John Boy Saint

Maybe we should all bring blow beach balls - and when it starts going wrong we blow them up and ping them about whilst singing “we’re on the beach” 🤪

Been that way for a while in the EFL games on Good Friday and Easter Monday - Donkeys years ago in the days of Nick Holmes in the old money 1st division pretty certain we played Friday then Monday over Easter. That cup game could well be due to the furore about both Liverpool and City fans not being able to use the railways to get to the game due to engineering - The FA were getting serious stick over it from all quarters - don't even know what time it was originally scheduled - to guess if 3:30 is a bit of a concession from the FA

I thought Lewes Town getting the jump on us for a Championship spot in the same process, was seemingly more galling. Man U is Man U they get special treatment - whatever.

Trouble is after years of massively living in the shadow of the men’s game, the quantity of teams able to put together a quality team is quite thin, most of the England team is made up from the top teams in the WSL. The men’s game in the top 4 divisions is very well established but has been going for over 100 years, the women’s game is, obviously, massively playing catch up due to the more recent inclusivity agenda. Unlike the men’s league set up where the feeble attempt to shut the stable door after the horse had bolted with FFP - the women’s game has financial solvency rules, and a few years back in the teams had to show they could attract at least 400 spectators. The whole thing looks harsh when you are in ours and Wolves positions - but the step up to the championship is a bit more precarious than jumping from the National League into League 2 in the men’s game. Sustainability seems to be the overriding factor. Maybe a Women’s National League will evolve at some point to provide 2 up 2 down. But in Saints men’s own history we declined being promoted to a higher league once or twice, simply because the bean counters had done the maths of every other week heading invariably north beyond London, the travel expenses alone would have put Saints out of business

Surely you mean Crucifixion. 😜

I thought when Valery came on he looked like he was the only one thinking about the job at hand - actually the last few times he has stepped into the back line he hasn’t looked any worse than what was already there. He also looks like he has filled out a bit.

I haven’t read through all of this simply because I can’t be arsed - I was there so I know what I saw. Media team must have had their head in their hands having just launched season tickets

As our Nige would say draw a blue line under it and move on Well I have exhausted my supply of lucky underpants - so I guess I had better find a new pair. But now I’ve corrupted that idea with hopefully starting the next match thread. Here we have another game where the visitors will be smarting from a couple of wrong results - we just have to hope that we are smarting enough from a home humbling to put on a performance we know is lurking beneath the surface

I think the ream were expecting more and playing within themselves, until Ralph told them at half time to stop playing with their food and get on with it.

Because of his movement he distracts the eye of the defender opening the space for Adams in this case - and given the uncharacteristic porousness of their defence these last 2 games the last thing they are going to want is route one running at them.

Given your location I think we can forgive you for being influenced by a diet of Hockey - influencing you to consider who you could get 2 minute stints of productive ice time out of and be good at changing efficiently on the fly - 😜😜

That looks a horrible run of games for Everton - you can see the way Liverpool are playing they could really open the taps on them. Burnley might not be everyone’s cup of tea (although they were on here tonight) they could dig their way out of this, Watford are the joker in the pack as Roy seems to have given them a bit of steel Leeds and Newcastle just have to make sure they don’t do anything silly

Burnley!

0-0 then

No good trying to hide, we all nose it’s you Thomas

Wow - God help us on Saturday Benzema has just produced 2 minutes of damage 2-0

He certainly hit that particular nail squarely on the head - Hoddle had fears for "his legendary status" with Matty around.

156 goals difference between us and Hounslow is just surreal!

Probably because he is like a bottle shaken pop - and an apprentice of Longy in being a proper pain in the arse. In the immortal words of Corporal Jones (defenders) they don’t like it up em! 😜

Probably be a massive Covid outbreak on Tyneside this week 🤪

Rasiak played like we were beneath him - I think the night before he was shipped out on loan at the end of the transfer window, he played like his life depended on it (against Norwich?) the cynical tongue in cheek chat amongst the regulars around us was “he’s first on the list for a drug test tonight”.

Might be the day for AA to seize the opportunity and step up to plate - or Redders is straight in to serve up a worldie ……….. of course Tella is back to blind the defence with his smile and run amok

Unfortunately Diallo is a bit like Yoshida in his early days - with not much game time, pretty much a bag of spanner’s left in a puddle, all the rust needs knocking off to get them to work properly.

A point - ain’t had one of those for a while

I've heard this advice given plenty of times regarding Leeds. Friend of mine Brighton fan, hard as nails, most would consider crossing the road if they saw him coming towards them on a dark evening, not shy of looking after himself when needed (that said he is an absolutely top bloke) Going away to Football a trip to Leeds he always said - Pour himself off the train into a pub, then get a taxi to the ground, slip the driver a good tip to pick him up after the game to go back to the station. "Look at me 6'5", shaved head, pissed" "the place is full of too many Smirnoff Ice drinking heroes wanting a shot at a trophy - me", "I'm 50 something and too old for that caper, and you know full well who's getting a tour of the police station if I react"!