John Boy Saint

Their toast has to land butter side down sooner or later!!

Spot on, a celestial alignment occurred, the approach, the angle, the contact foot to ball everything was perfect in that very split second moment. Rejoice at that one moment of magic in football that makes you go WOW!!!!!!!!!!!! Not mither on like a sad sod because it's not cool to enjoy a stunning strike from an ordinary Joe, simply because a few of the other sheep in the field reckon he is a joke footballer.............. Ali Dia was a joke footballer: end of!!! Captain of Curacao and scorer of one of the most stunning strikes seen for years by a player wearing a Saints shirt. Good luck Cucu and thank you for a wonderful memory.

Very true One of the biggest cable TV companies in the country sticking us front and centre of their campaign, only those wanting a soft face get as much prime time advertising.

Hasn't Tuchel said he wants a break away from football, just because he hasn't 5 minutes later instantly donned his speedos and goggles and dived in when (if) uncle Leslie came knocking with a golden chance to get into the mad mad world of the Premier league with the leagues bestest stepping stone club doesn't mean nowt.. We have who we have, he's been touched by the Mercurial Bielsa, let's just see where this chapter takes us, instead of getting into what ifs and why nots of all the other "interesting possibilities" on the table.

Blimey looks like Klippety has trouble in the camp, all of them except Henderson seem to have their heads elsewhere!! ;-)

McDonald's? Just had a weird moment, my Dutch neighbour here on holiday, just walked over the road and said that he just read in the Dutch press that VVD has put in a transfer request!?! Not sure which paper he was reading might have been a Mickey mouse one, his English is limited by confidence so I couldn't press him for detail I would have thought word would have gotten out on here if true??

Well the interesting possibilities were nowhere to be seen in the post match snippet from the boss, he seemed a bit cheesed off at the quality of the pitch, seemed to see it as it was, a bit of a run out. Be interesting hear him after next weekends game, as the Bees will no doubt be stiffer opposition.

Why have we not scored yet????!!!!!! - Pelligrino out!! ;-) ��

Ah the Terry Paine - Lawrie McMenemy syndrome strikes! You could say the same about Mourinho bit of a playing career in Portuguese lower divisions then not much else till he turns up as Bobby Robsons interpreter at Sporting........... and the rest is history. I always thought of him as a dour miserable unispiring bloke, but seeing as overall the club aren't a bunch of numpties and they have worked with him for the past year, then I will happily trust their judgement on this.

I think Hojbjerg is one of those players who improves with use, last season he seemed to start brightly then went missing, in and out of the side. Then when he got his chance again probably due to him trying far too hard to put in a performance to get a regular run, he was making some simple basic mistakes, the crowd groaned and he visibly got annoyed at his silly mistake. Hopefully with a new manager the slate is clean and he can get a run alongside Romeu, providing a bigger screen for the defence. We need that Hitman and Surgeon combination that we had with Vic and Morgan in the centre of Midfield. Romeu obviously has the Hitman part in his game plus he can also ping a ball over 10yrds. Of course We aren't going to know anything about the managers thinking until we start playing the warm up games.

You are the nominated Saints Web match reporter then :-)

Has to be in the mix, first touch "head in hands - oh dear" second touch - back of the net! Third touch - back of the net!! Shame a few more subs for Saints didn't follow his sparkling example :-)

Still Spurs have easiest travel agenda of the lot, at final whistle nowt is more than an hour away, all of those balls must have been in the oven for at least an hour too! Chelsea nippers have a bit of a hike - Yeovil - Exeter - Plymouth. Leicesters are a bit of a pig too - Morecambe - Fleetwood - Carlisle.

Blimey Spurs got a plumb easy draw with hardly a late night getting home to be seen, will their oppos be getting a night out at Wembley too (can't remember how this new format works)

True. Especially when you consider our lowest benchmark of player being Ali Dia, given the amount of match time he had Cucu had, 2 separate managers obviously thought something of his abilities, certainly launched a few tasty troublesome balls into the box from the wings under Koeman. Defensively certainly wasn't the worst we have had either, I remember VVD going for a sortie up field the attack broke down and the oppos were off down our left Cucu departed the right wing ran diagonally across the pitch smashed the ball into the Itchen and cleanly wiped out the attacker too. As he trotted back over to the right Bertie, Virgil, and Jose all gave him a hearty well done pat on the back. Knew his place and his abilities, never kicked up a fuss, scored a brilliant goal, and considering he cost us bobbins gave decent value for it.

Really a bloke who always looks like he was press ganged outside a pompey pub and instead of waking up to find himself bobbing about far out to sea with the King's shilling in his pocket, Smalling finds himself in the penalty box wearing a Manchester United shirt with a look of "someone is going to spot that I am not actually a real footballer in a minute!!!"! Most Man U fans I know think that is a pretty good analogy of the bloke. Also as soon as he is out playing elsewhere, he will no longer have the Man U shirt invisibility cloak on and will be giving penalties away willy nilly. With the amount of blatant shirt pulling he gets away with.

The programme Obviously found that the interesting possibilities had been all used up when trying to interface with the seats available!

What's Boufal going to do now his Saints bestest mate has buzzed off?

What sad news, his smile whenever you saw him was a ray of sunshine despite the discomfort he must have been in. That "penalty" he scored against Chelsea, when you see someone like Diego Costa (who many would consider a nasty whatsit) encouraging young Bradley to take it was a nice moment. Even as a parent you cannot begin to think what his parents have been through, aside from there but for the grace of God I have not had to experience what they have. and in these cynical times where footballers seem out of touch with reality, hats off to Jermaine Dafoe who was not only Bradley's hero but became his best mate, that photo of him asleep on Jermaine in hospital must have touched even the hardest of souls. RIP Bradley

And he still dines out on that moment

I can think of the 3-1 surprise drubbing of Citeh early in the MoPo days. Pochettino wound him up flicked the switch and sent him out into the fray, he was all over Aguero like a rash, to the point where after being chased like a Jack Russell would chase the postman, Agueros body language was will someone get this fecker off me please! Against Sunderland (admittedly no great shakes) in the EFL cup this past season he was playing in the Romeu role, up against 2 lumpy lads resembling a wardrobe and a skyscraper in comparison to him, he was a bit like the shark in one of those recent animated films "eat my bubbles". If he gets similar game time to Young Sam at Blackburn last season, he could live up to Les Reeds billing of him in the future, I would say Davo is blocking his path.

Phil Boyer - and very kindly he marked my first trip to the Dell with a brace. Best of all he knocked my gobby mate off the wall at the Milton Road end during the tapping about just before kick off, my mate was in a heap on the floor, our little posse of nippers were on the verge of wetting ourselves with laughter, I swear Phil had a grin on his face probably having just won a fiver off Channon for knocking the nipper off the wall first time!!

Mrs JBS is very happy, said it umpteen times - when it comes to football she knows her onions. She will call it right on a player pretty much every time. Very rarely has to eat her hat. When she has seen Sam playing, she has come away from the game saying "I hope we don't let him slip through our fingers". i have Ice cream, custard, and squirty cream on standby, no doubt once again it won't be going anywhere a hat.

Add it that Ibrahimovic thought he could wind him up in the EFL cup final, Jacks body language was almost "you want to play: let's play". Ibrahimovic's reaction was "oh ok - I am not getting any change out of this one". Good news on his signing.

And they weren't propagated in their own greenhouse.