John Boy Saint

Leaving Redmond on and taking off PEH certainly achieved that! Its hard to get enthused, such a continuation of the latter part of last season, you see a little spark but it just fades so many times, you just want to see something else being tried. I know you can't go gung-ho all the time there is just never any snappy play when the opportunity presents itself. We missed a big chance not getting a Gary Rowatt in the summer, he was as big a risk as taking MP in reality.

Bought a programme yesterday, looked at the back cover and quipped "wow we have millions of players compared to Chelsea", the noticeable disappointment is how many numbered players are in our squad from the academy who don't look likely of getting a game unless a case of galloping gut rot runs riot through The team.

Pretty much sums it up. We have the players with the ability, they just don't seem to create many sparks almost like they are shackled, when Boufal and Austin entered the game it was almost like the pair of them just went I am going to do what I am supposed to do as a footballer. Anyone holding a candle for Nathan Redmond really needs to take a long hard look at themselves, yes he can be quick yes he can run with the ball but quite frankly that's it. So many times in the second half we had chances to open up Chelsea the ball came to Redmond and it all just stopped, yes he has created some assists but in reality he delivers so much less than he delivers, how the chuff the Black Box spat his name out, goodness only knows. Just about every Norwich fan I know had a rye smile when we bought him, they all said their is no doubt he can run with the ball, but as soon as he has to do 2 things it all goes to pieces because "quite frankly he is thick". There were moments today where if he wasn't thinking about what he was having for tea, or that nice pass 5 minutes ago, and switched on to the game he could have won the ball easily. Very frustrating especially when a player like Boufal comes on and runs at people, he may lose the ball now and again but instantly he is looking to win it back or force the player who robbed it off him to pass it back to us: by contrast Redmond wanders along feeling sorry for himself. Big comcern today was Lemina, ok he came off the bench early on, but what the hell has happened to him? He was a bright spark, today he was all fingers and thumbs. I spotted a few weeks back he was getting the ar$e at the lack of pace and movement in front of him. It's like he's just gone "why should I bother" which has seemingly dulled his edge.

Even the dubious world of Wiki ain't got that.............. there might have been some premature excitement/assumption as he made a guest appearance as Scotland assistant coach to Malky Mackay for the game against Holland in the last international break.

Don't be silly its nearly Christmas and we is all going up to that there London, then at about 2:30pm full of festive cheer, pour ourselves through the turnstiles en masse.

Fits in very nicely with his ultimate plans if we were, God forbid, to drop through the trap door. Just a little dark thought......... cheap out of character penalty given away at Stoke, a bit too blatant - steady on. Getting beaten in the air by Giroud a bit more subtle. An observation from that game in Prague just tickles the cynic in me.

After sitting through that dirge last night, I am going to skip the Beer course pre match and go straight into the top shelf liquid refreshments (just like the team seemed to have done yesterday afternoon) just to numb the senses a little........................ do you think they will let me take a sofa into the ground for me to hide behind. Still its a shop window game, Chelsea can get the wobbles, who knows what we will be dished up by the Mighty Saints. Team will be tinkered with again no doubt. I live in hope.

A tad harsh, probably looked like that to you sat on your backside at home, but honestly he had no options that's why he went back and forth waiting for one of his fellow players to give him an option as they all just stood there like lemons with a Leicester player stuck to them like a Remora fish, having a lame shot was pretty much the best option. I can't believe how we looked a bunch of strangers out there. It was as if Wesleys Gran had sent him over a bottle of Advocaat for Christmas and the lads decided to open it this afternoon someone else had googled how to make a Dirty Snowball and they all had a most delightful afternoon.

or If he shot from just outside the centre circle, the balls upwards trajectory would have succumbed to gravity which might catch out the oppos keeper and sneak under the bar!

You use to be able to get it in Basingstoke on a Saturday Evening, the chap who ran the Off Licence just down the road lived near the one of a mere handful of outlets who took in 10 or so, when he finished with it he always handed it over to me. Obviously sending a van or even putting them on the train up became un-viable and the furthest north from the City you could get one was Tesco Petrol Station at Winnall Winchester. Another part of History killed off by the digital age. Just as an aside, as I have mentioned before many years ago I use to work for the Reading Evening Post in the circulation department, we all had a rota to work on a Saturday not that in my time the Saturday edition was live unless something huge broke in the news then it was all hands to the pumps. But on the back page a space was left at the bottom of the page for the 'Late Edition' which had the Footie results. Those of you of a certain age will remember the Gestetner machine at school, this was before the photocopier, and it would run off multiple copies of work sheets or letters to take home (fresh ones out of the machine always had a glorious smell - no doubt dangerous smell too) they had a similar machine to apply the Football results to already produced copies of the paper. Desktop computers were limited and all the information wizardry we have today didn't exist so to see how the Saints had done I would go down to the newsroom to see the full time results coming through, someone would take the covers off this funny looking typewriter and produce this funny little strip of plastic to stick in the printer. One of the chaps responsible for typing the results had a cunning plan (that worked) to get out of working for half an hour every other Saturday afternoon. Where Southampton was a bit long to fit the abbreviation to Soton we all know was applied, this chap applied the abbreviation to every team he could with his own twist. One afternoon, after the odd ones had failed to work, he threw in the lot Arsenal was the obvious one to lose the nal off, the one that got him though was Partick Thistle where the Thistle was binned and the A and T from PaRtICK. The letters we got!! Apologies for the digression.

Michelle Owen......................... but for goodness sake don't tell Mrs JBS!!

