Saint Albert

Arsenal just went a goal up against West Ham.

The Newcastle Championship season was something I’d hoped we could emulate. For some reason I thought they only lost Wijnaldum to Liverpool but then I looked it up, and there was Sissoko to Spurs (can’t believe I forgot that, it was very entertaining), Janmaat went to Watford, Cisse to China and a few others. So I’m expecting departures but hopefully not the entire starting 11. I think Hoj would be a great one to keep for the Championship.

Les could always tell them to **** off and keep him. How many players are we realistically expecting to bail on the team assuming we’re relegated? I can see Gabbiadini going back to Italy. I can see Bertrand leaving after a bigger team taps him up and swoops in aggressively, and Boufal asking to leave does not seem an unrealistic possibility especially given his lack of game time. I’m not sure what’s happening with Lemina right now. Hoedt has his own initialized logo so he presumably thinks he’s too big for the Championship, but will the club realistically let almost everyone go? I’m not sure about that. Les has sold many players before but will he sell most of the starting 11? He must know it’s a recipe for disaster.

Brighton, Huddersfield and West Ham are still not out of the equation as far as I’m concerned, taking into account their remaining fixtures. If I was a supporter of any of these teams I would not be feeling comfortable yet.

Mark Hughes after the game... "We hoped to get more out of the game and we had a couple of chances. Their keeper made a good save against Shane Long but we were up against a good side and we had to stay in the game. Clearly we would have liked to have been more expansive but we got a point, and we play at home next which is huge for us. “Only time will tell to see whether the point is enough for us. There was a little bit of apprehension in our play. The players are a little bit flat and we have got a big game at the weekend but we are not in the situation where we are downhearted. "It's the disappointment of not getting maximum points, but the key was to get something from the game. Tonight we probably didn't play as well as in recent weeks but we took something from the game."

The team’s not exactly putting the fear of God in the teams above them after games like this. Still, beat Bournemouth and get something against Everton, and the Swansea game could be very interesting. I’ll probably throw in the towel if we don’t beat Bournemouth.

The side seemed content to defend for a point towards the end, which seemed a little odd.

Austin about to come on by the looks of it.

That was a good chance for Long.

It’ll be hard to get rid of Forster and his shiny new contract. I can see Forster staying in the Championship with us simply because we can’t find a buyer.

Then it must be true.

I’m finding this just as irritating as Decoure being allowed to score with a blatant handball in the Watford game.

I’ll miss being able to watch most of the Saints games on the TV. Hopefully coverage of the Championship over here is better now than it was the last time.

Brighton got a total of one point in the corresponding fixtures this season (home draw against Burnley)

For me keeping the out-of-his-depth, woefully incompetent and uninspiring Pellegrino for as long as we did was the worst decision. He should have gone after the Leicester home game at the absolute latest, giving a new manager the opportunity to get a run of results going into the Xmas fixtures and the January transfer window. It boggles the mind that Les and Ralph let him linger for as long as he did before finally putting him out of his misery after Newcastle. We wasted too many winnable games on him, and his status as an obviously lame duck manager cannot have helped things during the transfer window where all we ended up with was the overpriced and underwhelming Carrillo. Keeping Pellegrino for as long as we did stands out as a particularly bad call, even in a season and a half replete with other stinky, incompetent, arrogant decisions, which included not replacing Fonte during last season’s January transfer window resulting in a panicked foray into the free agent market, firing Puel without having a decent replacement lined up, opting for another “too clever by half” appointment with Pellegrino, selling VVD in January when it was harder to replace him and use the proceeds of his sale, rendering the summer stand against Liverpool completely pointless, not replacing VVD in light of evidence that Hoedt and Stephens were struggling, spending a club record £19M on a striker worth a fraction of that amount who probably only came because he thought he would be playing for Pellegrino, and not buying anyone else to help an anemic attack. I’m sure there’s others. Les, Ralph and Ross have really dropped the ball lately.

Swansea are 5 points up with the following remaining fixtures... Man City (A) Chelsea (H) Bournemouth (A) Saints (H) Stoke (H) This is probably the weekend where all reasonable hope went down the toilet. Still, if Saints can get results in the Leicester / Bournemouth/ Everton matches we could conceivably turn up at Swansea knowing a win would put us ahead of them. It’s a big if based on our run of results, but I haven’t lost all hope.

“Southampton were mad to sack you”... a conversation between Glenn Hoddle and Claude Puel... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-5616415/Southampton-mad-sack-Glenn-Hoddle-meets-old-Monaco-pal-Claude-Puel.html

When he said it, I assumed that the commentator was talking about relegation release clauses rather than relegation wage clauses. He certainly didn’t clarify or provide his source. For some reason it reminded me of Rupert Lowe bragging in 2005 about relegation wage clauses leaving us well set to avoid financial difficulties after our last PL relegation.

That was a real head-scratcher.

I heard him say that.

I’m not going to assume that all the rats will leave the sinking ship. It would not surprise me if Bertrand goes - there were lots of rumours he wanted to leave last summer. I’m sure Tadic probably considers himself to be too big for the Championship. The club may be planning on largely keeping the team together but should consider strengthening obvious weak areas like CB and striker. When Newcastle went down, didn’t they pretty much keep their first team with the exception of selling Wijnaldum to Liverpool for something like £25M?

It’s odd if he didn’t mention him. Hughes said that he was considering going with Bednarek as a Stephens replacement, or reverting to a back four, which implies that McQueen won’t be covering for Bertrand.

There are still a few question marks concerning Long’s availability but it sounds promising... “Shane is okay, even if he hasn’t been with the group until today,” he added. “If he doesn’t get a reaction later on and trains well tomorrow then he’ll be in the squad.” https://southamptonfc.com/news/2018-04-12/team-news-mark-hughes-southampton-chelsea-premier-league-1718

Not to mention Walker... I think Bertrand is better than Rose. Selling Bertrand and using the money to reinforce in other areas doesn’t seem like that bad of an idea, assuming Targett steps in to fill the position. That is a bit of an assumption, especially if Fulham go up and we go down.

I wonder if Les and the board agreed to put relegation release clauses in any of the players’ contracts. It sounds like there’s a few at West Brom... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2018/04/09/salomon-rondon-can-leave-west-brom-just-165m-thanks-relegation/