Nordic Saint

Jay Rodriguez scored his 18th league goal of the season tonight. He may not be world class but how we could do with him right now.

Incredibly, there are still some who feel sorry for Kat because she loaned the club money. They forget she demanded that the loans be paid back plus interest. As you say, thanks to Cortese, she is nearly a quarter of a billion pounds better off.

The defence always looks so much better when Klarer plays. He is one of the main reasons we've got through to the Premier League International Cup semi-final.

Big mistake to leave our best defender Klarer on the bench.

Fonte captains his Lille team to yet another victory. They continue undefeated this year and are almost guaranteed their place in the Champions League as they are now 10 points clear of Marseille. They've only conceded 1 goal in their last 5 games. St Etienne 0 Lille 1

Who will take him? He's struggled to play more than a handful of games every season throughout his entire career. Lemina's league appearances of more than 45 minutes: 2012/13 4 2013/14 7 2014/15 13 2015/16 8 2016/17 8 2017/18 19 2018/19 16

Magnificent!

We haven't beaten Spurs at St Mary's for 14 years. We're due a win! https://www.11v11.com/teams/southampton/tab/opposingTeams/opposition/Tottenham%20Hotspur/

It looks like Glenn Murray's goals are going to keep Brighton up. That's his 13th goal so far this season and he has the knack of scoring in 1-0 wins and 1-1 draws.

You're one of the few people who's seen enough of him. He reminds me of Gaston Ramirez: a few games each year he makes an appearance and shows some flashy skills then he disappears. The number of games he's played more than 45 minutes in: 2018/19 16 2017/18 21 2016/17 8 2015/16 7

To this we could add the Kelvin Davis coaching story. He got his coaching badge and then, as his first job, his hero, Les Reed, made him the coach of a Premier League first team. St Mary's is full of fairy tales like this.

Ross Wilson's story is he was he was hopeless at football at school but his best friend's dad was involved with a Scottish football team whose own son didn't want to write a report on his dad's club's youth team so he asked his best mate, Ross Wilson to do it. Then, Ross Wilson met his hero, Les Reed, at a conference. The rest is history.

The club wants to move the away fans. The players would love to have a proper home end at St Mary's. The problem is our potentially noisiest fans decided to split into 2 small groups which are now hidden away in the corners of the away end.

It is for the away fans. One of the best away ends in the league.

Man of the match and he's got to be one of the best midfielders in Europe this year: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/47442879

The funny thing is, our owners would have been gutted if he'd insisted on seeing out his career with us, as they just saw him as a commodity to be sold for a profit at the right moment. The only reason his sale was delayed until January was that Gao wouldn't let Kat sell him before he parted with his money to her. Of course, Old Les was very good at putting a PR spin on things like that.

Return to the Planet of the Apes? "Bale only communicates with gestures" https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/47444043

Fonte led his Lille team to another 1-0 win today and they remain undefeated this year. https://scontent-lht6-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/53064295_2347393535491271_6545928272507568128_n.jpg?_nc_cat=104&_nc_ht=scontent-lht6-1.xx&oh=9cd6e864905b0c01d0f6f56d924a8dcc&oe=5D1249D7

Exactly, that's what we want. At the moment we are not getting our fair share whereas United are getting more than their fair share.

We wouldn't have got Kerry Dixon and David Speedie.

So, the MOTD pundits agree that we should have had a penalty and one of United's goals was offside, which means the score should have been 3-2 to us. Why didn't they mention that last bit? Like several other of our other excellent performances in Manchester against both United and City we were robbed of the points which correct refereeing decisions should have given us. Even our first game back in the Premier League was a 3-2 defeat to Man City won by a goal by Tevez, who was a yard offside.

If you look at the the thread at the time we recruited him, I think you'll find many posters here predicted exactly that. As for Lemina, he's always been a bit of a sick note, with spells out for inflammation, back trouble, ankle injuries and abdominal strain, especially in the winter months. But, he is a bit like Gaston Ramirez: just not cut out physically or mentally to play hard 90 minute league games regularly for a whole season.

If you look at their career records, this is as good a season as you could expect from both of them in terms of the number of league games they've been able to play 45 minutes or more in: Ings 2018/19 15 2017/18 3 2016/17 0 2015/16 4 Lemina 2018/19 16 2017/18 21 2016/17 8 2015/16 7 Someone at our club should have noticed that that when they agreed to pay £15.4m for Lemina and £20m for Ings. I suppose at least they got more out of them than they did for the £20m they paid for Carrillo, whose career stats for 45 min+ league games should also have been noticed before that much was paid for him. 2018/19 15 2017/18 11 2016/17 6 2015/16 18 In future, one of the first criteria our recruitment department should look at before they pay a large transfer fee for a player is how many league games he's proved he can play over a season. Otherwise, we are left in a constant state of limbo waiting for expensive players to be fit enough to play games.

It's a bloody good job Yoshida was away at the Asian Cup in January and Bertrand had a long-term back injury then or the January window might have ended up a lot worse. Seeing experienced Premier League players back in the team last night makes you realize what we've been missing.

Three central defenders again because Ralph knows Vestergaard isn't quick enough to play in a back four but he hasn't seen yet that Yoshida is. Once he has, Vestergaard can be replaced by a midfield player, like Sims or Armstrong. Apart from that, this looks like just about the best starting eleven we have available at the moment, although after they've been coached by Dave Watson, there are doubts about all of our goalkeepers.