John Boy Saint

One Swallow springs to mind. I wouldn't say he was MOTM he did lots of what we know he can do, but you could still see steam exhausting from his ears as the cogs whirred round between his ears thinking what to do next. Whether this is a carry over from last year, when he and others were taking positional instruction from the touchline when defending opposition free kicks outside the box, but yesterday Burnley had a free kick just outside the box and he visibly sought, and received, advice from one of our coaches as to where to stand. Certainly looked better than he did last season, so hopefully he will deliver what he often tempts us with this season.

He became isolated up front simply because everytime the ball was played up to him it was coming straight back at us as he was easily dispossessed, and until the point where he was subbed he hadn't won a single header in a challenge, You ain't going to keep passing a ball forward if it just keeps coming back at you, because it ain't sticking with the bloke you have passed it to.

Gave up going down to concourse to buy anything August 2001 17 years later and it’s amazing they can’t devise a system that works even slightly faster than the first day the stadium opened. Best system I have ever seen was at Peterborough mid week promotion season, the queue ran pretty much the length of the stand behind the goal we filled, in the time it took to have a smoke the queue had vanished with at least 5 minutes of half time left, 5 Ladies ran the little kiosk they worked it with military precision, each had their job.

3 games in now and to be honest I hardly noticed the iridescent red cinder track today. As you say at last we get to hear the “Woolston Ferry” song, I got the strangest of looks from Mrs JBS for not only singing along but knowing the words, interestingly I could hear a other few folks singing along to the chorus too.

Hughes said post match, what I noted early on that Burnley looked like a team that had already played 3 competitive games not the team, that we were, having just played mass change mid game friendlies. It was mentioned last week that West Ham came out of the traps quickly having played Europa league qualifiers previously. You can slag Burnley’s workman like team and style until the cows come home, there are no superstars in the team, but Sean Dyche has them superbly drilled, he got them into Europe last season, we nearly got into the Championship by comarision. I thought after 20 minutes we were getting more of a grip on the game, but like everyone has said things changed when the subs were made, and what a breath of fresh air to actually see a noticeable change after a couple of season of just shuffling the deckchairs. Whilst there are some on here defending Austin, quite frankly he offered very little, he did not win one header in a challenge, and no sooner had he received the ball than he was bullied off it, which had us on the back foot again and again. Whilst Hoedt looked the weak link in the defence alongside an imperious Vestergaard, some of you really need to take the Jack Stephens is carp blinkers off. Whilst it was only a point, we saw things and endeavour that we have rarely seen over the past season and a half, had we started against City or Liverpool we could have been smashed to bits in the first half, but coming up against a dogged Burnley was probably not a bad test to kick the season off with. As an aside looking at the screen on the concourse the head to head stats were on show and it is equal Wins- Draws-Losses. I know it’s the forum norm, but jeez some of you need to put the rusty razor blades out of reach!!

Pretty much everyone in La Liga is cannon fodder for the Castilians and Catalans.

Shearer said it’s a red too........Who’s brave enough to argue with him: case closed

It’s nothing new, been the default penalty for the offence for a couple of season now

Borderline, he was stretching and his studs were up and he did catch his ankle with a bit of gusto, with benefit of replays Ref made the right decision in the first instance.

Bournemouth fans will be moaning at big team bias on that table as they scored 2 with no reply putting them in the Champions League position

Just watching SSN and the ticker along the bottom is running the various teams news about who is fit and who isn’t, then it comes to Spurs (who have not spent a bean this window) they are assessing the fitness of Lloris, Kane, Alli and Vertongen following the World Cup. If lloris is out as a result then he must be swinging the lead. Again looking at the SSN ticker, there were a few other teams with players not ready for their teams first game because of the World Cup, just got me thinking what is going to happen with Qatar 22 being played in the middle of the season, how many teams are going to find big superstar sized holes in their team when the season resumes, not to mention the preparation beforehand.

I would like to see one of those little and large partnership with Gabbi or Ings (if he has it still) playing off Sam. Ings was most effective at Burnley when teamed up with Vokes who is bigger than him. Since Pelle (6’4”)left we have had no towering presence up top, even though there is only inches in it against Austin (6’2”) and Gabbi (6’1”) neither of them are renowned aerial players, Long (5’11”) is our aerial threat up front only because he has a good spring, but gets no protection from the officials due to his past reputation, not seen enough of Ings (5’10”) to know his ability in the air, and Redmond (5’8”) is a conundrum. I just think we are missing a trick with Sam (6’4”). I am happy to be proved wrong but when Long and Redmond only scored 3 goals between them last season, I just can’t see where the risk is in giving Sam the same chance of a few games that inert pair up front have enjoyed.

:lol:

Shame it’s not down at Staplewood, where they use to have open sessions during the school holidays quite regularly. Would have been nice to go there just to see the changes from those distant days.

Thirded’dddd. Think he gets the short end of the stick because he cost us nowt, nice chap with it and doesn’t cause ripples. Unlike spending £10m-£20m with the headline “Saints most expensive signing” and having a sulk when not in the team, but the manager feels obliged to play the paid for player, whereas an academy product easier to sideline because there is no visible outlay. Offering £10m is taking the piddle.

