John Boy Saint

But the majority of those passes are short little interplays with Bertrand where he is faced with a nasty bigger boy and he doesn't fancy it and he off loads the ball back to Betrand. During the first half the camera cut to Ryan after just such a moment and in amongst his standard facial expression of a bulldog chewing a wasp, there was also a look of I ain't passing the ball to you 'cos it's probably coming back at me with the wrong coloured shirt controlling it. 2nd half you hardly heard Redmonds name and the bulk of our attacking play was coming down our right.

Lemina certainly makes a big difference, takes the pressure off Romeu, think the longer those two play together the better they will become as a partnership: always said that you can see Romeus education in football, but seems to have been playing right on the edge recently due to the way we're set up and the personnel on the pitch. Todays game highlighted the wastefulness in ball retention of both Tadic (yes he actually had a shot that Davis benefitted from the keeper parry) and in particular Redmond!!! Yes Redmond fizzed in a couple of shots, but the dithering needless second touch on two occasions one to make Long offside when one touch would have seen Long with just the keeper to beat, the other when Lemina pinged one over to him dithered in the box and was closed down. But both of them guilty of woeful ball retention, it's like playing with 9 men at times they concede the ball so cheaply. Said before that Redmond has no anticipation just reaction 10 yards away from he should be reacting, Tadic for all his look at me greatness, also lacks anticipation the amount of times he easily beaten to winning the ball is pretty poor, he is another one with reaction rather than anticipation, only he is reacting 5 yards away from where he should be, by comparison to Redmond. Once again Mr Reliable Steven Davis was a busy Bee all over the pitch, the complete opposite to the Redmond and Tadic show, just reading the game breaking stuff up even when he was beaten. Read on the BBC that he ran further than anyone else on the pitch at 12 kilometres. Great to celebrate his 200th appearance with what turned out to be the winning goal, especially against Hodgson, who cast Steven out at Fulham as surplus to requirements. He has to be the best £750,000 Saints have ever spent. Finally what have Saints and Shane Long done to upset referee Bobby Madley? Chelsea season before last books Mane for simulation when he was fouled, Last season at Arsenal ignores that Shane Long is fouled by the corner flag at the Arsenal end, ignores Kolchelny (?) is offside interfering with play in the 6 yard box laying injured and gives a penalty that has Giroud turning round to Fonte asking "who gave that away?". Then today books Long for him asking about the umpteenth foul committed against him not given......... then adds 5 minutes of injury time and plays 6. We must have submitted a $hïtTŷ report on him once.

Would that leave enough room for a Hovercraft, Spitfire, and Seaplane? It has to be scratch and sniff too, so you can get that unmistakeable coal tar aroma of Fawley.

............. not quite hes need to get with these modern times and add something about those clappers being shoved up a certain orifice if he hears another one anywhere near him.

They actually look like something the half and half scarf sellers would have "round the back Sir" for the more discerning customer. Just looks badly coloured in using a felt pen where the nip has gone all bushy. Glad it wasn't just me who looked at them without even a nano seconds thought to buying one................................ I guess they need something to put in the Sale!

It ain't broke, instantly recognisable by non Saints fans, have Coca Cola changed their branding, err nope, so why change ours. Its been our badge for over 40 years, the fact that it doesnt look dated for something out of the 70's is pretty impressive, the biggest change its seen, apart from the ball, has been the replacing the ball for the 125th Anniversary season, if it was ever under threat of being changed it would have happened under Lowe or Cortese, but even they know its a dangerous path to take where established brand recognition is concerned.......... Actually Lowe might have been around when we had that attempt at making the Saints badge a haloed stick man and the words The Saints. Think that nearly had everyone matching on the Dell with lit flaming torches and pitchforks. Anyone getting emotional and thinking its old fashioned and naff etc go and support another team please.

Just about every defender who he comes up against (or has)says he is horrible to play against

Oldknow was known around St Marys as Oh-know his way was the only way.......... which is probably why Nik-Nak saw him off: 2 Ko You also wonder if Cortese's presence around the club was too much of a reminder of her father. Also Cortese was also a senior director of Mali - Markus's source of wealth, pretty certain that he had an even bigger hand in stuff there when Markus was gone. I swear I read something somewhere that the atmosphere in Mali wasn't too pleasant when he was strutting about (bit like stories that seeped out of SMS). Maybe he also started getting too big for his Cuban Heels where Ms Liebherr was concerned.

The way we stumbled around on Saturday that thought cantered through my mind.

A factor in that could be Dave Watson once saying that he would stay as long as Fraser was still with us............ very cosy comfy slippers!

