John Boy Saint

After 45 years of going down the Saints - I have no emotion anymore and I will not be renewing.

Pretty sure whilst he isn't pleased he is not playing - at 30 aside from his time in the Chinese Super League when the wages for overseas players were nuts AND tax free, he is probably quite happy feathering his nest a bit more for doing nothing. How many players have we had from little clubs who have been "backed up" by a YouTube show reel from CL league games against bigger fish, and turned out to be a bit Meh! - Poor old Mislav here shredding Spurs, and everyone's favourite Moi giving Citeh a torrid time - who upon his first contract uttered "my signing here has set me up for life". You just get the impression that behind closed doors at SMS in positions of influence the pencils aren't very sharp!

Weird isn't it - we have the match thread from last night evolving into how crap and fickle we home fans are. Then we have this thread about a player who might be lacking in finesse and should, in some folks minds, be locked away on a matchday for all our sakes. Yet the one thing that can't be denied is when Lyanco hits the pitch his sheer enthusiasm and passion causes a buzz in the crowd. In the cold light of day, maybe too many people are playing FIFA whatever on a gaming platform, where there is no programming for the players to have a personality, and random variables -Characters - like Lyanco don't exist in the "meta verse", for want of a better term. You could say looking across our team for the season the whole team is like a computer graphic devoid of characters - but then Lyanco hits the pitch an its like a film where someone from the real world is plunged into the PlayStation box and the world gets scary. I like him - maybe that because I grew up watching characters out on the pitch, there is an air of danger about him, but that is only because he sticks out from 10 (or 21) other increasingly anodyne players. Putting my head in the Lions mouth - he has got better as a player from when he first started playing for us.

Whiney Smudger on Sky agrees

For fucks sake you fucking Donkey!

Hmmmmm - here comes the nutter

Right on cue!

Diabolical

Arse

Nope he is probably right - they would have missed out the Chickens to keep costs down, and when we start grumbling about the omission cite Avian Flu as the excuse. 😳🤪

Not even the usual picked “for the badge on the shirt could get that number up” - underlines how great he isn’t. The bit that sticks in my head from recent games was Palace when Charly pinged a rasper off the post as the ball ricocheted out towards the sideline losing speed as it went, he motioned to go for it then just gave up despite it being very easily getable to ping back 8th the mix. No doubt we will give him a contract next season.

Certainly got a few to bite 🤪 And no doubt a heap more will have jumped on the hook by kick-off 😁

Alas they are losing 1-0 at SMS

Your profile image would be seen as a bloody messiah by comparison at the moment 😳🤪

Hopefully a straight red (not likely the way he ducks out of a challenge) then Selles can’t pick the fucker

Ah well at least the loss was 8 goals better the last time I woke up here in China to a Saints result. Cheers for the observations on here. Just made me think of Merson on soccer Saturday when we beat Chelsea at theirs “Chelsea seem to be a assembled team of very expensive individuals”, Reading on here seems we are the opposite - a team of very cheaply assembled individuals. Hey ho

Had wait 11 hours for the result - 😳

At the airport - and I’ve missed 2 saints goals 😢

Use the beer to wash down a couple of Codeine might help quite a bit.

I kind of hoped that WGS was pulling some sort of Rope-a-dope to soften Arsenal up for the cup game - watching Claus "waterskiing" on his knees whilst holding on to Henris shirt, and Mr Halsey being extremely charitable in the opening moments, snuffed out that flame. Wengers alternative plan to make us jibbering fools for the cup worked a treat by getting into WGS's head. I see we have Simon Hooper on the Whistle for this one, bit of a funny one lets lots go, then changes his mind and gets picky, seems to find the 0.6% in 50/50's against Saints (but that could be my Red & White prescription!). If by some fluke we are 1-0 on 89 minutes he'll find 7 minutes to start with and another 2 magical minutes from somewhere.

That’s like Saints window shopping at Harrods en-route to B&M Bargains 🤪

I did cover my arse with the proceeding caveat of “along the lines of” - still doesn’t let him off the hook for not taking A leadership role as a senior pro

Watching the game on Saturday I was sat next to my occasional neighbour who gets to use a club supplied ST from time to time, he is quite good company as we see similar things on the pitch and comment to each other. At one point in yet another inert period of play from Saints, we just just said its like they have never played football in the real world, and a comparison to when we were kids playing with mates and jumpers for goal posts, we all liked to believe that we were Pele, Cruyff et al (obviously nothing like them). But the one thing we did know even when playing like sheep chasing the ball en-masse, was the object of the game = to score goals: go a goal down you tried your hardest to get one back. I asked my "mate" if he had ever listened to "That Peter Crouch Podcast" a while back. One of the things that came through on that was the incredulity of Crouchies co presenters at just how cossetted professional footballers are, with the underlaying gag about Crouchy admitting that at Stoke he didn't have to think about anything other that playing football, not even what underpants to wear on a matchday as the club supplied them laid out with the kit too! I commented that this lot look to be so pampered that they don't seem to know how to work out football on the pitch for themselves as its not what they have been told from the side line. Playground football you knew Willy was the fastest in the school get the ball to him, as you knew he would get it to Richard in the middle and he had a right foot like a hammer. Driving home after the game, listening to Solent and they interviewed Theo, as he was going through his ramblings on the game he uttered something along the lines of "I wouldn't know about that, we leave that to the manager"!! I thought I can't believe a casual musing to a fellow supporter at the game has been pretty much answered by a senior player with years under his belt. Hey ho its nearly all over

They’d roll out the blue carpet for them ………………….literally

Needs dropping - the boy is a rabbit in the head lights, says much for the opinion behind closed doors of the other options. His lack of vision is pretty poor. First half he got the ball in his hands if he bothered to look up through the gaping hole in the players and not scan the 10 feet in front of him for scary worms in the grass, he would have seen Charley screaming for long punt up to him………….It’s not just today. I do wonder if he needs an eye test!