Nordic Saint

Yes, I was at all of those games and our away support was tremendous then although there were even more of us at Orient in '66 than there were in '78. I'd say, the late 60s and late 70s were the peaks of our away support. I remember being one of the 10,000 Saints fans filling the whole of the Park Lane End at White Hart Lane for our league game in 1966 and in the 13,000 packed in at the City Ground for the cup match in 1977. !977 was the year our home support was at its loudest and most passionate. All 4 sides of the ground used to sing and visiting sides were clearly intimidated. Gong back to Tony Funnell, as you say, he only really had those 2 months as a Saints first team player and I was disapppointed to see his career here falter after that but the goals he scored in those months were some of the most important in Saints history and I'll always remember them as some of the Saints goals that got the loudest cheers ever.

All those of us who were around during Saints promotion run in 1978 will have great memories of Tony Funnell's goals. This video shows what a wonderful character he still is. It's the best interview with a footballer I've seen for a long time: (42) Flashback Part 6: How Much Did Ex-Cherry Tony Funnell Earn In The Top Division In The 1970's? - YouTube

There is a reason why he has kept nearly 200 clean sheets and it's not just because he has got a world class defence playing in front of him. The thing about Forster is that he is so big and his positioning is so good that he doesn't usually need to move very far to stop goals. But, take your pick from this lot. The one from Mane is a real worldy: (31) Fraser Forster 2016/17 Amazing saves - FC southampton - YouTube

Yes, McCarthy makes himself small at the near post and leaves a lot of space to aim at. Forster stands tall there and leaves no space. There was a similar goal McCarthy conceded recently where he crouched right down at the near post so the striker could shoot into the space above him to score. I think the injustice of their penalty vs our non-penalty took the wind out of the sails of our players though. They've had so many demoralising refereeing decisions go against them recently.

Our penalty shout for a handball was clearer than theirs was. and McCarthy beaten at the near post again. Every striker in the country knows about his weakness there. Forster would have saved that easily.

It's hilarious reading the Bournemouth fans' comments about Long on the Up the Cherries match thread today:langhamLong having a dismal game, urgent to get Surridge on.TopfarrierShane Long has to come offlanghamLong is soooo slow ... where’s Surridge??stanthevan3 against 3 and Long stops to play it backwards.KudosI wonder if Forest will allow us to swap Long's loan contract for Grabs?TopfarrierWhy doesn't Long just play the fckin ball!!drdLong really is dreadfulnorthstandmarkHow is Long still on the pitchandyredPlease take Long off. CherryBare Long finally off drd Thank **************** for that

So many positives have come out of tonight's game and Salisu's performance is definitely one of them. No wonder Ralph has been talking him up. He looks like he is going to be a really important player for us

A very impressive team performance. We have a great spine to the team again for the first time in years: Forster-Salisu-Ward-Prowse-Ings We've had some bad luck with injuries but let's hope those 4 can stay fit all the way to the final.

This is our 35th major cup quarter-final, including the European one, and it's one of the rare occasions we've drawn the lowest ranked team left. Let's hope we can capitalize on it because we're probably the only team in the country that has been in that many quarter-finals and only won 1 cup. With Fraser Clean Sheet Forster in goal and Salisu in front of him, we're going to very hard to score against.

As well as ego, Dean is also driven by greed. "Mike Dean has been suspended after officials were told of his involvement in a betting website." Referee suspended over betting site | Football | The Guardian

It seems to be deeply ingrained in most Premier League officials to always err in favour of the big teams. But, in the case of Mike Dean his bias in favour of certain teams seems to be at its most extreme. He has his favourites, Man United and Spurs, and teams he doesn't like, Saints and Arsenal, and his decisions will always reflect that. Last night, Mike Dean awarded his 19th penalty to Man United.

So was Maguire's boot. There were two United players' feet clearly playing him onside. When they showed it on TV at the time, it was obvious from the picture that Adams was onside by at least six inches. I just don't understand how the VAR ref couldn't see that. Perhaps he just saw what he wanted to see.

