John Boy Saint

Gosh! Someone better get another bottle of Advocaat before Granny gets round for Christmas - seems like the finessing of her favourite tipple, a Snowball, has gone a little too well (hic)!

He was just getting his eye in for Saturday at Villa :p

At the end of the Watford game flossie from Sky interviewed Troy Deeney on the pitch she said something about working hard, love him or hate him he came back with a very down to earth comment “that’s not hard work - seeing your Mum hold down 3 jobs to make ends meet at Christmas, that’s hard work”.

United Probably thought it would be a breeze - they obviously hadn’t factored in Nigel Pearson who had Leicester ticking before Ranieri and also when he had a spin with us, we suddenly had a backbone - I can imagine with Deeney backing him up there will be no BS in the Watford dressing room and nowhere to hide.

He did that against West Ham - bit like “if none of you buggers are going to move and keep letting them come onto to me and Jan - well I may as well do something about myself and off he went” - he also gave Højbjerg one hell of a roasting against West Ham for putting him and Jan under unnecessary pressure following a standard slipshod pass. There are times when both Jack & Jans timing in the tackle is impeccable, I think their errors are often as a result of both full backs with international experience on their CVs both playing with a laissez faire attitude and not 100% application. Most centre backs like keepers ripen with age, there are the odd exception like that lad who was at Ajax and Van Dijk who are just wired up early on, many good centre backs are into their late 20s when they become notable figures in a team.

Golly gosh!! i walked in the house and the first thing Mr JBS said “right that’s it you’re going out on Saturday afternoons when Saints are away and not watching any more streams!”. My Daughter bought me and Mrs JBS tickets for the Christmas with the Stars at SMS this last Wednesday night - Fanny, Matty, Beatts, Jo Tessem, and Glenn Cockerill it was a very pleasant evening and nice gift. Late on it was announced that Cedric and PEH were coming in for an hour, when they arrived I was stood next to PEH the missus mouthed “be quiet”, she had no worries there was a Lady who got certainly got her tuppence ha’penny in........looking at the result this afternoon seems like her pep talk worked.

Right lads(sorry ladies) I have just seen the score do you want me to stay out Christmas Shopping?

I always thought that game was the moment the heat was turned up under the team and the lid welded shut - we looked pretty pants until Johnno Quick came on - First touch "oops we've signed Ali Dia MKII" groans all around, 2nd touch back of the net likewise with the 3rd touch all within minutes. We had 9 games after that and bagged 24 of the 27 points left on the table, and it was a pretty competitive league that year. Hard to choose the best goal of the Decade - i could throw in Dean Hammond against Leeds first day of the season back in the Championship just ran across the top of the Leeds box then Bang!!!!! Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls please fasten your seatbelts because we are going on a ride. I liked Martinas goal because that is one of those lightening never strikes twice moments that football throws up. Boxing Day - Bloody evening kick off - Wet - Too Sober for a Boxing day - Saints had not been playing well in recent weeks - It was Arsenal who were on their usual roll - Then from nowhere miles out what looked like an aimless punt is suddenly lighting the blue touch paper. Come the final whistle ho cares its late and your stone cold sober on a boxing day. ...............I wonder if that Long goal at Anfield was the one where he did the deal with the Devil, and his little run of goals last season was when the Devils back was turned.

............Actually just as an aside and no point making a fresh thread as this is slightly on topic. I was looking on the official site ticket page last night and saw that you can once more buy a Half Season Ticket for £320 starting from the Palace game, firstly I thought the PR on that has been invisible, but what tickled me slightly was the line "if you intend to give this as a Christmas present please order by 15/12" - What kind of message does that send to the recipient "hey I have pots of money - so I can give you (on current form) what will likely turn out to be the most disappointing Christmas gift ever".

They tried that at Burnley at the back end of the 1960's - they put under seat heating into the Cricket End Stand - first time they used it the Chairman saw the wheel in the electric meter glowing as it spun round at light speed and it never got switched on again........So I guess that is still being used as the bench mark to avoid doing so!

Quite a few Dutch friends said when he was with us that Erwin is without doubt the tactical brains in the partnership, but doesn't have the gravitas as a manager to get the message across and that's where Ronald steps in.

Being a cynical old Hector - Where we have been disappointed with in bound Saints players more than likely planning to use us as a stepping stone to a bigger club, given the Mickey Mouse way professional football is run where no one actually gets proper sacked unless they really do something seriously wrong. Whats to say that we haven't become a means to finance a few months off for a manager its not as if they become unemployable for years into the future - I think I am correct in saying that Puel, MoPe, and Hughes are still on the wage bill at Saints as we pay down the remains of their contract (Puel might be off it now). Andre Villas-Boas was binned off by Chelsea with £16m of his remaining contract paid off, he got the job at Spurs not long after and got binned off by them and had a reported £16m of his remaining contract with them paid off too. Whats to say that Ralph has just squeezed as much as he can out of what he has to work with shrugged his shoulders and gone "hey!- whats the worse that can happen?", being battered 9 zip at home is normally enough to see the trigger pulled - that didn't work, then to say post match that the style of play West Ham turned up at SMS with on Saturday evening surprised us does make cynical me go Hmmmm?

