John Boy Saint

Blimey I must get my split ends seen to!!

Sorry but Yoshi is not the the weak link, Jos and Jose are! Yoshida naturally plays on the right at centre back when Jos is in and Jose out thats where he plays as Jos is naturally very left sided. And why we got Jos was to play with Jose, who is very right sided in the first place, you will recall Jos and Yoshida started against Liverpool at home, it wasnt until Suarez had kicked Jos into being subbed that Jose came on and took up his natural right sided CB position and Yoshida had to switch over to the Left CB position vacated by Jos. Suarez and Coutino were getting nothing out of our defence until Jos went off then their only goal came down our right side. Yoshida can play both sides of Centre Back and Right Back, Jos and Jose if they had to swap sides would be well out of their comfort zone. Lovren came in because he favours the left this compliments Yoshida who is at his best on the right. Last season I felt Yoshida was looking after either Jos or Jose just as Killer use to do with Claus, his reading of the game is excellent. He might have dropped a clanger v Swansea last year, but these things sometimes happen, and if Dyer wasn't like a whippet on the ball that situation would have been countered. As for mithering about his height of 6'2", that is a bit lame when our player of the season (by a country mile) 2006-07 against Championship "monsters" was only a 5'11" Centre Back who had been drafted in from the Right Back position: Chris Baird. I am looking forward to Yoshida and Lovren together in the centre of defence, the starter for 10 is that they are both International Centre Backs! One of whom has already bought his Brazilian Phrase book........................... Hmmmmmm I wonder who that could be??!!

There is spending on pit ponies and spending on race horses when you are in the Grand National. We were very good in the old days of bigging up some half baked signings. When you are owned by the 2nd richest owners in the Premier League the kind of money we re frittering away at the present is almost a double hit of spending the interest and reducing the tax bill at he same time. Some folks really need to wake up to the fact that we have the ability to operate in a rarified atmosphere. Which is pretty surreal. It is also funny that having spent £17m on a pit pony himself David Gold has just found out that someone he thought was less endowed than him has just piddled far higher up the wall.

Err bit confused by this, as the manager believes he's good enough to play in the Premiership. I will go with the Manager on this one. I saw similarities with Shaw in his first games last year where he was protected by the players around him and basically keeping things simple, especially against a West Brom side with a combined millennia of footballing experience by comparison. I thought it said a lot that JWP was given the responsibility of playing in front of him and considering WBA targeted Chanbers side for 95% of the game the pair of them coped superbly. i am looking forward to when he is let off the novice leash, as for a big lad he does have a turn of speed and the ability to play in a great ball either from on the move or from a free kick. Pleased for the lad, going on tour pre season seems to have even a good investment by the club.

Great stuff Bearsy, I increasingly feel confident to hold court in a loud voice on the terraces this season with your top facts on the oppo's to back me up!!

Gemmel must have been stood next to me. In addition Lovren put in a very good shift. Wanyama was very impressive, great to see Lallana not playing in the style of Febrice Fernandes, which he was falling into the habit of last season. Chambers did not look out of place, JWP looked excellent especially his dead balls right into the mix and his rasping shot to sting the hands of Foster was deserving of a goal. Shaw was as always assured. I thought we looked very tidy and only the stubborn defending and goal keeping of Foster kept things tight. Having watched Saints for donkeys yonks and knowing what a bit of an uncharitable team WBA seem to be when we play them, when the ball was pinging round our box you felt a spawny goal was highly possible but the boys did the business. WBA got their second half impetus stoked very nicely by referee Friend as he gave a raft of strange decisions to the Baggies, the lad who brought down Shaw for the pen was actually very luck to be on the pitch on 90 mins as he was booked for spiking the ball at a decision against them, he had another moment where having felt he was fouled literally picked the ball up with both hands then instantly remembered to play to the whistle and very quickly let go of it and carried on playing, then the pen, without doubt there are refs who would have brandished a yellow at that tackle, the only time we looked a little out of sorts was when Steven and Gaston came on just for a few minutes we seemed to lose out shape in midfield. Gaston will be getting a word in his ear soon as pound for pound Wanyama already looks vastly better value in my eyes, that said Gaston had the Olympics last summer then the confederations cup this summer so like Yoshida that really has to take its toll on what is still a very ypung man. All in all a very nice day out, something to note off the field was how pleasant the away concourse was, Saints could take a leaf out of their book on that as the dowdy bare concrete of our concourse at SMS is pretty depressing by comparison. Nice one Saints

Perhaps after the Spurs loss and after the rant he had in the summer about the endless clowning around in the academy Abramovich has brought in a few old Spetznaz boys to really crack down. Lose and its bleep test with live rounds. Smoke grenade? Ha Ha look fragmentation grenade. Вы не будете работать, нет потери! da!

Been sitting here since yesterday in its more appropriate home: http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?46193-Moyes-moans-about-season-start#.Ug3OPdKsiSo Face like a smacked backside, just look forward to seeing it moaning on your TV screens for possibly the next few years!

