Nordic Saint

Would you have turned down a free ticket for the best seat in the house for the play-off final?

If we don't get a new goalkeeper before the start of the season, we're not getting those 39 points. I remember the last Premier League season we had with Bazunu and McCarthy as our goalkeepers, and our outfield squad was probably better then. We got 25 points and the only points we picked up in our last 12 games were from two 3-3 draws and a 4-4 draw. All the stats, including number of shots at our goal on target and percentage of shots saved, showed that our defence, who got a lot of the blame, weren't doing a bad job, but our goalkeepers were, by far, the worst in the league. So, surely, going into a new Premier League season two years later with those same goalkeepers is sheer stupidity. And that's not sh!tting the bed; it's common sense.

We can only hope that's not true because if it is, we're f---ed.

Surely, not everyone at the club can be that blind and stupid? What's the point spending all this money on outfield players when with McCarthy in goal we're going down anyway. As Clough used to say, the goalkeeper is the most important player in the team.

So must Pompey fans after losing 0-4 at home to Wycombe and drawing 1-1 with MK Dons.

Looks like we've found a set piece taker to replace JWP. Sugawara is turning out to be a very good addition to our squad.

McCarthy looked like an arthritic old man trying to jump. I think we've got so used to having bad goalkeepers that we forget how many shots like this good goalkeepers can save.

I'm currently reading Harry Pearson's Far Corner and it's the funniest book about football I've ever read. "We went up and stayed with my parents and drove all over the North East looking for a house to rent. Catherine is from Hertfordshire, so as we meandered across the region I pointed out local sites of historical interest: "Tow Law (Chris Waddle played there), Langley Park (home village of Bobby Robson), Blyth ( made it to the fifth round of the FA Cup), Billingham (where Gary Pallister got started)... Often after five or six hours of this Catherine was so overcome with emotion she would burst into tears..."

The team that played the first 60 minutes looked a lot better than the team that played the final 30, mainly because of Dibling and Amo-Ameyaw. Those two made the game worth watching.

I didn't think it would be possible to find a professional goalkeeper even worse than Bazunu and McCarthy but Lis looks about pub league standard. But, there were a few good performnces from our outfield players, notably Dibling, Amo-Ameyaw and Sugawara.

Yes, he's impressed me too. This could be his breakthrough season.

Villa will then use the money we give them to snap up Ayoub El-Kaabi, who is the player we should get.

Watkins vs El Kaabi 1-5 El Kaabi destroyed Villa. He scored 5 goals against them in the 2 legs of the semi-final and then scored the winner against Fiorentina in the final Aston Villa 2-4 Olympiakos: Ayoub El Kaabi hat-trick stuns Villa in Europa Conference League semi-final first leg | Football News | Sky Sports Some of his records: Player with the most goals scored in a season in the knockout stage of any single UEFA club competition Morocco national team's top goal scorer this century UEFA Europa Conference League Top scorer: 2023–24 Super League Greece Player of the Season: 2023–24 UEFA Europa Conference League Player of the Season: 2023–24

Ayoub El Kaabi

Ease of opening and closing them.

It will be similar to the development at Cardiff City Stadium. An upper tier will be added to the Kingsland, which will take the capacity up to 38,000. The population of the city and the fanbase is continuing to grow so that will be necessary. It will also help to establish us as a medium-sized club, capable of competing regularly for European places and possibly even a cup or two, which must be the owners' aim.

The Northam is going to be absolutely brilliant next season.

I hope we get drawn against them in both the FA Cup and the League Cup next season. They'll be hoping we don't.

Leeds still haven't sold all theirs. I suppose with 15,000 of them claiming to be in the Saints end, the Leeds end will be half empty. Leeds Live cautiously says they are 'expected to sell out' by Sunday.

That shouldn't have been a problem as it was terracing in those days and there was a group of several thousand Saints fans down the front of the Forest end so you could have joined them. Maybe you couldn't see them if you were at the back of the Forest end but from the Saints end they were very visible, to the right of the goal as we faced it. Off the pitch, I preferred '79 to '76, when United fans filled 3/4 of the stadium. I remember a Saints fan beating down the United fans at the front of our end, with a huge wooden flag pole. In '79, however, we got the majority of the neutral tickets.

Yes, you meet them as soon as you walk down the steps from the tube station, and once the game has kicked off, they sell tickets for less than face value. I expect the final attendance will still be a few thousand short of capacity.

Why would they need to, anyway? It's just people showing off online. Only 71,000 tickets are going to the 2 clubs. That still leaves another 20,000 tickets, many of which will become available online or outside the ground and, even then, a few thousand will still end up unused, leaving the attendance short of capacity.

Thanks to the 1885 working together with the Club, we are at last beginning to get really great home support at St Mary's. I expect the Northam to be one of the best home ends in the league next season. Facebook Facebook

The efforts made by the Club and a dedicated group of young fans are already beginning to pay off. Next season, the home support should be the best ever at St Mary's.