John Boy Saint

Always good when it's hard to pick a MOTM, this was one of those games where you walked through the turnstiles in a strange frame of mind not knowing what we were going see, especially against Watford who have been a funny team for us down through the years, and with them being a team that has its tail up at the moment. As it turned out like against Arsenal we just shut Watford down from whistle to whistle, you just wonder where these performances disappear to. Thought Romeu and Clasie looked very solid in midfield they both have good vision and both can deliver perfectly weighted Hollywood balls cross field, The switch around in defence looked strange but seemed to work, Nice to see Fraser between the sticks. The 2 lads from the Emerald Isle, North and South, just seemed to relish playing in the rain almost like it energised them, Davis and Long just did not stop moving and being a pain in the backside, when you see the whole ground stand to applaud Davis off the pitch, including even the most miserable moaners you know Steven had put in a bloody good shift. And when Shane Long got his legs in a pickle down in the Chapel Kingsland corner the reaction from us fans was not moaning it was laughing at his kerfuffle as we all knew he had run his legs off for the cause. And those moaners at the £12m price tag just watch that first goal, Matty Targett isn't even looking at the balls final destination he just knows to fire in a blistering ball into the penalty box Long knew where it was going and was on the move knowing exactly where he needed to be and when, there are not that many players with that pace to then hit the ball while at pace. Like others have said leave Victor on the sidelines and let Clasie and Romeu develop into the next Midfield brick wall.

Taking my mind off the effect on us, listened to the Utd v Utd game on the radio whilst driving home from Scotland, as a outsider its sounded a cracking game...... Made me think of that fantastic 2-2 game at SMS v Newcastle when Blaney made that stunning double point blank save to deny Shearer.

Nope - the money we pay into the club is incidental in the grand scheme of things. The only bonus, if it were to happen, would be being to slag off the player (s) my/our extra money at the gate bought......... Of course I would like the right to a return on my additional outlay should sad player hop it for twice as much as I/we bought them for.

We'll be in Europe next season........................ If there's a war!!

Maybe if Pelle is back we might get a game out of him, as he is a first pick right now for Italy and at his ripe old age (in Footballing terms) on the verge of going to a International tournament, and I am pretty sure that the Italian manager picks his team based on playing well for your domestic team rather than the name on the back of the shirt and the club you play for, like the dopey Old Goat managing Ingerland.

Pellegrini will be on the market soon if rumour about Guardiola going to Citeh are true.

"The longest 7 minutes of my life" I was only 11 at the time and it is still mine too!

The Family tree on my Grandmothers side (Father) dates back to Fife in 1140 but named folks start in 1348 again in Scotland and meanders along to include a few landed Scallywags who were fined substantial amounts of Scottish Marks for naughtiness. There are branches that just run dry which coincide with the land rights and large scale emigration to the New World. My Dad picked up a trail recently which led him into the New Forest and a long established link there, being born under the British Raj in India living from the age of nine in Lancashire then work bringing him to Southampton where he met my Mum, he thought that was amazing that there was "family" not that far away. My Mum's side would be interesting to explore as my Great Grandfather sailed regularity out of Southampton to Cape Town, where he met a South African lady of German descent who he married and brought back to Southampton. Both World wars were interesting for my Great Grandmother living down in Freemantle as she had a German accent. All interesting stuff, it would be nice to have the time to poke about properly.

Stats like that always make me think of the Lee Evans skit where he talks about the money players are on:

I wonder how different things would have been if he had slotted that chance home against Arsenal that night. As for the growth spurt stuff, I seem to recall Steven Gerrard had a similar issue at a similar age, and possibly Gareth Bale slightly younger, but both when they were young first team players and it resulted in a very disjointed season for them as the growth spurt however small makes the internal gyroscope go a bit wobbly and eye-boot co-ordination with it.

Thanks Billy/Glen as always spot on, Happy New Year to you Sir.

Lee Clark was on Soccer AM yesterday morning, he said that Pavel had his heart failure while out running but was not found for a while. So sadly the Golden Hour had elapsed. Very sad as 47 is no age these days.

Last one of them worked a treat after they got Luggy out the door, then got man with hands in pockets, followed by twitchy.

I liked the story linked at the bottom about the bloke who put on a £1 for Cucu to score first and Saints to win 4-0, smashing Boxing Day for him.

Peter Reid when he had his brief spell with us in the twilight of his career knew his mobility and pace was also in its twilight, made no secret of the fact that he used Neil Maddison as his legs by passing the ball to Neil moving into position via the shortest route to receive the ball back for him then to repeat the process.

Think we need to cut him a little bit of slack, like all the players he put a shift in on Saturday, scored an absolute belter of a goal resulting in every man jack wanting a piece of him. So you have a lad who comes from a small island has been sitting on the bench or waiting his turn in the side, suddenly he is propelled as fast as the ball hit the back of the net into the limelight, as well as the physicality of Saturday's game that attention has to have taken an emotional toll too. You could see he knew he had played duff balls when he did yesterday, but there is no point beating the bloke up over it..... Give him a chance. The way our right backs get slated on here we may as well play with a back 3 ........... Cos that really works a treat. (45 hours might have been nothing to the old players saying get on with it but Premier league football is much more demanding today than it was 5 years ago)

They installed them for TV as if I remember correctly give off a better colour for HD and 4K and are the new standard requirement. Trouble is they don't flood as well as Halides or Halogen hence there being so many additional banks of them, the electric bill probably went down too.

Well what a smashing surprise Christmas present that was from the lads. That was a bit like last season pre Christmas replace Sheffield Utd with Spurs and us looking poor then replace Everton who most folks thought would batter us with Arsenal. Absolute cracker of a goal to settle us down and another poor performance from the ref in the first half to really get our dander up and away we went. I spent most of Boxing Day pretty hacked off at the kick off time buggering up the day a bit, but got home a very happy Saturday Saints fan. if you have BT sport the game gets a re run at 11am this morning

I'm having a rather fine Cornish Pasty actually:D Merry Christmas Turkish........ Good to see you still have it!

Feliz Navidad from Old Basing. Enjoy national Sprouts day one and all.

Mrs JBS grabbed a couple of packets of those to use at home (oi less of that smut) to get our lazy 20 something daughters out of bed after being told for the umpteenth time to GET UP!!!

He actually did his Jimmy Hill 'eulogy' on the BBC news, from the TV commentary position at the back of the Kingsland.

Midfield has the consistency of Candy Floss, that's what needs to change. and as RK has said we are too nice we just accept the refs decisions instead of getting in his ear like most other teams, yesterday Dembele, I think was constantly chirping at Friend. (Tadic waving the invisible card around is too far the other way though). ............ Or is our current demise a plan to get us to spent some proper money in January.

I hope not. He ain't that great.

It's nothing new, Lawrie McMenemy said "Hampshire folk are gentile folk, the team need to get them going, once they do they are as passionate and raucous as any fans in the land".