Only for the first 70 minutes - Palace have switched on - do that against us like they have for the last 10 or so minutes and we will be on our backs having our tummy’s tickled.

If anyone ever deems to slap me down with some ****e stats about Hojbjerg having the most interceptions and pass completion bøłlłôCk$, best make sure they lube them up first for when I shove them up their bloody @R$ē! ..........he was carp against Norwich and pants tonight. The bloke is our Captain - I would just about have him Captaining a paddle boat up the Sports Centre - he is not a captain, he does not lead, he along with Redmond are passengers in this team - the only reason I can see him being captain is due to being Danish and having been at Bayern he probably has a good grasp of German so suits RH to have him as a Captain he can communicate with in his first language. Rather bizarrely if you watch both Redmond and PEH when something doesn’t go their way (ok they draw groans from the crowd) they both theatrically chop their hands upwards. The much maligned Jack Stephens was short changed by a PEH pass back to him that was under hit when the best and first option was forwards, at the first moment Jack ripped into PEH - it’s very rare to see a team captain getting........b o l l o c k e d by a team mate (You think JWP is the master back passer our captain outclasses him - actually I don’t think JWP actually trusts passing the ball to him). The substitution of Redmond was actually the correct decision Just about every attack when the ball came to him just saw the handbrake pulled on. The big factor today was we just got bullied off the ball by West Ham, plus the shocking revelation came in the car from RH on the Solent interview - apparently the long balls were a problem we weren’t prepared for!! WTAF! How many years have our 2 first team coaches been in English football and what style of football is WH’s default setting. Whilst the recruitment has been woeful over the past few years, Ralph might be a smart chap, but I am beginning to think he might not be smart enough for the Premier League. I have watched Saints in person since 1978, work and kids have curtailed watching some full seasons, there were some bloody grim walks over Northam bridge as we spiralled down to the bottom of the championship, but jeez these days are running them damn close. I guess I am getting old and cynical, ****ed off at the stratospheric salaries per week that are the same or greater than what I earn in a year, if I dont do my job properly I get a rocket and possibly end up losing my job, these guys are paid to kick a bag of air about and they struggle to do that.........especially our “Captain”. Highlights of the day getting home before it started raining and receiving my annual scroll calendar from the Chinese down the village.

Hey he can't have been that bad seeing as he is still earning a crust in the top flight 34..........which is a bit S h 1 t when the answers were revealed - might have helped if I could spell too!!! Amazed that Branfoots alleged nark wasn't on the list - 04 to 09 was a struggle but got one in the middle of those years.

He was but that was in our 1977-78 promotion season - Here's a sad mind for you Bonfire night 5th Nov 1977 - turned out to be Peter Osgoods last game for us lost 2-1 (we got them back in the return fixture 5-0!). Without doubt a a good footballing man - what he did at Oxford United was pretty impressive with successive promotions as back to back Champions from (old money) Division 3 to the 1st Division. RIP

Cheers Whelk - I hadn’t drilled down that far - just distracted by the ground graphic showing every block either nearly sold out or limited availability

On sale now to ST holders at £12 - Chapel is closed blocks 13 - 26

Didn’t realise West Ham played in white!!! bet the queue for the tube will still be miles long even after the 7 added minutes

Being harsh we can't score either, or maybe that should be we are relying on 2 players to find the back of the net, one every week (its seems) and the other every 2 or 3 games (Ings and JWP) That ain't good enough in reality. When PEH or Cedric shape up to hit a ball 90% of your brain is expecting it to see the ball whistle into the crowd behind the goal. Long you think must have done a personal deal with the devil on something as some of what he has missed has been harder than actually scoring. As for Redmond when he broke away and ended up one on one with the keeper, that pretty much summed up his inability, the Toon keeper was committed, on floor and miles off his line, yet instead of going round him or deftly dinking it over him he passed the ball straight at him! The Danny Ings thread is covering most of this, but right now if he gets crocked even we spend £100m on a CB and RB - until a few more step up to the plate and score goals we will be in a spot of bother. Like they say defend from the front, if we look inert on the goalscoring front the oppos are going to be more confident to push up on us.

Mrs JBS had nodded off watching the Villa Foxes game (she has been busy making John Boy towers look festive) while we were 1-1 - she woke up after the final whistle and asked “did it finish as a draw?”. “Nope we lost” the FFS! from her had a tone of it being hardly a surprise..........followed by “glad I’m going out next Saturday night and missing West Ham, going to have far more fun than you are watching that shower.”.

Bertie has just switched off these last 5 minutes!

Bum!!

There’s a first stream failed got another Chinese I think

@R$e - we went to sleep