Just saw that - despite his troubles he did pretty well for himself.

Truth of the matter is the exact same challenge was made on VVD a few minutes before and it went out for a corner to Arsenal, but nothing was said by the ref to that. When Maya made the challenge he did, the fact that Arsenal have so many players who will squeal for any decision the fact that there was no reaction from the Arsenal players just them walking out of the box to receive the goal kick shows that neither players or officials felt there was anything in it........ That said you could hear a distinct tightening of sphincters in block 18 & 19 of the Chapel as Mr Madleys signal for a goal kick looked distinctly like a point to the spot!!! with regard to the officials it was noticeable when we had taken back possession with a solid challenge the amount of times we just stopped waiting for the ref to whistle for a foul, fortunately because we stopped Arsenal stopped too quite surreal.

Anyone feeling inclined to slag off Adkins in his time with us really should be spending their Saturday afternoons down Nottarf Krap! The League One and Championship seasons with him at the helm were without a doubt a right wheeze. So he might have had an embarrassment of riches, but you still have to make the components at your disposal work. As a comparison Koeman piddled oodles of money up the wall this past summer on players, yet whilst they looked good on paper they proved to be about as useful as a one legged man in a @R$e kicking contest in his hands.

Absolutely Tropical for our captain given where he hails from!!! Oh oh dear just seen we have Bobby f'ing Madley on the whistle tomorrow, that's going to be like playing up hill into the wind based on our games he's previously officiated in against the big boys............ Emirates in the league last season being a notable stinker from him!

Cheers for that Nordic

Ampshoire right in the mix on that one with 29 in 13th place. I wonder who those players were/are? See a bit of London media bias has crept into that league table, I would imagine that most Lancastrians would be put out not to be top of the list, because if you wanted to be pedantic and drill down into the figures how many of the Greater Manchester and Merseyside players pulled on an England shirt before both of those Metropolitan "counties" were created and split out of Lancashire.

I don't think it was a case of "in the end we went for number 11" I believe that number 11 was the only vague option left on the table after Lowe had joined the party buggered up Stoneham. which would have been perfect for transport, by adding the, on paper, sensible idea of a retail park to the development. This was manna from heaven for the Lib Dem bloke, who was vehemently opposed to the Stoneham option all along, and had been voted back into power for Eastleigh as Stoneham was entering the final straight, I think it had been rubber stamped by Ken Clarke but having lost the General Election to Labour, simplistically put, stuff like Stoneham could easily be put through the shredder. All this left Saints with no options left, until the City Council pretty much gave Saints the old gasworks site where St Mary's now stands, I think the site was becoming a headache for them.

Not forgetting the fact that whilst "dead" in the 6 yard box the Arsenal player was both offside and interfering with play, then Giroud is alledged to have said to Fonte "oh who gave that away" but none of that would have happened if the Referees and linos hadn't decided amongst themselves previously that Shane Long is a cheating diving little git, Monreal actually fouls him but "oh it's only Shane Long he's feining that" despite being right in front of the linesman,

Should not be a surprise reading that from him, as when he was officiating here he admitted that if one set of fans were giving him grief from the stands, it sometimes influenced his decisions in favour of the opposition. Just shows how much of a law unto themselves refs are, that having made that statement, or words to the effect that no one came down on him like a ton of bricks. Glad he has left these shores as i saw the most bizarre big team decision probably ever from him last season at SMS v Liverpool. Liverpool had defended a corner and were breaking out one of our players clipped the one of theirs with the ball just outside their box, the ball went to another Liverpool player who launched the ball downfield towards Mane, this is while Clattenburg was signalling for an advantage being played, Mane gets the ball closes in on goal, inside our 6 yard box VVD sprints in robs the ball off Mane and Clattenburg blows his whistle and gives Liverpool a free go at building an attack from where he played the advantage from........................hang on thats gone from the fouled player to another player then punted down field to another player who has had a chance to score from inches but failed advantage over surely. Decisions like that and the bloke probably wondered why fans were calling him names associated with what he might be up to under his duvet with a torch and a well thumbed copy of Playboy!!

Neville did blather on a bit, being frustrated by his inconsistency losing the ball, but 8/9 times out of 10 (and conveniently edited out to emphasise Nevilles worldly knowledge) Boufal invariably goes and gets the ball back or pressures the player who took advantage to give the ball back to us. Given how long Pied has been out, once he knocked the rust off his boots with a couple of dodgy touches early on I thought he looked ok, again Neville criticised his positioning for the Bournemouth goal when in reality he was in the position to receive the ball from VVD if Wesley hadn't got his feet in a kerfuffle and passed the ball to Virgil quicker. Someone above likened him to Martina: that is well wide of the mark. When Davis was subbed I wondered where the armband would go, it was good to spot it on Bertrands arm moments later.

Bah-humbug bloomin nit picker!

Last year I replaced all the windows in my house with those expensive, triple-pane, energy-efficient kind. Today, I got a call from Home Depot who installed them. The caller complained that the work had been completed a year ago and I still hadn't paid for them. Helloooo,............ just because I'm a Senior Citizen doesn't mean that I am automatically mentally challenged. So, I told him just what his fast-talking sales guy told me last year --that these windows would pay for themselves in a year — Hellooooo? It's been a year, so they're paid for, I told him. There was only silence at the other end of the line, so I hung up. He never called back. I bet he felt like an idiot.

if you read the link he resigned as soon as he had his collar felt!

Surprised the incitement to murder our friends down the eastern end of M27 with a borrowed firearm hasn't been acted upon yet.