Nordic Saint

You'll have a long wait. Ian Nairn died 35 years ago.

Away trips to northern towns in the 1970s were always interesting. Unfortunately I never made it to Halifax, which looks quite intriguing in this documentary, especially the Piece Hall, which is reminiscent of some of the great town squares of Europe, like the one in Salamanca. It definitely looks worth a visit. Fish & chip and beer always seemed much cheaper and better up there and if you stayed on at night the local girls seemed to find a visitor from the south quite exotic. One of the last away trips I made to a small northern town, was to Barnsley, which was worth wandering around before the game. It must also be one of the few grounds in the country where, because of a hill slope, you can see your car in the the away car park while you are watching the game. Ian Nairn, Ray Gosling and Fyfe Robertson used to make some wonderful TV documentaries about Britain. A bygone era: Football Towns contd. Huddersfield and Halifax.

Ian Nairn's 1970s BBC documentaries on northern football towns: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cnOA_1ZP04

I've been to a Boca game at La Bombonera but not v River. I have been to other South American derby games including Botafogo v Fluminense at the Maracana and El Superclásico in Chile as well as several Copa Libertadores games. The atmosphere at La Bombonera, even for an ordinary league game, is more passionate than anything you find in Europe. But, away fans are placed in a small section very high up so they have little impact and nowadays away fans are totally banned from Boca v River games. I also used to go to quite a few derby games in this country in the 70s and 80s, including the Manchester derby when fighting spilled onto the pitch at Maine Road and several London ones. The fiercest I witnessed was the Chilean Superclásico, which has resulted in several deaths over the years. I'd recommend a game at La Bombonera. Buenos Aires is a great city to visit anyway and the Boca district is colourful. The stadium is incredibly steep sided. So much so, that if you are high up, as I was, you feel like you are going to topple down onto the pitch if you lean forward. There are thousands of flags waving, spectacular firework displays from the ultras and constant loud singing and chanting.

Some good news. There are reports that McCarthy will come on as a sub for the 2nd half v the USA and so become the 37th Saints player to win a full England cap. Good luck to him.

In all the discussions recently it seems to have been forgotten that Pardew was responsible for bringing Reed here. They were both sacked by Charlton during the season they got relegated from the Premier League and when Pardew came here he recommended Reed to Cortese.

I think you'll find that we are still left with the players, coaches, head of recruitment and manager appointed by Les and his appointees. Certainly in the case of the players recruited, Ross Wilson, the Head of Recruitment, must have been very heavily involved, and he is still here. That is the scale of the problem and It's going to take more than one day to fix all that. It does feel though that the club has taken the first step on the road to recovery.

That awful run under Puel when we lost 6 out of 7 league games was when Ward-Prowse was playing 90 minutes regularly. The good run at the start of that season was when he wasn't starting. The more minutes he plays, the worse we seem to get. The last 5 Premier League games Ward-Prowse played an hour or more in were: Newcastle 3 Saints 0 Arsenal 3 Saints 2 Saints 2 Chelsea 3 Everton 2 Saints 1 Man City 6 Saints 1

Even more useless at it than than Ward-Prowse? Over the years we have wasted so many scoring opportunities from free-kicks around the opposition penalty area because Ward-Prowse took them and kicked them a yard high and wide of the goal. On the rare occasion he does get one on target, he has such a weak shot that it's easily saved. These were from positions that a real dead-ball specialist, like Lambert or Le Tissier, regularly scored from.

Can't really fault our team for effort. They appeared to play to the limits of their ability although they tired towards the end. The referee was terrible but if he had got the major decisions right, in spot of the Austin goal, we might well have lost, as Watford would have had a penalty, but more importantly, Bertrand would have got a 2nd yellow and we'd have been reduced to ten men. Even with all 11 out there, we were getting overrun by Watford in the final ten minutes. My reaction when Ward-Prowse comes on as a sub is, now we're going to let the other team's midfield take control of the game, as that's what usually seems to happen when he appears. He is a player who divides opinion and I know he has some fans on here but with the impact he has on games, I'd rather see him come on for the opposition than for us. Gabbiadini and Yoshida both had very good games and should start regularly.

I think it's been proven now that both you and your slightly more intelligent mate mate Always do, sweetheart https://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?59242-Les-Reed-Out-protest

The few final remnants of the Reedites on here, like you, Always, Micky and C.B. Fry, who still want to credit our recruitment success during our successful phase to Reed rather than Mitchell have been proven to be total dickheads by what's happened since Reed replaced Mitchell with Wee Ross. Get over it. We are Saints fans, always have been, always will be, we are not fans of some ***t once voted the worst manager in the history of the OP Premier League... GET OVER IT.