I was at both games. D’Urso was the ref away, and often thought he had the needle against us after he was demoted from the Premier League ref roster following our relegation season opener v Blackburn when he booked the same player twice failing to send him off. Lambert sending off right in front of me, was a bit like Stephens run in with Wilshire last season, Poyets hitman had tackled (Adam someone) Rickie in their box, Rickie was strong enough to be getting up first and the Brighton player scissored his legs round both Lamberts legs to prevent him getting up, and whilst both were still on the floor Rickie shoved him back in an effort to get free, D’Urso couldn’t wait to show the red card. Going back to Jack Stephens last season at Arsenal, Marriner was the ref v Celta Vigo, late on Jack won the ball cleanly in a tussle, Mariner blew for a foul, Stephens shot Marriner a stare with a look of what exactly is your problem with me. As the opening post says odd that VAR was voted against by the PL clubs, especially after no referees from the self proclaimed best league in the world were deemed good enough to be on the whistle at this year’s World Cup.

Did make me smile seeing that ex ref Peter Walton was involved; the ref who gave us a penalty for a challenge on Fonte so far outside the box that he could admire the Debenhams window display!! Then sent a Brighton player off in the meltdown that immediately followed such a criminal decision.

Which is what we had with Pochettino, about who Jack Cork (I think) said when Our Nige was replaced “to survive Pochettinos training sessions, you need 2 hearts!”, Poch had them on double training sessions when he took over. The other one before that was Strachan, once he got going with us we did well because we were super fit across the team, we could have been under the cosh for 80 minutes against better, on paper, teams but looked like we were just warming up for the final 10. Players moaned about his training regime especially the trip to Scotland to run on the sandy beaches and dunes, last place player in the races was thrown into the cold North Sea, the player to stay on the shoulder of to avoid a dunking was Paul Telfer. Think it was CMFG who thought the forfeit was a joke at first: until he went for a swim. He was certainly one to benefit from the fitness regime. After a trouncing away at Hull 4-1 when WGS had gone, Redknapp was asked post match about the fitness of the team by Radio Solent. He claimed the “boys were super fit athletes”, anyone who watched and paid attention could see the fitness level had dropped, under Strachan the team looked good to play 120 minutes, under Redknapp we had an 80 minute team.........anyone who went to that 2-2 Middlesbrough game when we were 2-0 up and comfortable couldn’t fail to see that.

Blimey I wouldn't want to have to choose one of those over the other. Could get a bit spicy standing between the sticks in front of the fans of the one he decides to turn down when they meet in the league........................................... still that might actually see him off his line moving about a bit!

Those of you who haven't already used their seats pre season, take something with you to wipe your seat before sitting down. Especially if you are going somewhere else afterwards and looking a bit tidy. Wednesday night ours were the filthiest we had ever seen them at the start of a season.......proper write your name in dirty.

Me too Especially as Bertrand did seem to like playing in the shade of the Kingsland “reading the paper” first half, and there were some comments made from the stand towards him, which apparently he responded to. Be interesting to hear what was said. Flip side Targett had the ball, and was closed down with, more often or not, no out option infront of him just backwards or sideways. First half especially, balls to Austin’s feet saw him dispossessed, and the ball just came straight back at us. In a zig zag - out to our left behind Bertrand then zipped across the back of our midfield to their number 7 who was running in at pace from our right onto the ball. You have to hope that it was an experiment as that BM movement to slice us open saw their number 7 get his reward with their 3rd. As an aside, did anyone else see Bournemouth’s approach to their last pre season matches? They played Friday night then Saturday afternoon, if I heard Eddie Howe post match on Solent correctly, they pretty much had one set of players out 1st half Friday night, second half swapped them up or tinkered, then played Friday nights first half team with tweaks Saturday afternoon first half and swapped them up again second half, he said he wanted to make sure everyone got a decent bit of game time rather than the 60/30 70/20 that normal pre season fixtures provides. Even further aside, from what I saw of the Charity Shield yesterday, Man City look like they will just carry on from where they left off in May, by comparison Chelsea looked a bit of a shambles.

Bertrand needs to buck his ideas up, he is wearing the Captains armband but doesn’t look like a Captain. Spent most of the first half hiding in the shadow cast by the Kingsland Stand, and looked like a few folks close to the that side of the pitch we’re giving him a piece of their mind at his lack lustre performance. Charlie Austin looked a bit shabby too, got bullied easily a few times by the defender at his back. After a lung busting trot the ball was recycled out to Targett who went to play it up to him and spotted he was miles offside so had to send the ball into midfield as he was being closed down. PEH was trying to get something going a few times but no one else was joining in. Lemina started bright as a button then just went into Calamity Mario mode???!!!??? Gabbi defo looks almost like a new signing after a season in the wilderness. And we got to see Elyounoussi give us a flavour of what’s in his bag very nice jinking run riding tackles, Tadic would have gone down at first or second contact like he had been taken out by the sniper hiding in the floodlights. Good to see Yoshi given a spin, the sooner he is up to speed and managing the defence the better. Still give it a handleful of competitive games and we will have a better idea as to what’s what. Highlight of the afternoon, the new iridescent red “cinder track”, thought the floodlights were assisting the glow midweek, but in the sunshine it’s spectaclier!!

Just got home from the match and sat on the doormat was notification that I’m IN!! Must have burn’t a bit of midnight oil deciding on that pin