Nordic Saint

That should read 'pacy striker'. Got carried away with the fact that he is the top scorer in Belgium this season. Let's hope we get him.

Wow! A pacy scorer who scores goals. Just what we need.

Well, in the first half of it there was, as we hadn't made enough money from player sales to buy anyone. But, hopefully, there will be a case for signing someone in the final 2 weeks of it. If we can only spend what we have made from sales so far in the window, the budget is still pretty limited though, so I expect the club will be trying to sell more players to clarify how much will be available to buy one or more.

What a great, backs to the wall performance that was. Ralph certainly knows how to get the best out of our players and he really has brought the fun back to supporting Saints. Bring on Derby and Leicester. Meanwhile at Leicester: https://www.foxestalk.co.uk/topic/118104-puel-in-out-poll-120119/?page=6

Did you notice Boro's Dael Fry? I first saw him play when he was the outstanding player in a game against our U23s. He would be ideal for us. He's the best young central defender in the Championship. Also, in all this talk of young central defenders, let's not forget we already have a very good prospect in Christoph Klarer. The list of honours Fry has already won is impressive, including an U20 World Cup winner's medal: International England U-17 UEFA European Under-17 Championship champions: 2014 England U20 Tournoi Under-20 Four Nations champions: 2017 FIFA Under-20 World Cup champions: 2017 England U21 Toulon Tournament champions: 2018 Individual LFE Football Excellence XI: 2014-15 MDSA Middlesbrough Young Player of the Year: 2015–16 MOSC Middlesbrough Young Player of the Year: 2015–16 Ramsdens February Player of the Month: 2015–16 MDSA Middlesbrough Young Player of the Year: 2016-17 MOTD September Young Lion of the Month: 2017-18 Toulon Tournament Best XI: 2018

Great performance from the whole team. These backs-to-the-wall away victories are the most satisfying. Ralph really is an inspirational manager who gets the absolute best out of our players. Players I didn't think had it in them to play that well, like Long, Targett, Vestergaard and Ward-Prowse, do for Ralph. It's amazing how much the departure of one man and the arrival of another has transformed our team. Bring on Derby, Everton and the rest of the season. Saints winning away and Pompey losing at home is how things should be. Long may they continue like this.

It's more an issue of how bad our transfer activity has been in recent years that we've ended up with a squad as poor as this. It's going to take several transfer windows to strengthen this squad.

There are so many weak links in that side that it has to be one of the poorest teams we've ever fielded in the top flight. Let's hope Ralph can perform miracles with it.

Interesting that. I just had a look at his stats and the last league point won by a Shane Long goal, i.e. a game where we wouldn't have got that point without his goal, was nearly 3 years ago, February 2016, at Swansea and before that you'd have to go back to 2015 at Newcastle. So, on the few occasions he has scored in league games it's not made much difference.

But, how on earth are we going to get rid of him? No other club would pay a fee for him, would they? I guess the best hope is that we can persuade another club to take him on loan if we agree to pay part of his wages. It really makes you wonder why we spent so much money in transfer fees and wages on players like Hoedt, Elyounoussi, Carrillo, Boufal and Vestergaard.

He worked with Puel at Nice and seems to have made a lot of money from players sales. Nice are a relatively small club, who've been mid-table in Ligue 1 for a few years. They've changed managers a few times under Fournier. Some interesting player sales there including Nampalys Mendy, Neal Maupay, Jean Michaël Seri, Maxime Le Marchand, Saïd Benrahma, Alassane Plea,Jordan Amavi, Dalbert. The current Nice squad cost very little in transfer fees. It includes players like Balotelli and Wesley Sneijder brought in on free transfers as well as goalkeeper Mouez Hassen who was here on loan under Puel. For a club in the business of selling players, he looks like a good choice. He could help ensure our hold on the net spend trophy for years to come. https://www.transfermarkt.com/ogc-nizza/alletransfers/verein/417

On the bright side, you might say: no other club would want to buy most of them.

If you look at Brighton's accounts, for example, you can see their annual revenue includes "owner's contributions". He also paid for their new stadium out of his own pocket whereas our club had to go into debt to pay for a new training ground.