Yes, and the same RB Leipzig team which is above Celtic in their Europa League group table and is currently 4th in their national league. If only we could have done that well...

Shaw was very unhappy when Reed sacked Dodd and Williams. In the end, Reed got rid of just about everyone who was doing a good job at the club, after taking credit for their work, and the emperor was left with no clothes. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/southampton/10843902/Luke-Shaw-dismayed-as-Southampton-sack-academy-coaches-Jason-Dodd-and-Paul-Williams.html

Talking of Mitchell, his RB Leipzig side won 3-0 away to Hertha Berlin at the weekend to move up to 4th place in the Bundesliga. The team featured the three players he signed in the summer: Mukiele, Saracchi and Cunha, and one of them, the teenage striker, Matheus Cunha, scored.

I think he was talking about next season. If we are relegated, anybody we have left who is any good will be sold in the summer. Blackburn, who were promoted from League One last season, are above Stoke and Swansea in the Championship this season. Overall, there is not much to choose between teams promoted from League One and those relegated from the Premier League when their paths cross in the Championship. It depends how much they strengthen in the summer. We can only hope we get drawn against Pompey in the FA Cup this season, like they did against us in their final season in the Premier League.

This does even more: 2015/16 63 pts 2016/17 46 pts 2017/18 36 pts 2018/19 26-30 pts ??

All of our goalkeepers would look better if they could escape the coaching of Dave Watson. As England coach, he wrecked Joe Hart's career and at Saints he has done the same for Fraser Forster and now he seems to have got to work on Alex McCarthy.

Statues of Les and Ralph?

4th best team on the south coast? Have we ever been that before in our history? The other three all seem to have ambitious owners who are prepared to invest, as well as good managers. Brighton's owner. Tony Bloom, for example, paid for Brighton's new stadium out of his own pocket and contributes to their transfer kitty every season, as you can see from their accounts where 'owner's contributions' are listed.

Gao was sold a vision by Kat of a profitable business, where players were brought in cheaply and sold for huge profits every year. But, she knew the cupboard was almost bare. She also knew that the people who'd found those players had left. The only reason the van Dijk sale was delayed was because Gao wasn't going to part with his borrowed cash if any more players were sold before the money went into Kat's account. Gao's main business. Lander Sports Development, is not doing well and is only worth a fraction of what it once was. He is going to really struggle to repay that loan. If you look at the Forbe's rich list of the wealthiest people in China, you won't find him anywhere near it. The only thing poor, old Gao is really guilty of is being gullible and allowing Kat to con him out of all that money. There are probably people who post on this board who have more spare cash than he does at the moment. These are the 400 richest people in China. It's a pity we couldn't have got one of them as an owner: https://www.forbes.com/sites/russellflannery/2017/11/15/chinas-richest-2017-the-full-list-of-400-billionaires/#1bab339a296b

You really don't know anything, do you? Gao is NOT one of the wealthiest men in China. His business is in trouble and he is in debt. The Wolves owner is one of the wealthiest men in China but Gao is nowhere near. As for Hughes starting Man City's rebirth, he was sacked by them in 2009 https://www.forbes.com/china-billionaires/list/ Are you Les Reed in disguise?

It is getting close to dire straits now. Most good managers will understandably steer clear of us. A punt on one of the lower league English managers who's always wanted a shot at the big time, like Paul Cook, Nigel Clough or Chris Wilder might be an option. I'm not saying any one of them is one of the best managers in the world but they would be better than Hughes. Or, there are still plenty of good managers around the world who would find Premier League wages immensely attractive, like Rubi, Dieter Hecking and Christophe Galtiernot, but you'd expect Ross and Les not to find one of them. Someone like Pardew would be more likely with them, and he would merely continue what Hughes is doing. Until Les Reed and Ross Wilson are replaced by someone useful like Paul Mitchell, our club's decline is not going to be reversed and more useless managers, coaches and players will be brought in.

Perhaps I was being a tad overoptimistic. Results under Hughes really are much worse than they were under Pellegrino. With just 1 win and 7 points from 11 games, we are currently on course for only 25 points this season. Les & Ross have decimated our club. Meanwhile, Paul Mitchell's RB Leipzig are 4th in the Bundesliga with only 1 defeat in their first 10 games.

Le Tissier has just been discussing Saints' struggles on Gillette Soccer Saturday and when asked how confident he was that the squad would be strengthened in January, replied, "Not very... there's not much money there, which is why we got Ings on loan." There will be even less next year if we get relegated so the club is going to struggle to pay the players' wages. There aren't many players in our squad we could even get a decent transfer fee for.