John Boy Saint

😂Ladies and Genitalmen it gives me great pleasure to introduce to you............ straight from his family home in the most delightful town of Pedantry - I give you Mr Ottawa Saint!! 😜🤪😁😎

Odds on to be Chairman of the FA - So maybe that will be the end of his clap trap.

Ahem!..........................................after how many go's??!!! ;-)

"The Premier League is the only major competition in Europe to return to three subs." Well if you are going to present yourself as the best and hardest league in the world - you have to have a bit of a daring edge to sell. ☺️ My tongue was rammed hard into my cheek as I typed that.

Just a bit of fun to while away the hours before our game v Wolves. The BBC Sport website marked our little adventure to the top of the Premier League by posting one of their quizzes against the clock - Name the other 28 teams who have been top of the Premier League at some point within the 6 minute time limit. As usual when I have posted one of these, do it yourself without t'internet, AND DON'T POST THE ONES YOU FAILED TO GET IF YOU CHOSE YOU POST YOUR SCORE................for the hard of hearing, don't post "Arrrrrgh 18/28 - bloody missed Accrington Stanley and Mansfield Town etc". It only spoils it for the folk who see this later. I got 24 out of 28 before the time was up. Good luck https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/54849417

I know I can be as guilty as the next Saints fan for unashamedly wearing red and white spectacles - nothing there made me get anywhere near a smile. Retirement home squad, and you ain't got the credentials to even dream of a place in Europe but stare in longingly - thought it was a pretty spitefully written piece (you would think he was a p*rtsm*outh season ticket holder) - as for the Rabbit Hutch "gag" using it more than once just paints him as the boorishly loud bloke down the pub who believes everyone thinks he is funny - when they get out side the first description of him is w**ker. Hey ho - he is earning a crust for himself.

My bosses are not forcing me to go out anywhere - if I make the decision to do so, as the result will pay my bills - they let me out reluctantly as they see me as an asset. Likewise JWP is hot property and an asset for the club, if a bit of chicanery is seeing him stay at home its not a surprise (even more so if it looks like he will be there as a tourist on the bench), especially as they play a team that has a random and little known strain of Covid from their farmed Mink population in their country which is destined to be destroyed as a result...................I wonder if there will be a glut of cheap Astrakhan hats flooding the market as a result: great to wear at game in the middle of January.

Now thats proper dark arts..............although you see Ralph being like Daniel Craig in Casino Royale and Skyfall "take your finger away from your ear!!".

Or just give a coded message over the PA which is the signal for the whole stadium to shut the F up! Although allegedly us in the Chapel are well versed in being quiet already.

That's pretty good (aside from the erroneous Spurs scoreline). I liked this line "Don’t let schoolboy looks or genial off-field personalities create false illusions. Southampton are a battle-hardened side, able to take you into deep waters and eventually drown you".

Unless I've been deaf and blind, the subject of 5 subs hadn't been anywhere near the agenda until the lid was lifted on that particular box during project restart. Looking back to our 1-0 win over City in the summer, we didn't make a change until past the 90 I would guess that was down to Ralph not wanting to alter the dynamic of the team repelling the onslaught, bizarrely with the option for 5 subs City only made 2 changes.

That's pretty much how Ralph had Leipzig playing when they ran Munich close to winning the league - mate of mine bets on all sorts of football made heaps on Leipzig when Ralph was there - but having nearly made it himself as a pro footballer he watches football through different eyes to many of us. His biggest observation was that when Leipzig got in front whereas other teams might protect that lead by tightening up defensively, he was driving them on to keep on scoring, and not let the other team get much of a chance to find a way back into the game.

As I said earlier in the thread Chinese hate to lose face - Chairman Gao would have been smarting a year ago, pulling the trigger would have been very easy. And if Ralph did offer to walk - that would have made the decision easier especially as we are likely still paying off Puel MoPe and Hughes.

I’m more amazed that no one has commented on the applemakeyoulookatit auto correct poor use of English in my post 😳😜🤪

Everton do seem to be a bit agricultural with there challenges

Baileys is a bit of cheeky touch too 😜

This stays as it is we might be asking you to stay down the allotment all weekend and Monday night - pretty sure we can take turns in keeping you topped up with hot chocolate. 😜

And the magic ingredient to make that happen TIME. A year ago everyone was waiting for the trigger to be pulled on Ralph, especially after such a drubbing such is the fickleness of football - Chairman Gao is much maligned (and Chinese hate losing face) but the one thing he got right was not showing Ralph the door (or accepting Ralph’s alleged offer to walk himself). As an aside that Karen Carney might be a lass - but the other week she hit the nail on the head when she said the way we play “they drown you”.

As its Friday night with no school for most of us tomorrow - maybe tonight is the night for in play 9-0 (sorry) shot bingo!

After our game 3 cheers for having the IPL to watch - what I could be bothered to watch of the other 2 games they were pretty grim especially the Manure v Arse game even more so after the hullabaloo in the build up from Sky - but then Man U v Chelsea same blockbuster build up same damp squib.

Thirty seconds added on for their 2nd goal malarkey - ref wasn’t a select group one so he’s going to make sure he betters his chances of making that step up with a decent assessment - certainly showed he wasn’t grade one ref.

I’ll have some of what your smoking - pretty certain Ralph will be needing a few tokes too before he gets anywhere near putting the pen through Ches name relegating him to the bench!! 😁

In the games I have seen and he has been playing - he has looked a bit of a handful more often than not. In the Chelsea game last week aside from Che we looked small in stature as a team. Seeing Dan on the pitch yesterday leaves no doubt he is a big lad.

Blimey was that a year ago! I really had no idea..................I mean nobody sent me a card or owt...........well that stayed under the radar. Yup agreed same team. Its a PPV 12pm kick off on Sky Box office Sunday. (without wishing to get ahead of ourselves, I note that our next game at home v Newcastle is Friday 6th Nov 8pm on Sky Sports Main Event - hope the IPL game will be over by then).

Think the observations from Karen Carney just about says it all about this game, correct me if I am wrong but Everton skimmed the crossbar and rifled a free kick straight into McCarthys hands. Apart from that you did wonder when they might start playing given the hype of recent weeks. Last 20 minutes were pretty surreal they looked like they had been at a lock in until 3am that morning we just went into energy conservation mode, in reality they looked wary of us almost as if they knew if they got daring and attacked us we would pick them off. Ancelotti has reams of experience, but the fact that he had cashed in his chips using up all the subs before the hour was up, is very complementary to Ralphs set up and the lads execution. Not having the piped crowd noise it was interesting to hear Ralph encouraging the players, even in the last minutes when the game was securely and N'Lundulu was running across the Everton defence in pursuit of the ball, Ralph is urging Dan to keep going. Adams is such a deceptive player, a bit of a unit, strong, and I think his size masks his pace, most defenders are going to think twice about taking him on because if they don't get it right its going to hurt as they just bounce off, if N'Lundulu can cut the mustard we have the ability swap one mobile unit with another, which is going to keep any defence on its toes. All that said, as a Saints fan of many years some of our play whilst crisp and neat, you still have that feeling in your gut that its going to go wrong at any minute, but then when we lose the ball in close play we do seem pretty good at getting it back now.