John Boy Saint

Just one of those nights. We just play too much pit pat slow football around the 18yard box instead of lighting a few speculative smashes (just saw Spurs thread their equaliser through the box from outside) , "1-2-3 touches good 9 players in the box 4th ah good 10 in there now let's walk through the first 3!". How the dickens did matey who absolutely scythed Luke into air stay on the pitch that looked horrific from the other end of the pitch. it will be a good test to stop the rot.

Blimey its the 23rd of December in the Turkey shed on here, We are in the situation we find ourselves in and have to deal with it, the ball has to get past 10 other players before it gets to Paulo and we have been quite good at dealing with that for most of this season so why would that change. "He didn't inspire confidence when he was getting ready to come on v Chelsea" how bizarre! The lad has been sat there minding his own business as one of the players least likely to be called into action then all of a sudden like winning the lottery "Paulo your on mate!!", what's he supposed to do shadow box like a prize fighter entering the ring?! We should all get behind him, without the histrionic audible ooo's aaarghs sharp intakes of breath when he comes to get the ball, Tony got Buruc sorted out and doing well between the sticks with us what's to say he hasn't been able to improve young Paulo?

Dave Jones said about Blackburn signing Kevin Davies, it went along the lines of being sat in his office when the phone rang the chap on the other end said Blackburn Rovers here we are interested in signing Kevin Davies from you and are offering £7.5m, Jones said that he nearly fell off his chair at the offer and thought Kevin was a young lad and worth nowhere near the £7.5m that had just been placed on the table!! It was rude to refuse. Still a tidy bit of business £750k buying him from Chesterfield then flogging him to Blackburn and James Beattie coming the other way as part of the deal.

If saw what I saw of him at Sunderland was anything go by, hell why not give him a spin if only to snuff out the flame of the candle folks are vermently burning for him.

The last 2 games have probably not been a bad thing for us, just gives us a reality check. It keeps everyone's feet on the ground after the mountain of sunshine that has been blown up our backsides by all quarters of the media over the past few months, Villa will be a tricky game as they will have smelt the blood in the water. As has been said before we just don't seem to have the pace in attack that has been used against us these last 2 weeks, and this goes back quite a way, it's almost like we want to score the perfect goal but in setting it up the oppos are allowed to get into position to snuff us out. If Boruc being out for 6 weeks is true then we need to get behind Gazza he was cold off the bench and yet looked happy enough, I expect being a nipper amongst a team of nippers makes him feel much more comfortable. JWP just had a bad day at the office, Big Vic does increasingly looks to be a menace, Osvaldo seems to becoming another ex Serie A enigma. Morgan is a bit of a blow although Jack is just as capable in a different style (if it's serious enough) Luke Shaw looked good in places but I think he showed a bit too much respect to the Chelsea players he was in combat with almost to the point of being soft: but then we don't know how much what of the injury that saw him being subbed last week was still lurking. Still at the end of the day we are on the first page of the league table, I am sure that if many of us had been offered 7th on the first of December a week before the season kicked off the majority would have taken it.

At least he didn't book Wanyama as now big Vic has to survive Wednesday night to give us Wanyama v Toure next weekend!!

Paul Jones first season was a great shot stopper, (put us out of the League cup v Stockport almost singlehandedly) second season his weakness was discovered. Took a very warm conversation in the local Offy between me and David Coles (the then goalkeeping coach), who lived down the road from me, pointing out the bleeding obvious every striker in the prem to that point had been taking advantage of!!

Ying and Yang Marian Pahars - Lee Todd I think Cardiff City sum him up, in the running to get to the top flight but just repeatedly fell short: Malky MacKay bang job done!

Smiling quietly to himself springs to mind.

Caught me out too as I thought I heard through the inebriated haze that Reading beat Forest last night, then they were playing Blackpool today in the OP!!

That was very decent of you.

