Nordic Saint

People are dreaming if they think we could get an improving 24-year-old England international, who plays for one of the Big Six, for less than £30 million, not that Arsenal would sell him anyway. He is back in their first team and they haven't lost a single game he's played in this season. Football London: " His appearance at right-back at Old Trafford indicates he is already ahead of Ainsley Maitland-Niles in that position but the impressive way he rose to the challenge posed by Daniel James might heighten his case to play elsewhere."

Overall, I still prefer him to Hughes, Pellegrino and Puel but I think 90% of our fans could see what he was doing wrong with his defensive selections and formations v Bournemouth and Spurs. Players out of position, Vestergaard...

Maybe League One or League Two level?

Chambers £30 mill, Wanyama £15 mill (after 1-year loan deal dependent on appearances)

Have you ever been to Fratton Park for one of their regular league games? I have and the atmosphere was dire. Anyway, we're talking about away support so before you get taken in by their hype have a look at the reality:

Even in the good old day, success bred support. Our noisiest ever away support was in the late 70s because we'd just won the Cup, reaching its zenith in January 1977 at the City Ground when we played Forest in the FA Cup. In 1973/74, when we were getting relegated and the euphoria of being a new club in the top flight had worn off, it wasn't very good.

Duncan, goalkeeper and midfield are two areas where there are several candidates who it's almost impossible to choose between. You are right, Davis at his peak was like Marsden used to be: an unsung hero who made the rest of the team tick.

Shush. Saints' dressing room less than an hour before kick-off: Ralph: OMG, I've just seen the Spurs' team sheet. Forget everything we did in training this week, lads, when I thought we were going to be playing their reserves. We're actually going to be playing their regular first team. So........ I'm going to completely change the defence. Players: shake heads in disbelief.

Whoops, I forgot Lallana, who was our best player when we first got promoted so he should be there ahead of Redmond so: McCarthy Clyne van Dijk Fonte Shaw Wanyama Romeu Tadić Lallana Lambert Mané

Forster/ McCarthy? (Any goalkeeper before Dave Watson's coaching took effect) Clyne van Dijk Fonte Shaw Wanyama Romeu Tadić Redmond Lambert Mané

Designated singing area:

You are being melodramatic. Our support has been very good in some games this season. Against Liverpool at home it was as good if not better than at any game at St Mary's last season. Pompey away was better than it usually is. Brighton away was decent etc. It's never going to be like it was in the 1970s but you can't just completely write off our support like that. One problem is that the ticket pricing structure at the club results in us having a very high percentage of old fans and those youngsters that do come are accompanied by their parents. Not enough is done to encourage young fans to come to games together in groups rather than having to sit with their parents in family centres.

This season Vestergaard played in our defeats to Burnley (0-3), Liverpool (1-2), Bournemouth (1-3) and Spurs (1-2). Last season he played in lots of defeats, usually with two other CBs, who were needed to cover for him. We probably would have done no worse in those games with a back 4, without him. I'll grant you that very occasionally he has a good game like in our 1-1 draw with Man Utd (maybe 1 in 10). But the idea that we should play him against big strikers because he is big is negated by the fact that he can't jump, is easily brushed aside and has a tendency to fall over when a striker runs at him.

Can't we just play our best rwb, Cedric, at rwb, our best lwb, Bertrand, at lwb, and our best 2 cbs, and Bednarek and Yoshida at cb and play that back 4, which is our best defence, every week, so they get used to playing together regularly? If either of our cbs gets injured, we can bring in Danso and if he proves good enough, then eventually he might take Yoshida's slot long-term. Our two wing-backs are two of the only players left in the squad who are good enough to be sold to a top half club for a decent fee, who haven't been sold, so they should be the first on the team sheet.

It's more likely that Ralph does know the reason, as this occurred less than an hour before kick-off when they were together in the dressing room, but is being disingenuous.

You could be close to the truth there. Cedric clearly travelled to the stadium with the intention of playing today, probably with a great deal of confidence after his performance on Tuesday night. Then one hour before kickoff something happened. Ralph later said that the reason he played 3 central defenders was in reaction to the Spurs team selection, which was announced one hour before kickoff. So, I wonder if Ralph's last minute defensive reshuffle with Cedric being asked to play out of position, like the defenders were against Bournemouth, upset the players.

What does Ralph see in Vestergaard? Should have been Valery for Cedric at the start and certainly at half-time. Then Ward-Prowse would have been released to play in midfield.Tactically, the same type of defensive mistake as in the Bournemouth game. At least he got it right for the Pompey game.

It's free to all Sky users, on the Sky Sports Mix channel, even if you don't pay for Sky Sports.

Hampshire finish 3rd. Our best finish since 2008. Do you think we have a realistic chance of winning our 3rd championship next season? Somerset must be gutted. If we hadn't beaten them, they'd have won the first championship in their history.

Struggling to even get into the team at Alkmaar. It's amazing that he's managed to make a lucrative career out of football without ever really being good enough to play for the clubs paying him. http://sportwitness.co.uk/player-unhappy-with-his-spell-at-southampton-finding-difficult-at-new-club/

Maybe he wasn't filming himself but video phoning someone back home who he wanted to celebrate with. I guess if you look closely at a couple of thousand people for two hours you are going to find one or two examples of odd behaviour but you don't know what the real story is behind it so it's possible to put any spin on it you like.

What is almost as weird is that there must have been Pompey fans filming every move Saints fans made and then combing through it all afterwards looking for something like this. As for the News, they know that any story which bigs up how 'hard' and 'passionate' Pompey fans are and how 'plastic' Saints fans are will sell well in Portsmouth. For the 'hardness' bit all they could find was one of their fans hitting a horse, which according to a thread on one of their message boards proved he was hard. They studiously avoided any mention of the Saints fans wading into theirs.

This is going to be a massive story in Portsmouth for years to come. Like the cancelled fundraising match story and the mythical dock strike it's going to be dragged out by them before every derby game. https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/football/portsmouth-fc/southampton-fan-branded-plastic-for-waiting-to-celebrate-goal-until-he-got-his-phone-out-during-portsmouth-game-1-9086034

He repeated the story about the 'Welcome to hell' banner on the motorway half a dozen times along with the bit about some of his Southampton team mates turning white on the centre circle in the pre-match warmup. And, as you say, didn't say one positive word about SFC or its fans. All of the Sky Sports team seemed desperate for Pompey to win. Let's face it, it's all a load of bullsh!t. The Pompey Boo Boys are notorious for turning against their own team and regularly boo them off the pitch in their league games, and as for any fighting, about the only blows that have ever been struck in anger been landed by Saints fans, apart from the one to a horse. At least one Saints fan ended up in prison for punching Pompey fans when they were being escorted to the ground the last time they visited St Mary's. This might explain it. From his Wiki: Higginbotham rejected a new contract and as a result was placed on the transfer list in July 2006.He told the local press that he felt disrespected the way Southampton chairman Rupert Lowe had handled his contract – he had taken a pay cut to move from Derby, a 40% pay cut following relegation, and then the new contract offer was lower still than his current contract.

They already have. They were chanting "We want Jackett out" in their last league game and have been regularly booing their team off this season even when they've got a draw. https://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/southampton/forum/245616/boos-ring-out-at-fratton-park/#30