It certainly has! That's why they replaced him. They had one of the worst defences in the Bundesliga when Vestergaard was there; now they have one of the best.

Excellent draw. There will be very few Premier League teams left in the 5th round after that draw so IF we beat Derby, we might get an easy passage to the final.

People who say Saints have never had one of the most intimidating home atmospheres obviously weren't around in the late 70s, when we did. To be honest, atmosphere is boosted enormously by winning a trophy and when we won our only major one it resulted in us having one of the best home atmospheres in the country for several years afterwards. 1977 was the peak, when there was deafening singing on all four sides of the Dell and away teams used to fear coming here. There was a similar effect at Leicester when they won the league, although in this all-seater era it's never going to be quite as intense as it was. It's difficult to judge the atmosphere at other grounds based solely on when they play us. It has to be assessed over the whole season. One thing is for sure, Liverpool historically have the best home record in English football and their kop has been a major factor in that since the 1960s, whether we like it or not. https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/9927450/do-not-publish-historys-top-home-team-is

It seems we caught on a bit late: BABY SHARK FOR MATTY CLARKE By Staff Reporter Friday 21 Sep 2018 08:15:00 Browse all News Stories articles A terrace chant has finally been bestowed upon Matthew Clarke. Witty blues on the road to Peterborough took to social media and local pubs to share their topical chant before kick-off. Baby Shark is a child's nursery rhyme which has gone viral around the world this September. Originating in Indonesia, the video has had over 1.6 billion views worldwide on Youtube, with celebrities fuelling the #babysharkchallenge on Twitter. And Pompey fans have pounced on the chant to fit it perfectly to Clarke's name. "It was ridiculous, there must have been a hundred or so of us singing Baby Shark at a football match. It was silly, the Peterborough lads were joining in. Great away day", said Liam Wells, 33, from Baffins. "It's not quite on par with the Kabamba song, but it tickled me, I have a new version to sing to my daughter now!" added Chris Sutton, 29, from Milton. "It's simple and effective, every player should get a song before kick-off, it's the way it was in the past", added Trevor Deacon on Facebook. https://www.otib.co.uk/index.php?/topic/196798-baby-shark/

They have been playing against 10-man teams. 7 teams have been given red cards against them so far this season.

As we're finding with several players, other clubs will take our players on loan until the end of the season, send them back to us to pay their wages through the summer months, then take them on a free when their contracts finally end. They can do this because we have so many overpaid players in our squad, like Carrillo and Clasie, that no other club would pay a transfer fee for. But, how are we going to get rid of players like Hoedt and Elyounoussie who are so bad that other clubs don't even want to take them on loan? Old Les really has left a very expensive mess behind him.

Several of our players looked outclassed by an under strength, average Championship team. the way they played today, Long, Vestergaard and Targett would not be good enough to get into a top Championship side. What saved us was an outstanding individual performance from one of the few top class players we have left in our squad, Redmond. He was one of the best 3 players on the pitch. The other two were Derby players, Holmes and Lawrence. The second half reminded me of when we were outclassed by Wolves Reserves in the League Cup last season. Old Les really has left us with the weakest, most overpriced squad we've ever had in the top flight. The only saving grace is that 3 other teams, Huddersfield, Cardiff and Fulham, also have weak squads. I'm not sure that any of them would be good enough to get promoted from the Championship this season. We have a tiny nucleus of good top flight players: Gunn, Bertrand, Hojbjerg, Redmond and Ings, and Valery looks like he might reach that level too. Most of the rest need to be replaced. The problem is no other clubs would pay good money for them and some of them we couldn't even loan out as they are so bad. At least we have a good manager now and a few players like Hojbjerg and Redmond he can build a team around. I look forward to some much needed strengthening of our squad in the next few transfer windows.

or Targett.

Derby are fielding a strong team. All of their regular first teamers are either in the starting 11 or on the subs bench.

Agree with all of that.

Sadly, it seems that Bournemouth noticed before we did.

Trent Alexander-Arnold. Clyne is still only 27. What a great player for Bournemouth to get.