John Boy Saint

If that’s the case may as well pack up our tent and bugger off back to League 1!

Maybe at the end of the day, given the dogs abuse he was handing out to Diouf and anyone else within his vicinity during our game at SMS towards the end of last season, Sparky had no intention of linking up with him again, as he was more trouble than he was worth.

What a pile of steaming horse doings............... they had no bloody problem with him helping to get us there, yet they drag along a right footed players to play on the left who always has to check his run to play a ball in with his right, and a bloke who had played bugger all footie for the bulk of the season and had the facial expression of being knackered after only playing 20 minutes of extra time. You did bloody well getting us to the semi final, but when you start peddling cobblers please make a bit more of an effort!

Sprinkle in a bit of supporting Saints for years also helps too

Think despite all the snappy play Belgium were so desperate to score they lost any finesse that their individuals were capable of De Brunye looked at times like he just done the broom race with his shooting and passing towards the end.

Exactly Poured petrol on the bridge and tossed a lit zippo lighter towards it when the the Southampton door failed to hit his @R$ę on the way out, if he ain’t cutting the Mustard on Merseyside why on earth would we want a 30 year old injury prone cast off polluting the squad. We ain’t playing at the Dell any more, with our hands financially tied behind our backs hoovering up the likes of crocks like Barry Vennison and Kerry Dixon.

Dave Watson allegedly said he would stay at Saints as long as Fraser stayed with us when there were rumours about the inventors of the dug outs were sniffing aground him. With Sparky in the big chair, you would imagine that Eddie is going to be watching and knowledgeable about what’s going on between the sticks

Well I am a man and obviously I can’t,neither could applemakeyoulookatitautocorrect and I bet a man thunked that one up :p.......

Dunno Mrs JBS in her Saints shirt.........out of ten I would give her one!! All joking aside, here on our holibobs in Spain we have been watching the games with a few intelligent chaps that actually go and watch footie, one of them has a Wife with zero interest in footie (Harry Potter plays up front for England!!!). Chatting the other day she pipes up and says “does Mrs JBS like football?”. To which her husband said before I could answer “yes” he said “ I had a most informative conversation with her at half time in the Columbia game”. So before you tar all treacle’s who “pollute” football with the same brush Ducky, just be warned there are a few who know their onions out there.

On paper looking to be a sound summer of acquisitions so far, but as always the proof of the pudding is in the eating. As long as these guys have been signed with Sparkys input then I trust his judgement that him Mark and Eddie believe they have the minerals to get us back where we are use to being. Said it before, after the slagging that Hughes got from the Coates family (yeah right Lambert was a revelation, or revolution, for for them). There was a little piece that crept out, hidden away, in the media that Stoke or their director of football was in the spotlight, having piddled £50M+ on players that in reality Hughes only deemed worthy of sitting on the bench because he felt he must put them somewhere, this investment likewise Lambert struggled to integrate into the team and ultimately save their bacon. We shall see, but like others feeling optimistic.

Chinese World champion secret Bottom squeezer keeps her training up with a cheeky 20 point high score Italian Squeeze. When Gabbi turns round Saints new boy Stuart Armstrong innocently smiles and nods!!

Tell that to WBA last season........where did they go pre season last summer. Only talking from personal experience UK to USA no problem, USA to UK bit wonky, UK to China - No problem, China to UK wonky a bit longer....... we are all different, and yes seeing as they only work half the time most normal folk do and with the medical guys you would hope they will breeze it.

the return was more my concern, every time I have been with work it’s been fly in, check in, dinner, bed, though the last trip was dinner then listening to Saints in the cup Semi Final, bed. Next morning up and working by 9am till 6pm dinner out, rinse and repeat for a week some times have a little dip in stamina around 3pm but that soon passes. When I get home after a week for the next 2 weeks come mid afternoon I am flagging, no matter how busy I am . Very weird, so I’m hoping this just me

I thought it was more a case of he came to us on loan as he wasn’t getting or looking likely to get game time at Reading, he was also out of contract at the end of the season. He came to us and showed what he was capable of Reading went “oh hello he’s better than we thought” said no to our approach and gave him a sparkly new contract with Championship looking more attractive than League 1 - pretty sure I heard somewhere that Saints weren’t going to dance to Readings tune setting a blueprint for every other team we were going to do business with.

I liked the little word in Maguires ear, “I am going to make you some space”. Sargeant Major Pickford in goal handing out the rollickings. One player who I think has grown up at this tournement is John Stones. Made me smile watching Spanish TV, they came back from the Ads and the screen just said “Its Coming Home” England in a World Cup Semi Final!! Wow!

