Nordic Saint

Is that just agent talk though? It's easy to say any club is tracking any player because it's probably true. Most clubs nowadays have their own version of the 'black box'. It doesn't mean they have any intention of buying that player. Ozdemir has been playing on loan to Hacettepe Spor Kulübü from Gençlerbirliği. If he was any good, surely one of the big Turkish clubs would have taken him?

Until 2017, we had a winning record against Man City. They were a team we expected to beat at least once every season and we beat them 4-2 in 2016. Since then, however, they have won 6 consecutive games against us. The fact we now expect to lose to them by around 6 goals and a defeat by fewer than 4 goals would be considered a good result does, indeed, show how much we have declined since 2016. https://www.soccerbase.com/teams/head_to_head.sd?team_id=2471&team2_id=1718

A song for JWP:

That's stretching things a bit far But, maybe he could move back to Cork City for his 33rd birthday present in January. We'd still have to pay 90% of his wages though.

McCarthy, Cedric, Danso, Bednarek, Yoshida Romeu, Hojbjerg, Stephens, Boufal/Djenepo (if available) Ings, Redmond As we are going to lose this one anyway, I'd like to see Yoshida tried as left wingback and Stephens as an attacking midfielder.

"Southampton's starting XI at Brighton had an average age of 24 years and 128 days, the youngest team in the Premier League this season." Obviously, they may have to put 1 or 2 older players in now to try to avoid relegation, which apart from selling players for profit, is the club's other main aim.

On a positive note, next season they could save us from relegation.

As long as it's not more than 16 teams, I don't care.

Stephens deserved that. He's been our best forward in this half.

And Ralph then subs Boufal instead of JWP. Maybe he didn't realize JWP was still on the pitch.

I'm struggling to think of 2 consecutive Saints games when we made so little effort to try to win. The concern is that this is going to be the game plan against top teams for the remainder of the season: just trying to keep the score down. But, when we play our relegation rivals will it be possible for the team to switch back to game winning mode again?

Yes, once. He miskicked the ball out of play in his own half. He does that JWP thing of jogging round in circles while the game just passes him by. It keeps up his stats for km covered. He might just as well be jogging round the streets outside the stadium.

HT Stats: Possession: 80% - 20% Goals 2-0 Corners 5-0 Shots 11-0 The commentator concluded: "Southampton are playing with 11 men but 4 or 5 of them have hardly touched the ball" Those 4 or 5 players are not good enough to play at this level. Armstrong is Championship level while Ward-Prowse would be Championship level if he had a bit more pace. Long''s top flight days are long gone. Even Ireland have dropped him. Let's hope Ralph's half-time talk gets them playing above their level in the 2nd half. But, in the first half they looked like they didn't even want to be there.

We don't seem to have any midfield. JWP is just a passenger, jogging round in circles, chasing shadows.

Yes, I guess they are hoping the transfer fee they get for Bertrand will pay for him. But, this is obviously the worst time ever to get a decent transfer fee for any of our defenders.

I've just said it on another thread and I've been saying it for years, we should buy Dael Fry. January will probably be our last chance, as after that his transfer valuation will start to increase out of our price range. As for an 'old head' to play alongside him, Simon Kjaer.

Let's hope the central defender we buy is someone good, like Dael Fry, and not another Vestergaard.

True. Klarer is still only 19. What I've noticed with a few of our Academy players is that their form often suffers because of physical development changes they are going through. He looked confident, composed, strong and athletic until this season but lately he's looked a bit Bambi like. That could just be because he is developing physically but being in a poor team can't help. Danso is 2 years older than him and still a lot of people think he isn't ready yet to figure in our central defence. As for Bednarek, would he have got in the team, when we had Fonte, van Dijk, Alderweireld or Lovren? He may be the best of a very poor bunch but ideally we should be looking for better.

I have to own up that I was one of his biggest fans but, like all of our U23s, he seems to have lost his way lately as the U23s have suffered a series of poor results, the latest being a 3-0 defeat to Leicester. I think the malaise running through the club and the poor coaching setup affects all of our players at every level.

I'm not sneering. No club of our size wants to be outside the top flight, especially when it means they are a league or two below their local rivals. Sunderland and Portsmouth fans are understandably very unhappy about it.

Just had another look at the Sunderland messageboards and their main interest nowadays seems to be in how Newcastle are doing in the Premier League, a bit like Pompey fans with us.

No, they didn't. They were very unhappy that they didn't manage to get promoted and aren't any happier this season.

I used to believe in the miracle of the January transfer window but when we sign players like Carrillo, it only seems to make our problems worse. We urgently need another head of recruitment like Paul Mitchell or more money will be wasted in January.

The bookies. We are only 4th favourites for relegation behind Norwich, Watford & Newcastle. 16th or 17th is definitely achievable, like it was in 1997 when we lost 7-1 to Everton but still finished 16th. The results against the 3 favourites ahead of us in the relegation odds are going to be critical.

Vestergaard not being the worst centre back is. That definitely casts doubt on their methodology.