I wrote this before the game: You do realize how arrogant Mike Dean is? He is right and everybody else is wrong. He'll be looking to dish out more of the same. He's the worst referee we could possibly get against United because he always favours them. He'll do anything he can to ensure they win including wrongly dishing out red cards and penalties. He even got demoted to the Championship for doing so."Ex-players such as Niall Quinn and Alan Smith described Dean as ‘arrogant’ and ‘attention-seeking’, while ex-Ireland international, Stephen Hunt, claimed Dean was ‘the most arrogant person – player or official- that I ever shared a field with’.Arsenal fans launched a petition to prevent Dean from refereeing another Gunners’ match. Although naturally doomed to failure, the petition raised over 100,000 signatures within a week.Two years later Dean again had the humiliation of a decision of his being overturned retroactively by the FA. After just fifteen minutes of an Old Trafford clash between Manchester United and West Ham, the home side’s Phil Jones had a coming together with the Hammers’ Sofiane Feghouli.To most neutral observers, Jones was the more likely of the two to have committed a foul, yet to the amazement of most, it was Feghouli who was shown the red card. That United went on to win the game 2-0 did not help matters, and not only was the red card overturned, but Dean was also demoted to a spell refereeing in the Championship."Dean has awarded Man United EIGHTEEN penalties already. I'm pretty sure that must be the most penalties any referee has awarded to any team in the history of football and he'll certainly be looking to add to that total tomorrow night.Everybody in football knows Mike Dean has it in for Southampton.https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2019/10/28/garth-crooks-says-referee-mike-dean-instigRemember this one?https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/14993139.southampton-will-not-appeal-nathan-re

Good post. It's good to see Yoshida is happy in Italy too: (8) Parma-Sampdoria, Yoshida: «Doppia gioia: primo gol e clean sheet» - YouTube

I've seen his appearances for Liverpool. If you combined the best bits of Shane Long and Che Adams then you'd get Minamino. He's got a lot of pace and energy, works hard and looks good for 1 goal every 4 or 5 games. Bearing in mind the fact the club has no money, I think they've done well to offload Long and Valery and get Minamino. A good transfer window under the circumstances.

Bearing in mind our debts, I think we've done as well as we possibly could in this transfer window. No complaints from me. Let's face it, the competition is intense and there are very fine margins but Minamino looks like an upgrade on Long + Valery.

There is yet another Saints connection in Ligue 1 as our former head of recruitment, Paul Mitchell, is now the DOF at 4th-placed Monaco. Lille's DOF, Luis Campos, is also outstanding at finding hidden gems in the transfer market, the latest of which is Botman: Luis Campos: The Transfer Genius Who Is One of Football's Most Wanted Men | Bleacher Report | Latest News, Videos and Highlights

Your ignorance is showing again.

I follow Lille's games as Fonte was one of my favourite Saints players, and their 1-0 win today takes them 2 points clear at the top of the French League. The central defensive partnership of Fonte and Botman is one of the finest in European football. In spite of the fact that they were awarded 2 penalties and Neymar scored from both of them, PSG lost this weekend. French Ligue 1 Table - Football - BBC Sport

He gave 2 throw-ins to Villa that were just a few yards away from him and in both cases the ball clearly went out of play off a Villa player. The whole team of officials was terrible, not just one of them.

For the Villa goal I thought McCarthy's reflexes were very slow for a Premier League goalkeeper. Any other goalkeeper would have just stuck his right arm out and saved that. It came at a perfect height for him to save. .

What a great performance that was from Sheffield United. Anybody can beat anybody in this league.

Tonight we missed Forster more than Arsenal missed Aubameyang. Like Bertand, Forster is a player who's very underrated by most Saints fans. His clean sheet record is far better than that of any other goalkeeper we have had in recent decades.

Very underrated player who doesn't get a lot of praise from our fans but tonight we saw how important he is for us. With him and Forster in the team, we'd have got a draw.

At times Bednarek looks like a one man defence tonight but Arsenal are missing several of their best players too and we wouldn't be losing if Forster were in goal.