John Boy Saint

Radhi and Morgan have been mates since he arrived at the club, as he said not long after joining us having Morgan there speaking French with him made settling in much easier............. Pretty certain in the same interview he said Jose speaks French too.

i think your starter for 10 might be having your boots on ready to play when you know you are coming on. You do wonder if the manager pot has dried up for Spurs as potential future managers have been removing their hats from the ring as they realise that the Dressing room at WHL is a nest of Vipers best steered clear of, and Levy still has the safety on due to the only option to Poch out there is to get Sherwood back............. And his Ego won't allow that.

There was a game last season that we had won comfortably and during the post match interviews on Solent the question was asked "it must be buzzing in the dressing room right now" to which the reply came back "no it's pretty quiet, there are a lot of tired players in there as it's been a very hard week". i remember thinking that's not clever as we have had no midweek game and the players are worn out more by a weeks training rather than 90 minutes of a match.

Very true, we no doubt have all the player positions identified and covered regarding their replacement

Certainly felt a odd game first half, personally I think the heavy rain had a hand in that as the ball just seemed to zip off the surface when normally certain balls would have been much better behaved in the dry. i also think there were times when the players were a little over confident by the over playing and trying to pull off showboat passes whilst still 0-0, but that is a minor criticism as Leicester were very disciplined in their task to shut us out which made our fancy touches look worse when they broke down. i think the defining moment was when we had a series of corners one after the other, we had Leicester on the ropes and just kept the flurry of "punches" raining down on them! as they cleared yet another corner their players were congratulating each other for dealing with the ball but you could see the mental energy the pressure was sucking from them. Then Ronald replaces our Cheetah with our very own annoying Hornet and bingo! the games up in 4 minutes. You could see they were done in as the pressure on Fraser from their front 2 trying to cut out the passing out from the back had evaporated. All in all an excellent patient win. MOTM: Big Vic in the middle not only his presence but so many deft touches in winkling out the ball when he had no right to.

I have to hold my hands up and say I saw Jose as the weaker of the 2 centre backs the last few seasons, almost in the image of Claus who would often see and be distracted by metaphorical Butterflies until Killer partnered him and straightened him out. He is so right sided that even players like Yoshida a right side preferred centre back had to adapt to play on the left, even Toby's preferred side is on the right but has had to adapt to play on the left. When the player supermarket opened last summer Lovren was bought in to partner Yoshida playing in his natural position on the right, with Jose as back up, Yoshida got nobbled in and by the Confederation cup and it seems like Jose thought "that ain't happening" rolled his sleeves up and kept Yoshida out.......... Hats off to him for that. Now here's the funny thing in light of how this season has got going, and I have obviously wrongly maligned Jose in my head, Jose stepped down a league to play for us in the First division 5 odd years ago (no-one ever questioned whether he could make the steps up like they asked of Lambert). Watching the stuttering stumblebum performances Lovren has had since moving to Liverpool, I think they identified and bought the wrong centre back as without Jose at his side Lovern has looked like a one legged man in an @Rse kicking contest this season. Jose Fonte I salute you, and apologise for thinking you were the weakest link at Centre Back.

When Fraser the human Albatross is looming large into view oppo players must see the goal shrink to the size of a Subbuteo goal in their heads.

Every bloody one of them beauties in a Saints shirt!!! Close the thread!!

You need to give Hovis Hill in Shaftesbury a couple of runs that will get your cobbles sorted.

I reckon if someone had the minerals to ignore conforming to the norm and appointed Dyche as Man U manager they would not be bumbling along like they are.

Just noticed that there are 6 Hampshire teams competing in the FA Cup 1st round today, good luck to all but 1 of them: come on Aldershot in the big "Navy v Army" game.

Voted for David Conn, as he knows his onions and is a mate of my Sister.

That Warrington v Exeter game was quite exciting at the end............. Warrington 100 places below Exeter in the Footie pyramid.

Excellent player and a real worker, without him the "star" players, everyone gets excited about, just would not shine so brightly in the team. Said it a million times, Lawrie Mac's blueprint for a good team was to make it up from Violinists and Roadsweepers. You could eat your dinner off the street Steven Davis keeps clean.

Surely we want them all in the Europa league as that Thursday game seems to mess with the head of most teams in that competition when the league weekend games come up.

