John Boy Saint

The guy makes a valid point. As much as he is maligned in some quarters on here, if you actually watch Maya Yoshida he does actually read the game to the point where some find it easy to point the finger at him for a collective defensive howler contributing to an opposition goal. He sees the danger but gets torn as he wishes he could split himself in 2 to be in 2 places at once. A recent example of this was last season v Norwich in the cup, last minutes of the game VVD has gone walkabout to the left side of the 18 yard box for no reason leaving a hole in the 18 yard box Yoshida is defending his right side of the box with a Norwich player at his back, but anyone watching can see Maya can see the hole and Naismith lurking but is torn between reducing the hole and leaving not only the player at his back but the one further behind him, all the while VVD is still in explicably out of position in a crowded left side of the box, ball hits the VVD sized hole Naismith gets the last minute equaliser, numpties point the finger at Maya - VVD gets off scot free. Spotted that flaw a couple of times in his time here. With regards to the instalments, I thought I read somewhere that as well as Liverpool bidding top dollar over others, Saints had demanded and agreed the bulk of the payment up front rather than protracted installments. ?

Sorry Chez......... Mrs JBS feels the same, everyone banging on about how good he was, she had his card marked as useless from day one, "all he does is demand the ball and does nothing with it and gives it straight back to who he demanded it off".

Camara v Norwich there was an immense amount of emotion, passion and relief from the stands as that Daisy cutter hit the back of the net.

Folks said that they could hear the cheer miles away, probably helped as we pushed for the late goal that everyone in the stadium was standing urging the team on. As much of a knob as Jamie can be, the fact that his knees were absolutely shot he put in more effort than the other pit ponies his Pa got in.

Always remember us playing Man U last day of August 2003, second half Fergie brought on some Portuguese nipper he had bought in the summer by the name of Christiano Ronaldo. Confident little chap, got the ball and proceeded to run down the wing doing a silly amount of step overs and other cleverness. Le Saux picked his moment and up ended him. WGS brought on CMFG to tighten stuff up, Ronaldo once again got the ball and once again was re enacting Riverdance better than Michael Flatley down the wing, ball at his feet. Le Saux was already on a warning so backing up or off, but from midfield this bald headed Exocet launched himself on a diagonal trajectory across the pitch, poor Christiano probably didn't see him coming, still flat out Marsden put both ball and player into touch. Being the Gent that he was CMFG followed Ronaldo, bent down and offered him hand to get him to his feet, also looked like he was having a word in his young ear. Given that Ronaldo pretty much vanished from the game after that you could guess the message from Chris was "Ok you've had your fun, we'll have no more of that nonsense this afternoon". Met him by chance at the Hilton the day after we beat Liverpool 2-0 we were on separate tables in the lounge area, whoever he was with and my boss had just vanished off, so we had a brief chat, my boss came back and continued our meeting. When we finished and got up to leave, Chris got up from his table came over shook my hand and said cheerio. Even as a grown man I had a grin on my face probably all the way home.

As mentioned before, probably on a thread where folks were slagging off someone like Matty Targett, these lads have gone through pretty much the toughest interview process in the world. Many of them starting at the age of Eight, like the Apprentice as they get older they see lads they have grown up with as best mates being ejected from the programme along the way. In our case the day any academy lad steps out in front of 32,000 at St Mary's for their first team game, they have made it through the primary phase of the process. Now they have to work towards ensuring that they are out there every week. To step out of our academy into the Premier League, when it comes to football, these boys are special, they are deemed to have what it takes to be a professional footballer, having survived the interview process that most of their detractors wouldn't have survived past their 9th Birthday!

What ever happened to that Lad from Stoke at the centre of Liverpool getting a ban from trading in youngsters at academy level? Last I heard there was a stink over the fact that when he "signed" for Liverpool his Dad was allegedly instructed not to date it, which he thought was odd seeing as it was such an integral and important part of the deal, as result he ignored them signed and added that days date of 1st September. As part of later evidence this contract came up and the date had been adjusted to the 20th or 21st September alledgedly by Liverpool. Obviously the whole thing went sour, and the lads parents were looking at a bill for the private school education that was part of the package to lure him away from Stoke. The Father said that there was no way he would sign a contract "dated" 2 weeks after this Lad had started his new school, especially as there was no way they had the kind of money to send him to that school. With regard to the Lad, again the last I saw of it, he was stuck in limbo, because Liverpool didn't want him after all the hoo-haa (?). Stoke weren't letting him back in to the academy, but were holding his registration papers that they wanted payment of £68,000 for, I assume in return for the investment they had made in him. Certainly looked a bit messy all round.

This pretty much it in a nutshell, you don't have the Strachan to Sturrock situation, where certain players were alledged to ignore everything he did and the Chairman went with the players. When everyone's favourite Adkins was binned off, and replaced with Pochettino there was a danger players would dig their heels in, but with Cortese all the players knew what side he would come down on, Pochettino got their attention and settled quickly. Without Cortese at the club Koeman came in with a playing CV that no one in the team could question. Then we get Claude who had a good playing career and not too shabby managerial career but in reality "who are you?" Almost back to Strachan to Sturrock especially if the playing style is not one you are comfortable with as a player. He goes and is replaced with another, in reality "who are you?" Manager. Puel and Pellegrino don't appear to have presence like Pochettino Koeman and even Adkins had, and without a Headmaster like Cortese over seeing, and everyone knowing he has a selection of canes on the side of his office and a pencil on the edge of the desk ready to fall on the floor. Pick that up boy.........................

