Saint Albert

Tadic!!!!

Decent save by McCarthy from a deflected long range shot.

Bloody hell Hoedt.

Carrillo could be in trouble for a challenge on Hegazi after he catches him with the elbow. He gets a yellow. Half time 0-1. W. Brom are crap.

Well, W. Brom’s plan seems pretty clear. Lots of high balls into the penalty area to exploit our weaknesses in the air.

McLean gets a yellow for a late foul on Carrillo.

Redmond did quite well there on that break.

Krychowiak gets a yellow for planting his boot on Lemina’s boot/ankle. Nasty challenge.

If you’re watching on SportsNet, it’s Matt Holland.

Great outswinging corner by JWP, Hoedt is completely unmarked for a tap in

Hoedt scores!!!

Long has a hamstring injury and is a doubt for the game.

A loss to the GTA edition of WBA would be beyond embarrassing... ...not embarrassing enough to fire Pellegrino, of course because we’re improving don’t you know, and even if we’re not improving it would all be VVD’s fault anyway.

Here’s another Jeremy Wilson article on Pellegrino’s future featuring more guff from Ralph... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2018/02/15/mauricio-pellegrino-admits-next-five-games-fundamental-southampton/

Indeed. I seem to recall reading that they opted against Pellegrini because his management style did not involve in-person coaching on the training field. It was a disappointing decision at the time. Even more disappointing now.

For all of you Canadians out there, my channel guide claims that this game is being televised on the main Sportsnet channels (yay) rather than the subscription Sportsnet World channel (boo), with the pregame starting at 7:30 a.m. MST on Saturday...I’m not sure what we did to deserve seeing 2 out of 3 Saints FA Cup games televised so far, but I for one wil not look a gift horse in the mouth.

He seems to be suggesting that he will be resting some regular starters for this game... https://mobile.twitter.com/SouthamptonFC/status/964146900860637184

He can’t be. In the past, he’s taken leaves to coach the Rest of Europe team (or whatever it was called) that lost to Canada in the hockey World Cup final in 2016, and he had a back room role for Canada’s victorious men’s hockey team at the Sochi Olympics. It would at least suggest he’s not involved in the to the day-to-day business of running of the club.

Not firing Pellegrino after the Leicester game was a huge mistake that has cost us. I think at the time most of us probably knew the club would not turf him after getting stuffed at home. But they should have. With a different manager at the helm from post-Leicester debacle on and through the January transfer window, I’m convinced we would be in a better position, which would not be hard because presently we’re in a very ****ty position.

How much is Krueger’s salary?

I voted to sack him. The club probably view the ideal situation as keeping him, and winning enough games to avoid relegation. They can then fire Pellegrino in the summer when there are more managers available, allowing Les to employ his recruitment process resulting in the hiring of someone that says all the right things in his job interview and ticks all of Les Reed’s picayune boxes. I’ll still hope to avoid relegation if he stays, but IMO our best shot at getting the requisite amount of wins is to hire a manager who is better than Pellegrino (not a difficult proposition because Pellegrino is out of his depth at this level), someone with better tactical skills, team selection skills, someone who will see the gutless performance on Sunday, bang some heads together and install a backbone in this bunch of overpaid failures. That is why I voted to sack him, because it provides us with our best shot at avoiding relegation. I’d take Silva as a short term replacement. He’ll then get tapped up by a bigger club, and he’ll probably do the dirty on us at some point when the dugout pioneers come calling again because he’s a mercenary bastard, but the main thing is avoiding relegation in the next 11 games and dealing with everything else as the board plans for another season in the PL. Also, if we somehow avoid relegation with Pellegrino so Les can go through his whole recruiting process in the summer, well the last two occasions have not worked out very well. Perhaps Les needs to revisit his process.

Spurs mounting a comeback...nice free kick from Ericksen.

W. Brom are not coming back from a trip to Barcelona until Friday, and the Telegraph claims many players are unhappy with the trip. The Telegraph also claims that Pardew’s “methods and management” are causing some friction in he squad. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2018/02/13/west-brom-sack-chariman-chief-exec-alan-pardew-safe-now/

Nope. Looking at it realistically, the FA Cup draw has by and large kept the better teams separated, with Man U, Chelsea, Leicester, Spurs and City still in the draw and kept apart for the 5th round. At some point we’ll have to face one of them, unless there are several upsets and we get ridiculously lucky with the draw. This manager has not defeated a top 6 team yet, and could not even talk his players into putting in a decent effort at home to Leicester City. The chances of lucking out and drawing a lower division side in the semi finals as we did under Strachan in 2003 won’t be very good this year. Under this manager and with the teams left in this draw, I can’t realistically see us getting to Wembley. I’m going to worry about surviving in the PL.