the best player we've got. He seems like a great bloke too. I feel sorry for him, being stuck in such a terrible team.

Ironically, it was Adam Armstrong's finishing which got us promoted through his goals in the play-offs, after we'd finished 9 points off the automatic promotion places. Both Ipswich and Leicester did the double over us, with the latter beating us 9-1 on aggregate; a foretaste of what was to come when we faced even better teams. For most of the season we looked far more like a mid-table team than a promotion one. Swansea are currently 12th. Hopefully, we are the equivalent of an upper mid-table Championship team and can scrape though by the odd goal, for which we may need Adam Armstrong again.

I agree. Considering we've experienced the worst set of results in our entire history, it's been very good. With the old setup, you wouldn't have heard the home fans at all. Now, it's the away fans who are stuck in a corner, where the acoustics are worst. It feels good to have a proper home end at last: one of the few positives to come out of this season.

Yes, I agree. We can concentrate on the cup now. I know this is clutching at straws (in a gale), but there is a long tradition of clubs reaching cup finals in their relegations seasons: Brighton, Norwich, Leicester, Wigan, Middlesbrough, Portsmouth etc. A poison chalice… the FA Cup and relegation - BBC Three

He was generally ridiculed here because he wasn't as good as his predecessor, Paul Mitchell (now DoF at Newcastle). But, he's no fool and he's obviously learned his trade well. Some of Forest's buys have been genius. Ola Aina! Who knew? They got him on a free transfer and he's been absolutely brilliant for them this season. They got Milenković, currently one of the best central defenders in the world, for just £12 mill, rated by many as the best buy by any Premier League club in the last transfer window. Other clubs will be shadowing Forest and Newcastle in this transfer window to find out who they're interested in, because they obviously know what they're doing. It turns out that we've had some of the most talented people in the Premier League pass through this club. You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.

Brentford paid a club record fee of £5.8 mill for Bryan Mbeumo. Saints paid £22 mill for Sulemana and £18 mill for Onuachu. How can we hope to compete with a club as sensible as Brentford?

Liam Delap and Omari Hutchinson. Also, of course, they have a bloody good manager.

Is he even going to reach single figures?

That's a great tribute to our medical staff here. I bet he's glad he came.