Talking to a Birmingham supporting friend today, once business had been done and dusted, we moved onto the serious subject of football. Lots of his Blues mates are waiting for Gallagher to be called back by us given the pickle we are in. He said most of the season he had been played out on the wing where he was pretty ineffective, now he is being played in the centre he is playing where he should be and knocking them in.

Just as an aside, watching the Brighton v Palace game on BT, which has Video Assistant Referee for the first time. Jeez it's like a broken record as the commentators from minute one have been willing for it to be used. Sadly for BT it didn't get used as Brighton won 2-1.

as always a great match report. I have to take issue regards the booing comment, I take it you were not there? As I said on the match thread the booing came when MP decided to take PEH off, just about everyone one around just went "Eh!??". Steven Davies would have been the sensible option as he had been running around all afternoon, PEH was pretty much setting the tempo. The booing was not for Lemina coming on it was just 4000 supporters reaction to a baffling decision. There was zero reaction to Redmond coming on more of a shoulder shrug and the removal of PEH had softened any grief if was going to come his way. And again as I said on the post match thread we in the stands could all see Long had run himself into the ground, folks were singing Gabbis name was no slight on anyone just drawing attention to the fact that Long was running on fumes, bringing on Gabbi earlier would have made sense. Nobody was being a see you next Tuesday.

"When it's Red they will listen to, and believe every single word you say......... Trust me it works: I've been using it in front of the mirror every day..............I've never believed in myself so much!! ".

Early on he did look a bit like a fish up tree, but after the clash of heads where you did wonder if he would continue as he looked like he had no idea where he was. A few moments later after he appeared not to want the ball passed to him a couple of times. Then he had to win a header. successfully executed he was suddenly much more into the game.

Cracking goal too

Very strange day out, even if it is in the cup the win was a refreshing result. Good bit of humour when we scored, about 5 minutes of fans bouncing around singing "we've scored a goal". Kept the chill out if anything. Folks moaning about the booing when PEH was subbed it was a case of WTF. He had been playing well and looked happy out there, by contrast pretty sure Davo would had been glad to come off as he put in a shift with fire extinguisher in hand. Højbjerg acknowledged our disapointment (probably mirroring his own) which turned the boos in to unanimous applause for him. Redmond replacing Boufal was understandable but in reality it was a wasted sub because quite frankly Redmond was pretty pants, I think his confidence is shot, a spin out with the nippers might actually do him a big favour. Also those questioning the fans calling for Gabbiadini, just about everyone except the bench could see that Long had run himself into the ground and was pretty much playing on vapour. Taking Højbjerg off has to be the most baffling of all because anyone with half a brain can see he is becoming the hub of midfield, so much goes through him successfully. Aside from the football the pork and leek hotdogs, whilst making you wince at the price, have to be by far the best tasting hotdogs I have had in a very long time: seeing Mrs JBS's vanish as fast as mine rubber stamps their billing. Stepping off the train in Basingstoke at 6:30 was quite a surprise too, normally takes that long getting home from a home game.

Just take care as you dismount your horse it looks awfully high.

But you have just written off Sam Gallagher!!?? Gabbiadini has pretty much been a flash in the pan in all reality, scored for fun in the first few games then has pretty much vanished off the score sheet. So you would splash the cash on what looks like potentially a MKII version of him, and totally ignore we have a striker out on loan who for the last 2 seasons has been short changed in the quality of teams he has been loaned to, yet on both occasions he has shone through the dirge he has been playing with. One thing is for sure get Sam back and you won't be suffering with having to settle in a foreign land, having to get your family to settle too, learn a new language get up to speed with the rigours of the Premier league. The lad knows the league and would probably benefit from the higher quality of service he will no doubt get. If anything this Guido guy is playing second fiddle to "mercurial" Falcao - and boy did that lad set the Premier League on fire!!

Heard they are a good pairing, a bit like MacDougall and Boyer.

I'm with you on this, why piddle a shed load of money up the wall on another Carlos Kickaball who ain't getting a game at Monaco, and doesn't seem to have sparkled anywhere he has been. Get Sam back give him a spin, can't do any worse than what we have. And before we get all this "he has no experience" cobblers, everyone asked questions about Rickie Lambert in the prem, seemed to do alright when he got there.

Nothing new, been mentioned before by Lawrie McMenemy that he told the players that it was up to them to get the fans going not the fans getting them going. So it runs a bit deeper than a new Stadium and more tourists.

What if Gabbi's goal in the cup final hadn't been scrubbed off, and we won 3-2 securing Europa league footie, Puel probably wouldn't have been binned off..........................

The only game we have had postponed for a waterlogged pitch was against (funnily enough) Palace, where the combination of a Spring Tide and antiquated drainage outside the stadium resulted in the system becoming overwhelmed by the volume of rain across the city. Bizarrely when the stadium was built one of the big claims was the pitch having a super dooper pumped drainage system that could handle a downpour of 8 inches of rain in an hour, but apparently it wasn't connected when they made the discovery that the drains outside had no spare capacity for such a system emptying into them!

Probably came for re assurance that things aren't quite so bad in his world.

Maybe the contracts Les and Ralf are on are rolling ones but like the managers (football always has been run in a weird way) and given the clap trap spouted by Ralf yesterday, which at times sounded like he was sticking his head right above the parapet. Sack me pay me (us) up for the remains of the contract as we aint likely to get as well paid a job as this in the future. None of this is fact just a random thought, slightly triggered by reading into the Ralf interview.

Given the way him and his posse have dicked us around for the past 6 months, if this is what happened, good that we have had the last laugh......... especially if money was the overiding factor in VVDs decision making and City slapped a few more quid per week on the table than liverpool.