John Boy Saint

Ooo that worked out nicely Cologne Monday, Gateshead Tuesday, Down the Saints Wednesday!!

Traffic into the city wasn't too clever last night M3 alone was backed up nearly to Winchester services and it ambled all the way to Southampton the guy at the place where we parked was getting ready to buzz off home at 7:25 as it was so quiet then said it just went mental with everyone suddenly turning up to park. Daughter used the facilities by the Store and said for us to go ahead, she text to say she was in the car park still queuing to get in the. Chapel when the game began, when she got in she said the Turnstiles had broken and they were letting them in the big exit doors.

I was amazed at how fast the first half whistled by despite its tedious nature and all the stop start that went on. Looking at the touch line and Ron, Erwin, Sammy getting fired up, I think the Koemans let Sammy slip his lead and use his favourite word beginning with F and ending with K possibly with ing added a few times, as we were much better, to be honest considering the amount of changes made to the team we weren't as poor as we could have been 1st half, we just lacked a bit of fire. Shame to see a player with blistering pace like Agbonglahor becoming like an old Cheetah, in his head you can see afterburners being lit but the fuel is lumpy and the burn time is shorter, that said Virgil covers the ground deceptively quickly when he gets into his stride. Second half was much better, very pleased for Maya to get his very well taken goal. And nice to see the Tadic Pelle partnership scoring another well made goal. But most importantly of all we are in the next round.

Having maligned him not so long ago in another thread on here, I have been impressed with him too. Against Newcastle whether he was far too excited or just totally naive to the PL or both to get a silly yellow and taken off at half-time you did think, oh dear! At MK Dons he looked a bit lightweight too, and doubted very much to see him start against Swansea, and said as much. But there he was in the starting line up, when Montero came on I thought this should be interesting as he is a slippery whatsit when on his game, but Cedric kept him under control. It seems to have clicked for him which obviously shows that once again the back room sourcing team have found another good player with the nous and desire to make it work for himself, and the team.

He has hit a funny age for a football player 30 and especially one who has played at the top of the game for 14 years, being expected to play at 100% every week, constantly under media pressure to perform and the expectation they heap on him. Most football fans with half a brain can see he has lost his edge, his mate Stevie G burned very brightly from an early age too but dimmed in full public view, the likes of Pirlo, Sheringham, Stanley Matthews are freaks of footballing nature playing well into their 30's even 40's. Most players can slide away quietly, unfortunately the likes of Rooney are in a goldfish bowl that is very hard to get out of.

Zzzzzzzzzzz ............... uh what was that ................. Did I miss anything?

If you dont mind a bit of a walk , might be worth looking at where we parked for Everton last season which was on the A580 just outside the Lifestyles Sports Centre on Walton Hall Park Road, loads of locals were parked there for the match, and ones we spoke to said in 12 years of parking there they had never had (or seen) any trouble, the nice thing was you walked past all the clogged up post match traffic then hopped in the car straight up the road to the M57 and away........ and it cost nowt. Have a look at Google maps to see where it is............. and decide if you want to walk past Anfield Cemetery in the dark!!!!

Without a doubt.......... Round the flower beds selling dummies to the apple trees in his back garden!

Oooo what joy we have Andre Marriner on the whistle, the one ref who has spectacularly proved that he actually needs to go to Specsavers. I noticed last weekend that we have the highest tally of yellow cards so far this season, which through my eyes is bizarre, so with Mr Perma Tan running round the pitch on Sunday don't be surprised if we remain top of that league.

I have had Black Cherries sat soaking in Brandy since August: Obscene on Ice Cream Need to go and get some Sloes this weekend and get them going. Anyone got an apple brew up their sleeve, that isn't Cider.

Funny that as we (still) didn't know what we were/are going to do in the end regarding an extension, didn't want to blow a massive heap on the kitchen and then bin it 5/6 years later. As nearly a year after moving in the kitchen looked like a tinkers den and it was making us tetchy (thank fully the house came with a walk in pantry) ended up going to Wickes bought one of their Take Away Kitchens. Like you added a nice worktop, built the units and put them up myself, the Wife insisted that we got the chap in who tiled the bathroom to put up metro tiles, folks who came round when it was done couldn't believe the transformation or price.

Few years ago when we moved house the kitchen was still c1953! So was obviously on the agenda. Having no idea I thought I would look at Mark Wilkinson Kitchens as I had seen some nice examples on my travels. Phoned up, asked for a brochure. Few days later a parcel is sat on the doorstep, open it up and what only could be described as a Coffee Table book was inside, very pretty, hardback and lots of pages and pretty pictures, reading the spine I instantly thought : this is this is going to dent the budget! The Wife whipped it off me and started ooo-ing and aaaa-ing through the pages as I was left with the covering letter, all very polite and nice, the Wife was already cooking baked beans on toast in half a dozen of them......... Then I came to the line in the letter to confirm my fears "......our Kitchen prices start at around £40,000!!...." I laughed and read the letter to the Wife got to that line and the book was instantly closed.

I think that is a coaching thing, FF many times last season staying close to his line just an intimidating massive unit between the sticks (when he did make a dash for it called it wrong) Stek this season seems wary of exiting the 6 yard box, Kelvin who also liked to steam off his line seemed caught betwixt and between on Saturday. When he did confusion reigned in our defence which is possibly why staying close to home is being coached. The one thing with Gazza over Kelvin is his distribution from his feet is superior, Kelvin has never been great at that which is probably why we went to playing out from the back more often than not, as we saw on Saturday most of our players were upfield positioned for the ball only to see the punt upfield take them out of the game as the ball landed 20-30 yards away from them.

