John Boy Saint

He may have made some very questionable decisions against us in games, (his glorious assist at Burnley last season almost affords him cult status from Saints fans), you would hope that it is personal circumstances and not being hounded out. Need a few more of these youngsters on the whistle as they are more likely to keep up with the game.

Romeu sometimes gets a bit close to the knuckle with his last ditch challenges

What a shame it wasn’t Forest Green - just to listen to the crescendo of disgust at not being able to get a meat pie in the ground.

Whilst we are twiddling our thumbs waiting for the next game, looking out at the pouring rain. I was searching something on t'internet just now and on Google Chrome you often get a cartoon (Google Doodle) depicting a notable event, or person, from this day in history, above the search box. Today's "Doodle" was football themed "whats that all about?", so clicked it: Ebenezer Cobb Morley 187th Birthday....................... Who? Clicked again and learned something new. "What has this got to do with Saints" I hear being muttered, well nowt directly as he didn't play on the wing for us in the late 1800's, more football in general. https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/ebenezer-cobb-morley-football-rules-laws-game-barnes-google-doodle-a8492781.html His original draft of 23 rules included a provision allowing players to “hack the front of the leg”, a controversial line that one FW Campbell of Blackheath felt was essential to promote “masculine toughness”. Another adherent suggested that without hacking tackles, “you will do away with the courage and pluck of the game, and it will be bound to bring over a lot of Frenchmen who would beat you with a week’s practice”. I wonder what he would have made of the modern game, and that Neymar fellow.

They have their work cut out with young Master Redmond then!

Reading Sundays match programme had a very informative interview with Mr Hughes, some nice positive quotes and thoughts.

Surely we want gems like Brian Clough is said to have come out with after Forest in their pomp got soundly beaten, might have even been by us!!!? Apparently he stood by the dressing room door as the household name players traipsed forlornly in to the dressing room and said "sorry" to each of them. Then stood in the centre of the dressing room and said "I am so sorry lads, this afternoons result was totally my fault and I take full responsibilty..............because obviously I named the wrong team to play"

Ooo how civilised........Just think a nice bit of Eppoises bought there before the match should be just about spot on after being in my pocket and transported across London to Waterloo. By the time I get off my curiously empty train carriage at Basingstoke Station it should be bloody glorious.

A few years ago a load of wage slips for Liverpool players found their way into the public domain, loads of folks were getting heated in the media about the monthly salary John Arne-Riise was getting (somewhere around £130k pm), there were many discussions, most in disgust at such an obscene pay packet. The Nurses comparison was used endlessly, then someone piped up and said don't look at his gross pay look at his net pay, then look at the amount of tax and NI he is paying then over the course of the year and how many Nurses could be employed by his deductions alone. But back in the totally removed from reality world of Football, Zaha's £130k per week looks an absolute bargain for what he gives to Palace when compared to the £500k (nett) a week Sanchez is getting at United.

My friend did say the attention to detail was very impressive.

A friend of mine is a Spurs season ticket holder, he went on a Tour of their new stadium yesterday said it was all pretty impressive, so obviously something is working in there. Took loads of photos but was told not to post them on social media which he has respected. Plus being a successful local businessman he isn't going to give himself negative press by being exposed as doing so.

Do they have a cryogenic facility to store these buggers in alongside the FAs St George’s Park!! Hang on just looked and aside from having the highest average age of referees in Europe. Lee Mason is doing City v Uddersfield We have Mr Perma-tan Amble round the pitch: Andre Marriner. Jack Stephens (if he plays) is going to love that, and going to have to keep his trap shut, in the Celta friendly he was on the whistle and blew for a very soft decision against Jack. The brief exchange between them was a bit spiky from Jack, seems the “injustice” served by Marriner upon him at the Emirates last season was still a bit sore.

That dressing room has a pretty good history of ousting a manager who guided them to an achievement beyond their wildest dreams, so if Puel is paid off or like Pearson packed off surreptitiously to manage another of the Thai owners clubs, after 3 games is pretty shabby. Man U away is a tough start to anyone’s seasons.

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.