John Boy Saint

Wrexham v Eastleigh play off match to meet Salford gone to extra time

I can’t see Ralph taking the foot off the gas, he said last weekend that the work for next season starts tomorrow, he’ll no doubt want a bit of momentum to carry into the summer, and likewise he will no doubt be making sure that everyone knows every starting position is currently vacant for next season.

Without bothering to look it up, wasn't that the first time they nailed winning it?

Blimey that was close, just caught the end of the FB live stream of him leaving the Swim on his bike - the whole thing was nearly scuppered by the car park barrier arm coming down and wiping him out!!!

Always makes me think of my Granny & Grandad - I was only 11 from a house of little interest in football, I liked football, moved away from Southampton but had not long found the team from the city where I was from, having gotten fed up with school chums changing the team to follow like the weather, Leeds - Derby - QPR. Anyway I was the weird kid supporting a second division team, Granny saved all the Saints stuff in the Echo for me, crikey we’re getting further and further in the FA Cup - my parents didn’t have a flippin clue Saints were in the final until we did big shop at Carrefour and the place was festooned with Saints for the Cup. Easter was late that year and my Sister and I had our usual week away staying our Grandparents, the City just turned more Yellow and Blue as the week went on. Granny knew it was coming as John Curry had won gold at the Winter Olympics (Manchester was a foreign city). Match day the 4 of us sat down watching the TV, second half we must have worn Granny out as she nodded off. Then it happened - Stokes had the ball in the back of the Man United net, Grandad, my Sister and me erupted dancing round like loons, along with most of Dale Valley Road going on the noise from outside. Granny wakes up cool as you like “have we won?” Probably a throw back to the days of coming out of the shelter after yet another air raid “oh good house is still here”. And so began the longest seven minutes ever in the lives of Saints fans around back then. Shame we never repeated the feat in 2003 just to give a new generation of Saints fans a glorious memory. .........and just remember The Queen is a Saints Fan too, she hasn’t bothered to go to the final and present the cup since that day: I guess having seen her team win it at long last there was no point turning up any more.

Ha ha they have been rope-a-doped Good and proper

Great Video posted in the last hour of Matty running with his old mucker Franny - looks like its put some special petrol in his tank. If you ain't coughed up - forget " I'll have one more pint" and get texting FRAN5 to 70200 ..............pretty much the price of a pint

Saw the Dutch league table on SSN late on last night - Ajax have a goal difference of +81!!!!!! PSV have +71. But then I guess City and Liverpool have +68 and +64 then like the Eredivisie it drops back to "normality" of +20/30.

Only more recently mind, if you have perused any of the Hagiology books you will find that Plymouth were our original arch enemies - hood down, anorak off! In other news Bury are promoted from League 2 - and with their off field money woes likely to be starting League 1 minus 12 (sound familiar?).

These days money talks in football - that said Spurs are not the most prolific of payers - so if they are the only ones on the sniff round him, get rid of a few dead weights off the wage bill and if Ralph wants him Saints can match Spurs wage offer. I think Ralph likes him as he has responded to his guidance, we can all see that for ourselves on the pitch, a few times when a substitution has been made he has looked over to the sidelines and made a couple of steps over towards the touch line then realised that it’s not him coming off. Some people as we see on here don’t rate him, maybe because he isn’t glamorous enough, some simply because he grew up in a family of portsmouth fans, others mock the dead ball specialist tag, but if you have actually watched him over the course of the season and not solely on a dodgy stream you can see he has improved, he is more confident on the pitch, he has much more bite in challenges. He has allowed Valery to thrive because Valery doesn’t have to think about leaving himself exposed when he ventures up the pitch. Said it many times, Lawrie Mac always said a team is made up of Violinists and roadsweepers, JWP is possibly now between the two, works hard for the team, does deliver an evil dead ball and scores goals...........he has 2 games to possibly be the teams top scorer for the season, currently only one behind Ings, and whilst Redmond is launching them high and wide into the crowd with his very favoured right foot, JWP has enough confidence to smash one home from outside the box with his less favoured left foot without seemingly thinking much about it. Based on this season, especially since Ralph’s arrival it would be disappointing to see him lured away. Pochettino apparently rates him, the England manager has always rated him, now he’s delivering what Saints obviously saw in him when they took him in at the age of 8.

Ha-ha just watching the nutter sat in an Ice Bath eating Ice Cream..........most would sponsor him for doing that alone!