Unless I have missed an update, from recollection the Premier League voted against VAR next season so he has another season to get it out of his system.

Car drives past you standing away from the side of the road at 70mph, you see it, coming, passing you, going, your brain tells you it’s going fast from the back and foreground. Stand in the middle of the road and all sense of speed of the approaching car is lost 50-60-70mph it all looks the same. Many players of Tennis, Cricket, Baseball and Goal Keepers have an ability to slow down the approaching object and react to hit or catch it, Once the ability to process and read that information drops by a few percent in top sportsmen then their career invariably dwindles, it’s not something you get back, some more agile players might be able to compensate with premption. Theres a photo of Ibrahimovic scoring in the EFL Cup Final the ball is straight at FF who has a scared expression on his face the ball seemingly goes through him, be a shame if this processing ability has deserted him.

If only he had slotted that chance home that night v Arsenal, how different things might have been. considering we were prepared to pIśš £20m up the wall on someone hardly getting a game in a lesser league than the Premier League and not having a sparkling strike rate, it’s not going to cost anything to give him a spin, since Pelle left we have had no height options to hit in the box, yes Shane Long has a good leap in him but our defenders gave a better goal return than him. Like others have said he has had 2 seasons out on loan with 2 basket case clubs, give him some proper service and the doubters might be surprised. Big lad like him in the box is going to draw the attention of the defenders and likely to give the players with a little more finesse that split second extra to make an impact. Anyway he is out in China, Sparky and his boys are no doubt getting a good look at him if they deem a loan is needed again, then probably best for Sam to get a bit more permanency in his life.

Just watch when booking your own tickets if you have a heap of Friends and Family, somehow due to the vagaries of the website I “bought” all the the tickets for all the qualifying Season Ticket holders in my Friends and Family box!!

...........having spotted a cheeky old Babushka in the crowd giving him the eye and distracting him with thoughts of banging her like a loose screen door in a Tornado later that evening!!

........if he was signing for Borussia Monchengladbach that would have to be a high score in Scrabble

Thought the air looked pretty good for China, that said the humidity with exercise probably feels like breathing treacle.

Don’t think there is much dislike from the fans, more like incredulous disbelief that a multi million pound business could piddle so much money up the wall on a player who didn’t shine at Monaco according to their fans. Even more so when when Ralph let it out that the club didn’t twig that we were in the poo until January but still wasted so much money on a pit pony who was the struggling managers mate.......and now he is likely to be off to join him again need VAR to take a peek at that:p what is more worrying is the club can’t see what’s going on right under their flipping noses, yet even the most mild mannered fan in the stand has seen the bleedin obvious weeks before its hit the agenda of the weekly board meeting. it would have been far more effective to have bunged Birmingham City £5m to buy Sam Gallagher out of his loan.

Chinese visas are not cut and dried, the Boss (who has been visiting China for donkeys years) and I did our 3rd renewals in our passports lives for a trip in April so you would assume having been granted ones previously it would be a mere formality....errr no! I completed my application without issue, my Boss had to re submit his twice for very minor errors, it’s not rock up at the embassy wait and get your visa stuck in the book, it’s a leave and collect tomorrow. We both had a day left on our old visa when they were submitted and had to write a letter requesting they cancel our last visa to ensure they issued a new one because they can’t overlap. I had one trip to Guangzhou where we hopped onto a Kenya Airways flight from Bangkok to Guangzhou, everyone needs a visa to get into China, we whistled through (surprisingly coupled with a bit of humour with the official) the African passengers were noticeably being double teamed by passport control. Maybe they have an issue with Africans of which Boufal is one seeing as Morocco is North Africa. I have a 2 year multi entry Chinese visa (which is pretty much standard issue), to get that new Visa I needed a letter of invitation which I got from a supplier, but now I can fly in and out of China willy nilly, why did I need the letter of invitation to get a new visa when the letter wording to fulfil the criteria for the renewal has basically expired. HTH

Thought exactly the same, amazed none of them busted a gut to pose the manager a question, Trent-Alexander looked like a Rabbit in the headlights which considering he has played Champions League was a surprise Prowsey must have had his head in his hands at the appalling deliveries from the corners and that free kick. Bertie is probably on his way to hospital to have his sides stitched up from laughing so much at Rose being picked ahead of him. Still at least the result keeps the lid on the nations expectations.