CB Fry

Absolutely delighted that Ralph made a tactical switch very early in the second half (ten mins in) that changed things enough to stop the Villa onslaught and even things up. It made sense because as others said it released our full backs again. People have moaned (i say people, me) about Ralph’s tendency to make no changes until it is too late. Well, let's appreciate what he did last night. And at least now we have lost the tag of "they've lost the most points from winning positions" that yer commentators absolutely love to blather about. Clean sheets and solid one-nil wins literally the opposite of that shit. Fantastic Ralph.

Not seen many of those corner kicks that were definitely going to win us the Euros tonight. And there's been enough of them.

Great first half. Villa look there for the taking.

Nice shot from McGinn. I thought he was suspended?

He's definitely shit though, yeah?

I didn't realise that the signing of Wesley Hoedt removed the rights of Saints Web users to ever criticise any other club's transfer dealings.

Define "two years".

Ralph breathes a huge sigh of relief tonight.

Absolutely. It suits Boris for the nation to believe that "they're all as bad as each other" because he needs the public to have a low level of expectation that he can achieve. You've already seen how the Tories have played the "Look at Labour playing politics with this" card. Absolutely shameless but you have to admire it really.

Nixon has contacts and is one of the main correspondents for The Sun but he's been clever there by not actually saying anything much. Feels all a bit too neat-and-tidy for Rafael-Newcastle-Howe-Everton, especially as Benitez hasn't really done much wrong, yet (they're just being Everton). We'll see.

....which, as you've already been told, doesn't answer the question because if Salisu is any good there will be other big piles of cash later. There is no benefit in us selling Salisu in January. And we won't because Newcastle won't want him. Just a load of old paranoid SaintsWeb forum bollocks.

Just to do MLG's job for him, his question was "What would be the incentive for Saints to sell mid season vs the end of the season?" ...and having read your post a couple of times I still don't see an answer. "Because they might buy him or they might not buy him" - what?

Not sure what any of that has to do with Newcastle specifically going for Salisu in January. You only think it's going to happen because he plays for us.

Southampton FC not the centre of the universe. If Newcastle really are going to start splashing huge cash around in January they aren't going to go for Salisu.

Yes, sorry, my mistake. Although to be fair Hoddle going to Spurs not really comparable to the others, which is the current Tottenham taking managers with recent history at Ambramovic's Chelsea. Ken Bates era Chelsea not quite the same, and Hoddle was a Spurs legend.

Hats off to an excellent journalist with excellent contacts - he called it when everyone else was saying done deal. Unai made the right call as well. It's strange when a club owned by gazillionaires is a poisoned chalice but I think it is right now.

It's basically Guilleme Balague versus every other football journalist on earth. He's gone out on a limb to say Emery is going to reject but it doesn't feel that likely now - Emery's press conference quotes yesterday sounded like a "come and get me" as much as anything. Let's see what happens. Although Emery is obviously an excellent manager I'm not entirely convinced he's the absolute best person to haul them out of the shit.

Sorry, being thick

Saints without JWP would be like Villa without McGinn.

I am seeing some absolutely unreal news about McGinn.

Probably minimum 3,000, not maximum. I doubt it is against the rules to sell 300 more tickets if that’s what the home club want to do. Agree annoying.

A really important metric and very encouraging to see how we have improved in that area. Its frustrating we haven't scored enough or taken enough chances but when you're fighting relegation clean sheets are so much more valuable than goals. So right now we have it the right way round. If we can get A Armstrong to come good then we've got a decent season ahead of us. Locking Villa out next week would be a huge leap forward.

Absolutely buzzing for Howe's debut match against Villa on Friday 🤩

Why are you fannies still going on about a libel related to some guy who runs a clickbait bullshit website?

I think it is massively pushing it to describe Theo as a player who cost "£0". His wages are huge and likely to be much higher than some players we have paid fees for. So you can't say "£0 except wages" like that's not the issue. It is the issue. On the club's balance sheet, Theo is going to represent significant expenditure.