Me too after watching an older chap tapping away at his iPad in Palafrugell then seeing an extensive match report later that evening on here under your name............ Unless that mop of hair is really a syrup!!

Cheers for that. For a supporter who has followed Saints since being a nipper and being allowed to go to games from 1977-78 season, my interest in Saints is a long term addiction. Seeing this facility and the attention to detail, whilst it all may come across as a little anal to some, the fact the club are doing all they can behind the scenes to improve player performances by sensible percentages continually is fantastic. When you see what we achieved out of Portacabins whilst this place was being built Skies certainly are the limit. It definitely is a very long way from the "old school" gym at the Dell and players only taking to field 5-10 minutes before kick off on a Saturday. You must have been buzzing after your tour.

One big danger of him coming back is it could upset the current balance that the team seems to currently have, the last thing we want right now is a crack in the dressing room. When you look at the amount of finite detail the club goes into beyond just sticking 11 players and 7 spares on the pitch on a Saturday afternoon, maybe in all the analysis they knew that Rickies abilities were on an accelerating slide hence the chat of him being halfway out the door in January to West Ham, selling him to Liverpool his boyhood club provided the perfect sugar coating to the departure of Saints most popular player since Matty. And to Saints fans he retains his legendary status as he hasn't fizzled out into retirement before our eyes in a Saints shirt.

Fat from the Pies would also ensure it lasts a long time too!

No wonder Villa park was peppered with empty seats yesterday afternoon for the TV game.

That is the family stand if you look at the number of Young uns so the effin and jeffin will likely be curtailed. Although as I said above the Hull fans we spoke with walking back to the car, said they were behind Vic's shot and is was a superb strike. These guys saw it from the opposite side............. We could of course be their second team :-)

And superbly observed (except by the catering staff clattering about behind us). Just back from an eventful day, as we departed Watford Gap we were smug in the car as to how far ahead of schedule we were then bang someone drives up our backside on the slip road. Anyway got to Hull in plenty of time which was a relief especially with big Vic lofting one in from well over 30yards out with 2 minutes and 1 second on the clock, walking out of the ground after the game we were chatting to a a Hull fan and his lad and they said they were right behind Wanyamas strike and were amazed how well he hit it as "the ball started well outside the post and curved in beautifully". Now Hull knew what they had to do and we knew what we had to do, and to be fair to Hull they certainly had a damn good huff and puff at our defensive door and we remained stout and resolute in the task. Wanyama was solid breaking up play all the time. The chances we had, especially on the break, to put the game to bed were numerous, but then grinding out 3 points away from home having scored in the second minute was very impressive. Now to the so called Saints fans around us. It's a damn good job the traditional old flat razor blades are not so readily available otherwise there would have been blood pouring down the terrace from the number of opened up veins, the moaning and mithering at the merest minor error was amazing.......... I think some of our fans spend too much time thrashing their 2 year old kids or Grandpa playing FIFA15 or whatever, as listening to some of the cobblers this afternoon they expect CGI football in real life!! Take a chill pill guys and enjoy the ride. All in all a smashing day out all round.

Having got fed up with Radio 5 entering Radio Luxembourg reception we switched over to Radio 2 (being slightly older buggers) and were shocked when the sports section of the new LEAD with "Southampton won 1-0 at Hull to remain in second place" we nearly passed out with shock!!

Lucky enough to go twice to attend cocktail parties on the terrace the bit that overlooks the Thames, once on the Commons side the other on the Lords, they were both with the company I use to work with. The first time I was with the forward last touches set up party so drove in through the tradesmans entrance which was interesting from being check for an Audi full of Gunpowder to walking down corridors past MPs little offices. As guests and the work coach folk turned up, everyone kept talking about the spectacular main hall that I hadn't seen, so I went for a snoop about, as has been said both chambers look so much smaller than they do on TV, probably explains the need for the despatch box keeping both sides of the house an arm and a swords length apart. Saw a security guard from when we came in as I was looking about, and he said get on the end of that tour they won't notice, so I did and it was fascinating. Another stunning place to see the inside of is the Painted Hall at the Naval College in Greenwich, better known at the Wow room: and that is not an understatement.

Biggest frustration with him was that he had so many opportunities to shine and be a superstar for us, but because his vision was clouded by thinking he already had that status handed to him on a plate when he signed he always came up short.