Worth the bump for this alone

The officials were carp enough not to flag VVD so even if Maya had been standing in the other half they still wouldn't have flagged. Get off the Guys back, there were bellends behind me blaming Yoshida for the bizarre back pass from Manė which nearly gave Vardy another free hit if he hadn't been surprised himself.

Not long been home from school, phone rings, my mate Willy from round the corner: "you've just signed Kevin Keegan!!". i told him not to be so stupid he says "watch Newsround in a minute if you don't believe me". Certainly was a day when football had a double take in our direction. Lawrie Mac said that the following season after him signing Saints wacked up the ticket prices and no one flinched, opposing teams had their biggest gates against Saints that season just to see KK, I guess it would be comparable to Saints signing Lionel Messi today!!

Read it again David, we are in the 82nd minute, 1-0 up to win the title, all the 3 subs are used, goalie gets a severe smack in the chops and is stretchered off down the tunnel, we only have 10 outfield players to replace him............

At Saints he is a great player who plays in a team with an ethos of always trying to play it out from the back and being technically very capable with the ball at his feet has the ability to spot a pass and invariably make it, which makes him a midfield hub (this season he has been more combative too). I must admit that I haven't watched much England U21's, but when I have and JWP has been playing I have often wondered how he hasn't come off the field needing a neck brace from just watching the ball flying 30 feet above his head from the keeper up the field. In which case you don't need an able technical midfielder but a bloke like that Alli chap tall gangly fast who will chase a ball like dog after a ball thrown for it. The way the Senior team plays is similar Joe Hart.... Boom... Up the field more often than not, England Uraguay in the WC, after Hodgson had watched so much playing out from the back from his seat in the Itchen he played the first half like Wimbledon of old just Bang it up the front and run after it, not once was it played out from the front. It seems Southgate plays in a similar old fashion way where technically able midfielders aren't really needed just blokes who can run at defenders from a ball dropping out of the stratosphere. Until the time that mindset and style changes JWP will sadly be an in betweenie player for England: which is a travesty.

We went for my Wife's Birthday in November about 3 years ago, she had no idea where we were going until we got to check in. We struck gold with the weather as apparently it's normally a bit grey in November. And the hotel we stayed in also had Wellingtons for loan to guests should the tide come up over the paths. One thing that was accepted from the off was that it wasn't going to be cheap, but then neither is going to London for the day. I booked a shared max 8 people speed boat transfer from the airport through Venicelink which dropped us right by the hotel, and picked us up for our return is was something like €100 return, but there were cheaper options. We stayed in the Hotel Canal Grande, high up on TA, which was a small Boutique hotel near the bridge onto the island from the Train Station, it was in a nice Piazza overlooking the Grande Canal, again not cheap as we stayed Fri-Mon but it was very very nice. Our room was in the annex which made us look like a local when we came and went. Just round the corner was a very nice local Pizzeria called Antico Forno and it's still high up the Tripadvisor rankings, when you have been up since the crack of dawn flown in had a wander round and ready for a quiet evening it was just the spot. 8 sides of A4 choices of Pizza in the menu!!! Something we did do was buy a 24 hour Vaporetto ticket, which allowed you to hop on and off the water taxis at will, we bought it later in the afternoon which gave us plenty of time the next day to go to Murano and back with plenty of time to mooch around. A Gondola trip is pretty much a must do in Venice, the guys operating them are professionals and controlled by the local government, when we were there €80 for about 25-30mins was the norm, we struck lucky though when we returned from Murano and walked back over the bridge from the railway in one of the back water lanes there were a couple of Gondoliers touting for trade I asked the young lad how much he said €50 for about a trip of a kilometre, deal. And what a great trip we had he was just out of Gondolier School (bit like doing the knowledge) but learning languages the history of the city and "driving" the things. All the Gondolas are personally owned and cost back then just over €20,000. The fun bit was stopping to rest our feet and get a drink in Bacaro Jazz a great bar with a most interesting ceiling, watching live Premier League Footie getting slowly puddled on Bellini's which were on 2for1 (along with other drinks in on the deal) Enjoy

That old sports stars challenge thing featuring Matty was on the box tonight. The Daughter said he won a goal keeping challenge last week, which reminded me that there was something about him being pretty good in goal and that he was the emergency goalie if we had used all our subs and the Keeper got crocked. Most of us remember Dexter Blackstock between the sticks at St James Park. More recently I recall it being mentioned that Morgan was the emergency keeper should he be needed. I wonder who has that job in the team now he has gone?

Thing is Blind came into a bit of a pickle, I can't see them binning him off so quickly, bit like Woy after the Italian buzzed off.

Talking to Dutch Friends in the summer, one thing they said was Holland and the team was ready for Koeman. Koeman was ready for Holland but the KNVB had other ideas and went in a surprising direction. Koeman was pretty upset as good money was on him to get the job after the miracle of Feynoord. He made it known he was interested but they cast him aside, the Dutch are a bit stubborn in somethings and as much as he wants the job he will turn it down as they had their chance and why should he go and clean up their mess......... The fact that Danny Blind got the job also shows the stubbornness is working the other way "if we get Koeman in now we will look stupid". If what fellow countrymen said is true then I can live with that......... And get his contract extended pronto

Glenda did grate a bit, he said something all positive sounding surrounding prep for his WC in management which left you thinking as a Saints fan "yes but the most feared midfielder in the land spanked in a hat trick in such a weighing up your options game and you left him out in the cold".

I think you enjoyed writing that........ As always the best Saints match reports on the planet.

Thought Steklenburg dealt with the situation very well, as soon as he realised that Falcao was going quicker than he thought and then had pushed the ball wide, while still sliding on his side he knew the tart was going to drag a leg and hit the deck so he pulled everything he could that might make contact out of the way.............. Cheat exposed.