Did anyone have that little news reel playing when they read that? Barcelona & Real Madrid both get massively more money than everyone else in La Liga from the TV rights deal I am sure I heard they both get 118 million euros and the rest get 18 million less!!! I thought our TV money system was a bit wrong.

Radio 5 tonight on the 7pm Sports show one of their own reporters text in the point about our start last season, and how that was something to moan about. Thats where Radio 5 could have shut down this whole story that has made every news bulletin from about 10am onwards. But then with nothing going on in Football today plus England having won a good game last night there would have been no footie stories with only 2 days to go before the proper football starts on Saturday.

Wasn't there a story about Brett Ormerod when he signed for us, not only did his sale to us from Blackpool trigger a sell on clause for Stanleys benefit, but Brett also gave his signing on fee from us to Stanley to pay off the building of their much needed new stand. He felt he owed this to Stanley as they had given him is route back into football after breaking his leg and being released by Blackburn (?).

He understood me well enough in Spain when I spoke to him in English, even understood my mates Missus when she said to my mate how good looking he was in the flesh and she was stood 20feet away and not saying it out loud either!!!

+1.

Don't worry Gary Neville will tell Roy to pick him again!

i would imagine that most Saints fans would have woken up this morning feeling like we had won the World cup! Our Rickie picked at last, comes onto the pitch in a game where the term friendly can hardly be used, and shows everyone what all of us Saints fans have been treated to and know he can do. Anyone who has met him knows what a guinely nice chap he is, which makes the moment even more special. For pure emotion of the moment for me, even though he wasn't wearing a Saints shirt, it's up there with Bobby Stokes, and Mattys last goal at the Dell. Cheers Rickie, you put a stupid grin on all our faces yet again!

55,000 fell out of the woodwork for the JPT and still loads missed out. There was a survey someone had done a few years ago across a very wide spectrum of UK people and the upshot was that Saints were the 17th most supported team in the UK. I know that the number of folks surveyed was quite immense. As I type something along the lines of proportional representation seem to spring to mind so the respondents had to put 3 teams down. so maybe I should go to bed and stop my input into this topic.

What a ripper!

If he wasn't at United you wouldn't have heard of him or Cleverley for that matter

Years ago a bloke round the corner use to grow hs own, one afternoon whilst puffing a particularly good vintage and washing it down with Gales HSB, the Jehovah's knocked on his front door when he invited them in they couldn't believe their luck. 4 hours later they were still in there climbing the walls to get out as he asked them endless questions about their faith then reasons for their answers. And all the time they had no idea what he was smoking whilst they all sat in his living room with the doors and windows closed.

Excellent as always: Thank you. I will put my The9 hat on to say: you missed out that The Hawthorns is, at 600 feet above sea level, the highest league ground in the land. Most folks would have thought that it was Oldham, Barnsley, Burnley, or Uddersfield going on the surrounding terrain, or even one of the Scottish clubs.

I think the issue with Cork was one I spotted last season, and probably wasn't alone with it. Whilst Cork worked his socks off and in games, Swansea away springs to mind, he looked like he had been cloned and there were 2 of him on the pitch, it just seemed like when the 18yrd box homed into view it was protected by an invisible Jack Cork force field that made him dither and dally, the crowd would see a gap and scream for him to shoot but invariably he would pass to someone else after a bit of thought, by which time the opposition had organised themselves after having been carved open by our quick attacking play. Morgan by comparison would just steam on. So maybe in Wanyama they have seen a player who coupled with Morgan possibly makes our midfield a bit more of an attacking force on 2 fronts which is in keeping with the style Pochettino likes to play. And going on Saturdays game that looks like the Brazilian ethos of you score 3 we'll score 4 might become a feature of the season.

Looking at that map again I make Arsenal to be in Hells Kitchen which I guess would be about right if you went back to the team in the 70's and Early 80's.

I surprised we haven't had the Clyne at Left back Maya at Right back (thought he had a great game there at Stoke) Jos and Lovren. Jos is fine as long as he doesn't get too clever, he drove Suarez to foul him into substitution at our place last season because the little toad wasn't getting anything off him: not that it did him any good.

What inspired this question was, Friday night I checked my email inbox and there was an email from Ann Summers thanking me for my order!!??!! when I opened it there was the order confirmation for a rather expensive model of Ladies bedroom buddy and sundries, blimey what's going on here is the Mrs getting a bit saucy, then as I saw the delivery address that brief frisson of excitement turned to the possible onset of 20 questions as the intended recipient turned out to have my same first initial and surname and lived in Birmingham an area I frequent with work!! The silly person had entered her email address incorrectly obviously hence me getting her receipt. I am tempted to print off the receipt and post it to her with a warning to be a bit more careful in future: you can imagine the flush of embarrassment on her face!! Has anyone on here received similar strange emails

Stevie Wonder & Ray Charles were also mentioned while you were out of the room!