Sure I read its the Southampton Marathon route

I raise my hat to you Warsash. I have to say that I thought Franny looked better than I feared he might in the video on FB when he finished............his biggest concern seems to be the issues he was having with the food for energy he had been experiencing, which isn't the best.

That’s nice - Do we have a payment built into his departure contract for that to?!

Looks like Bailly has been left out in the rain!

Mrs JBS opened her clapper (oi steady on lads) when she got to her seat yesterday and read the big ST advert printed on one side “ooooh £399 tickets! Where are they” over there in that corner “Oh I think I will stay where I am thank you”.

Well that was fun, I’ll happily settle for mid table obscurity next season versus this and last season, with a few bloody noses handed out to the top 6 along the way. With my Saints shirt on that was hard work yesterday, with the benefit of knowing the result no wonder it was Sky Game of the Day, it was entertaining. When they went 2-1 up I did have a please don’t give us that Norwich game in reverse from all those years back with 2 games left, that was only a brief thought though. Bournemouth have always looked quick in attack, and no wonder Ralph changed things at HT, from my seat the hole in the middle of the centre backs with Yoshi missing looked big enough to sail not one but 2 cruise ships through. Must have been a tiring game for Bournemouth players as they seemed to have the need to lay down on the pitch whenever the chance arose.........and as we saw in the first half whenever they felt like it. We so need to stop gifting the oppos chances with sloppy balls cut that out alone and Ralph’s early season 40 target can come up much sooner than planned next year, no wonder with knowing Cardiff were losing we were fannying about in the corner it kept the ball as far away from our goal and far enough to negate any brain fart mispasses. Very pleasing to see Valery develop into a good player before our eyes, he has a bright future in the game especially when he tidies up his defensive work in his corner of the pitch, Ake certainly didn’t like it when he ran at him, and what a great bit of work to cross the ball over for Matty Targett to score a cracking header to open his Saints goal scoring account, as Blackmore said to him on Solent he scored the goal that kept us up! (Few haters won’t like that) With him being a Saints fan too, I’ll give him that.........to top that Matty goes in the book as the 1000th Premier League goal scorer of the season! Also pleased to see JWP’s development under Ralph, and that was a sweet strike for his goal, just needs to give Redmond a few tips on composure....................Hey this new Irish lad we have had playing for us these last few weeks looks to have goals in him and a bit useful, shame he missed that sitter. Someone please screw Ralph’s feet to the Southampton carpet.

Watford have shown for much of the season when behind they decide to twist and go s**t or bust. They were crowding us, and we start defending like the ball is suddenly a hand grenade with the pin out no bugger seems to be able to put their laces through it and smash it out of the 18yrd box, Stephens guilty of doing a Hoedt and pansying up the line, not long after Lemina decided to try and play it out from just outside the box, sorry mate against Watford when their tails are up you ain’t going to get the time to winkle the ball away. Should be use to it by now when Saints are in a spot and turn games into like we are playing in treacle. Still that was much better than Saturday evening especially that woeful first half where not only were we playing in treacle but the the treacle was in a paper bag.

MOTD have clocked it at 6 seconds

Fastest Hat-trick now Fastest Goal .........blimey we will need a new honours board in SMS

Really!?? all the good Shoite in the Next sale is sold by a minute past 4 am when the doors open and on facebay by 4:30 sold by 8am - post office won’t be open so no queues to be worried about being stuck in

They certainly aren’t a hoof and run team so that’s a start - amazing how the Bees aren’t in the mix only sitting in 15th.

The Bees have looked good for their 2-0

He doesn’t need to think or has already processed what he wants to do. Wind back the clock to the Liverpool semi picks the ball up from the clearance and is running he can see Matip coming and already knows with the speed he is carrying to run across him as any contact it’s a foul, the next move was probably a slight naivety PEH is screaming for the ball to probably take it to the corner, Sims more likely looked at the 2 options and already decided to pass to Long as he was the most likely of the 2 to score and finish the game. No slight on Redmond, by comparison he reaches a point near the penalty area and is still thinking what to do so hesitates, Sims by comparison knows what he is going to do. One of Ralph’s diamonds for polishing.

There can’t be many second tiers in World Football like the Championship. Just watched Naaarich v Wednesday boy you can tell there is a multi million pound pot on the table, last kick of the game peach of a free kick goal for 2-2!!