He did make me and my mate smile at half time when he was warming up got the ball just outside the centre circle and ran at goal jinking, weaving, stepping over, dribbling past mesmerised worms in the St Mary's pitch, who offered no challenge, to tap home!! On the flip side he lashed one into the Chapel stand without even holding his hand up in apology, folks he aimed at obviously weren't paying enough attention to his warm up!!

I will add to that the observation made in the Huddersfield game, Davis has anticipation, a moment in the game Saturday he snuffed out a potentially dangerous forward Watford pass, a voice behind behind me said "great anticipation" and those in the crowd who saw it too gave a smattering of applause. Back at the Huddersfield game; by comparison Redmond has reaction the only trouble is his reaction is made 10yrds away from where it should be! Something again that stood out from Saturday as a team we have fallen into a nasty habit of waiting for the ball to come to us, instead of going to meet the ball, resulting in the oppo player tossing a coin and going after the ball and invariably them getting Heads yet again........ Saints player is then only seeing their tails.

Not calling for his head, but slightly concerned that the summer was just a prolonged mid season break as aside from the Wolves experiment, we seem to be managed by a goldfish, 4-2-3-1, this Saturday we are going to play 4-2-3-1, this Saturday for a change we are going to play 4-2-3-1. Listening to the post match interview on Solent, was a tad concerning: it was like a weak swimmer had been thrown in the deep end of a very big swimming pool and then the lights had been turned out over an hour ago!!! As has been said already it's only 4 games......... But no goals from 8 of the last 9 home games!?!! Seems like we are sat in an M C Escher optical illusion painting!

First goal he was definitely napping, slightly in his defence it was curling away from him, that said when matey kicked it I thought that's going in!

I did actually think about firing up my cobweb covered Twitter account to send a message of instruction out to the team on the pitch........... thought it would be amusing if it got up on the screen.

Whats with the dicking about with the defence in reality thats not the problem, bizarrely our biggest attacking threat has come from defence in recent games!!! The bloody Benny Hill show in front of them is what needs sorting out.

Nope no deflection, I was right in line of sight of it. Forster was snoozing defence was clustered in a lump, matey took a swing at the ball at what was pretty much half an open goal. Quite honestly if you could apply a soundtrack to today's game, Saints played with Acker Bilk Stranger on the Shore as their backing track all game, Watfords soundtrack was pure Ron Godwin, first half 633 Squadron, second half Battle of Britain theme!! (Spotify it kids) Someone needs to break Tadic in training so that Pellegino has absolutely zero chance if using him as an option, him falling over in the box holding his knee was fûçkîñg pathetic. Redmond needs to be given similar treatment, he takes no fecker on, bottles it and passes backwards then moans at everyone on the pitch, second half plenty of options in the box and the fool just stops. The only players who seeming put in a shift were Stephens, Wesley, Cedric, Bertrand, and Davis who put in a mega shift in the internationals over the past week yet still plays a full 90 mins armed with his broom and fire extinguisher. Today's game was crying out for Lemina who was pulled off on 60 mins (?) midweek to replace JWP (who as much as I like him was a fish up a tree today) slide Davo further up towards the front. Listening to Solent and the Pellegrino interview, last year the "interesting possibilities" drove you up the wall, but he held his hand up to the deficiencies and failings, Pellegrino just made you think......... What??????!!!!!!!!!!!! The day was summed up nicely by Mrs JBS when we got home and she asked for a G&T without the usual instruction for me not to use too much gin.

Only after her wily old agent Liz Windsor has advised her to go on strike, after being found out for being tapped up in the Savoy Grill!!

Don't worry you'll be feeling right as rain from about 3pm on Saturday afternoon!!

Shocker of the night has to be France being held by little Luxembourg!! :eek:

Tale I heard from a "Little Mouse with clogs on in Old Amsterdam" When van Gaal said he was stepping down from the national team after the 2014 World Cup. Koeman had apparently positioned himself with the ending of his Feynoord contract to step into the role as on paper he was the "next man up". Allegedly the KNVB pretty much snubbed him having already sounded out a repeat of Guus Hiddink. Talking to Dutch friends they reckon Koeman would only be slightly tempted if the KNVB crawled over broken glass and begged him. but while he is earning a good living from club management no matter how crap the national side are doing he is happy to see them scraping the barrel.

West Ham have turned out the lights at the training ground,............. or the boys batteries have run out!

Did Barkley have a quick peek on Cobham Zoopla while having his medical and think "flipping heck you can buy a postcode round where I come from for that money!!". Ronald won't be happy!!

Thought the same, even more so after watching the Koeman Feynoord departure video when he came to us and a very tearful Clasie on the pitch. As it says on the tin # We March On.

Just to stir the muddy puddle some more, I don't think the 3 at the back v Wolves was an experiment, we are going to go all Chelsea with Jack, Wesley, Maya at the back. giving Bertrand and Cedric more licence up the wings.