Programme Monthly & Football Collectable!! Who is the guest presenter this week and where are Hislop and Merton. How can a Programme that is totally impractical unless you have a carrier bag full of player pictures to get autographed or a Roy Cropper bag with your Thermos in be the best? Seeing a Programme that size in the offic....... Bedsit of PM&FC must have been like the day man invented fire!!

Mourinho said that his players looked exhausted v Basel so will likely shuffle the pack for "Saturdays game" as a result, which means if the fringe players coming in have anything about them then they might be a little more up for it than the rag tag and bobtail Chelsea that got the run around off Basel. That said they might be a bit like strangers to each other if Jose's shuffle isn't right. Should be a good game.

Seems to be a bit of a queue forming behind this one!!!

Funny I had just looked up his old team mate (and my hero as a nipper) Phil Boyer who is 64 and 2 months younger! like someone else said makes you feel a tad old.

Pochettino said he was looking forwards to crossing swords again with Mourinho at the beginning of the season, so I would imagine he will have the boys well up for ths game. Brother-in-law is a Chelsea season ticket holder and admitted hat Chelsea are a bit indifferent at the moment, and whilst watching the game on Saturday afternoon commented that Chelsea will have to work harder than they have of late to get any result from us.

Wouldn't be a massive surprise.

Most smart managers will have worked out the bare bones Morgan has revealed, working out the system is the easy bit it's knowing how to counteract it especially when the team are as well drilled as as they are in the execution. Arsenal only got the win through two mere brain farts, that aside they didn't create much more despite on paper having what many would assume to be superior firepower.

Got rinsed on MOTD2 last night too.

Buy that man Kim a drink!

Watched the game on TV before flying home from abroad last night, Brother-in-Law who follows Chelsea home and away, questioned how the hell he ended up at Celtic after he had cleaned out Whilshire for about the 5th time. Head and shoulders MOM yesterday.

Funny the pre match commentators here in South Africa said Boruc was our weak link in a house split 50-50 Saints Chelsea all us Saints fans said "what are you talking about!!". the. He gets in a pickle!!

I was led to believe in the first instance Stuyvesant who was a cantankerous old bugger has been put in place as Governor of this Dutch Sovereign land. he was in place for 15-16 years, had upset the Swedes up river, the Indians they traded a few trinkets with for the land in the first place probably had worked out they had gotten a raw deal, so when Captain Nicholls rocked up on behalf of CharlesII who couldnt give a monkeys about peace with the Dutch. Stuyvesant got wind of the British turning up and laying claim to the Land that Charles had decided should be his or at least his brothers the Duke of York. He got all the powder and shot he could and made everyone come and help to re inforce the Fort battlements ready to repel the British. There was a bit of correspondence between Stuyvesant and Nicholls which resulted in Nicholls sugeesting a chat at Manhattan if the Dutch came nicely and raised a white flag over the New Amsterdam Fort. This made Syuyvesant seethe and pumped him up ready for a fight, which put the fear of god into the inhabitants especially as they had no allies further up the Island, they had enough shot and powder to last barely a day and very little food, against 4 boats and 400 soldiers the inhabitants along with his son eventually made Stuyvesant see that to resist would be madness against such force so he surrendered and left the Fort with his meagre army and left on a boat for The Netherlands. 9 years later and we were at war with Holland and the Dutch took back Fort New York and renamed it Fort Orange, when that war was over the agreement with the Dutch was made that we have the American land back: this was probably where Surinam came into the equation. Either way the Dutch still surrended New Amsterdam without a shot being fired in the first instance in the face of superior British Firepower. Being so close to the Muppet show I figured the super abridged version would have done the trick in the first instance.

Although not a manager: Monsieur Joey B-artonne holding a press interview while on loan last season at Marsailles avec Le accent Francais! (Ahem that said I found myself doing the same after speaking improving French only every evening for 10 days!).

Probably because it's a term that has stuck from when we had a spot of bother round the Empire send in a Warship and normality returned, and all was well. We were once such a powerful fighting nation even when a Navy boat floated up the Hudson River in then New Amsterdam the Dutch more or less went "Errr right!, Um.......... Take it, it's yours".