Nordic Saint

Five ex-Saints collected Premier League winners' medals last night. That must be some type of record.

Sheffield United have got £5 million to play for because with the easy fixtures Arsenal and Burnley have got, anything less than a win for the Blades will almost certainly see them drop 2 places. I don't know whether this means their owners will be offering them a special win bonus as an incentive.

Yes, that draw at Brighton guarantees our 22nd top 12 finish.

It's also our biggest overall points total since Koeman left and the 6 match unbeaten run is one of our best ever final run-ins in the top flight. If we don't lose our final game, it will be our 4th best in 43 seasons at the top: 1983/84 10 match unbeaten run (6 wins, 4 draws)2015/16 6 match unbeaten run (5 wins, 1 draw)1986/87 9 match unbeaten run (3 wins, 6 draws)1988/89 6 match unbeaten run (3 wins, 3 draws)1998/99 5 match unbeaten run (3 wins, 2 draws) It's certainly a great finish to the season and we did better against Bournemouth today than Spurs, Leicester and Man City did in their last 3 games.

Any chance Ings gets goes straight into the bottom corner of the net. You know he won't miss. I'd love to see him score a hat-trick today. The other forwards just need to pass to him at every opportunity.

His clearances unerringly find an opposition player so he is a key man for setting up their second phase attacks. He's so clumsy that now he's picked up a yellow card, I'd be tempted to sub him before he gets a red one. It's very risky leaving him out there.

I was a big fan of Aarons earlier in the season for his attacking qualities, but since the lockdown, he's been exposed as a physically weak defender. I agree with you about Buendía: he's a quality player.

He is better than Vestergaard and that's who we have to rely on when we rest our first choice central defenders or they get injured. So, Mings would be a definite upgrade to our squad, which is what we need as we have a good first XI but lack cover.

It looks like he is going to be a marked man by referees. The ref's given him a yellow card already for a harmless tackle.

For comparison, the 11th and 12th teams in the trophies won list are Wolves 13, and Blackburn 12. We are in 44th place.

This looks like it will be our 20th top 12 finish in 40 years. 12th seems to be our place in the English football hierarchy. Our attendances, place in the all-time Premier League table, number of fans on social media etc always place us around 12th. I enjoy the run-in to the season when it looks like we might do a bit better. The end of the 1983/84 and 2015/16 seasons were two of the most enjoyable and this one is pretty good. Sometimes I just wish we had one or two more trophies to show for it, like plenty of smaller clubs do. In terms of trophies won, for a club of our size, we are arguably the most underachieving team in the country. We are so often the nearly men: since we joined the Football League, we have finished runners-up in leagues and cups nine times and been in fifteen major cup semi-finals. We have been in more major cup semi-finals than Leeds yet even Wigan, who joined the league in 1979/80, and had average gates of 1,800 in the 1990s, have won more league and cup trophies than we have. But, if we win our last three games and finish 10th or 11th most of us will be happy. I guess that's what being a Saints fan is about. We know we don't win trophies but to see our local team validated as the 12th best in the country is still satisfying. But, I'm hoping that Ralph is going to be our Don Revie or Brian Clough and win us something: a League Cup, an FA Cup, a Europa League Cup... Looking forward to next season.

Some credit should go to our defence, especially Bertrand, who was outstanding, tor helping us get a draw against what is currently the best attacking team in the country. That is the fewest goals United have scored lately. When the TV commentators said United were on a run of scoring at least 3 goals in their last 3 games, you could tell that they expected it to continue against us and if it had, we'd have lost. Man United 2 Saints 2 may not look as good as Saints 1 Man City 0, Leicester 1 Saints 2, Saints 1 Spurs 0 or Chelsea 0 Saints 2 but against such an in-form attack, which is scoring goals for fun and was expected to thrash us, it was still a very good performance.

Did you see their phenomenal record of not dropping points at Old Trafford when they have the lead at half-time? Their players must have been absolutely amazed to see an away team grab a late draw.

I agree. 2 more points and we'll have the most we've finished with since 2015/16. The team is also playing our best football since Koeman left.

We had more possession than United, played most of the game in their half, had more corners, more shots at goal and more shots on target and if not for a world class save from De Gea, we'd have got the win we deserved. To be fair, if not for that fantastic interception by Bertrand, United could also have had another goal. Still very pleased that we've kept the unbeaten run going, especially after playing both the Manchester teams. Solskjaer is being honest in his post match interview, saying that United didn't deserve to win and admitting, that the result is because Southampton are a good side.

A Bournemouth great escape? Their game against us will be massive for them and Howe will have them well up for it.

How on earth did we lose 0-9 at home to Leicester? They look like getting thrashed by Bournemouth. If Leicester had been down to 10 men earlier, Bournemouth could have beaten them 9-0. Mind you, Bournemouth have been showing some real grit lately and they drew with Spurs in their last game. They'll be looking to do the double over us.

It will be a shame for Saints if they lose because we are unbeaten in our last 8 games v Villa, Villa Park is a decent stadium and we certainly don't want Palace to win because they will overtake us in the league if they do.

Great work rate and slick passing. Ralph is really getting the best out of the team. The energy and pressing remind me of when Pochettino first came here and that was an exciting time too.

He looks like a great prospect: one of the most exciting youngsters we've had playing for us in years. I must admit I was disappointed that we let Cedric go but if we keep Walker-Peters, we won't miss him.

He was in the Brighton team that beat us to the League One title in 2011. He was in the PFA League One Team of the Year that year so, he could well have been the difference between us and them as Brighton only finished 3 points ahead of us. If we'd signed him, he'd have replaced Danny Butterfield.

We were linked with Kieran Trippier when Paul Mitchell was our Head of Recruitment but then Mitchell moved to Spurs and took him there instead. He, also, of course, took Alderweireld there. We were strongly linked with van Dijk before Mitchell left but at the time he went to Spurs he obviously preferred Alderweireld so we got van Dijk. I wonder about Dele Alli too as he was one of the first signings Mitchell made at Spurs.

We tried to sign Coutinho but he turned us down in favour of Liverpool. He had played for Pochettino at Espanyol. The situation was similar with Maddison and Leicester. So, we can't blame the club for not trying. They were just two of the many that got away because wealthier and more successful clubs wanted them too. Going back to the 1980s, McMenemy tried hard to sign Trevor Francis. If he had succeeded, we probably would have done the double in 1984 so that was the one that hurt us the most. In the late 70s, he also tried to sign Colin Todd. He was one of the few other big names to get away from McMenemy, who was brilliant at persuading top players, like Keegan, Shilton, Ball and Osgood, to come here.

Yes, Leicester kept hold of Vardy and he wasn't even a Leicester fan. If our owners don't want to sell Ings, he'll stay.

A draw tonight between Palace and Burnley would be the best result for us. I'm impressed by the Amazon Prime TV coverage both before the lockdown and now: good, old school commentary and great camera work.