John Boy Saint

I have photo of him and me taken after the 1st pre season friendly in Spain, my brother in law somehow got hold of it and made a fun front page newspaper with it in a frame for my 50th. Many of these things get tucked away after a couple of years but this sits proudly on the side in full view. Mrs JBS often comments what we would give to have him here now still playing in his pomp. Like many have said that England goal can't have left a dry eye in any Southampton fans house, when the corner was about to be taken you had a feeling if anyone could get on the end of it Rickie could, sure enough just as he had with us so many times he delivered. i read a comment after that goal from Pochettino who said that he leapt from his seat at home and cheered more than if Argentina had scored, and his family looked at him in shock at celebrating an England goal in such a way! A mention for Pardew too, Rickie said that until he came to Saints he never conditioned himself as perhaps he should, Alan Pardew had a word basically telling him to get himself sorted out and into a professional regime, and from that point never looked back. Top bloke, top player, thank you Rickie and happy retirement

No he isn't.

..............And remain there indefinitely like that Australian bloke holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy, resulting in a portacabin having to erected for away teams to change in.

Saturday afternoon second half it looked like both him and Tadic had been told at half time "I am going to make some substitutions second half and right now you 2 are top of the list". When Davis was subbed as they waited for board to show the numbers for an early sit down, the body language of Tadic was preparing to run off. First half both Redmond and Tadic were by and large passengers making us a 9 man team. In all honesty I don't think we will see much notable improvement in Redmond, given the match time he has had with us compared to his time with Norwich you would expect him to have developed his game immensely. But alas the bloke is predictable in his play week in week out, just reading through this alone backs that observation up. I would happily put money on the table to bet that if Boufal was given the same charmed life on the team sheet, we would be seeing a much more notable difference from him.

Not that good really, Micheldever Tyres would try their upmost to repair that rather than replace it and charge you £15-£20. Chain tyre monkeys will pull your pants down willy nilly!

Have to say it was funny watching clusters of Man U fans dancing to the music like they were at the Hacienda on the last bit of the pre match Saints goals video.

Celebrity Masterchef?

Start playing some sparkling football and you might find folks wake up rather than watching from behind the sofa, with West Ham style fumbles and Watford capitulations: the cheers that went up when half the stadium had gone home and Cedric had our first shot on target in the NINETY SECOND MINUTE!!! pretty much back this up. Did someone say they thought the Pompey games were too hostile?! That league cup game the year they were promoted to Prem the atmosphere was bloody fantastic, they hate us, we hate them, the perfect ingredient. We were sat in the Junior Saints corner which was peppered with Northam cup evictees, the noise before kick off was immense. My kids the eldest being nine at the time had a new song to sing with Nawty words, both of them girls came out of the ground at full time buzzing, saying they couldn't wait for the next game.

Really!!!???? You can have open heart surgery carried out on the pitch and the buggers still only play the default 4 minutes added time. 5 was a joke to start with no one had 'died' on the pitch at the point the board with 5 on went up with only 5 subs being made........ yes we mucked about running the clock down 2nd half but you very rarely see the ref actually apply the actually time spent buggering about. If he was going to be so pedantic, and based on a recent newspaper report, then he should have added 15 minutes to each half to make up for the time the ball was dead or out of play.

I would skip playing the Christmas twins (always giving the bloody ball away).

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.