Miltonaggro

Agree with this and it looked like the pep talk included pressurising Djenepo and rattling Salisu and McCarthy, going for the obvious weak links as you'd expect. If Ralph wants to continue his 'top to bottom revolution' at Saints he needs to get a seasoned competent keeper and combative leader centre half in as soon as possible - Romero and Tarkowski perhaps but who knows, lots of good suggestions on the transfers thread. Club has to bite the bullet with the keeper though as a stopgap with the two remaining stooges will clearly cost us dearly, and there are people earning a lot of money at the club who should be all over it. The substitutions are another matter and today was especially baffling as the bench looked decent. We were good first half but Theo and Djeneop were obviously poor and off pace - Armstrong and Tella at half time or 60 mins looked a complete no brainer. For me the strangest thing is the manager's apparent inability to learn, is he simply stubborn or stupidly optimistic, like so many on here I'd love him to be successful but fans need some tangible evolution now.

Everton 1 Saints 3 (Ward-Prowse, Armstrong S, Armstrong A). In other news Watford to beat Villa with Ings limping off after 65mins.

Big John was before my time but my Dad was a decent centre half at non-league level and rated him as the gold standard, a monster, also rated Jim Steele. When I played as a schoolboy Watson was my hero from the terrace and Ronald Koeman on TV, both recommended by the old man again

LM always had an eye for a centre half, Dave Watson was a beast when Saints signed him from Bremen (not the biggest, but best in the air I ever saw in the flesh for Saints and England), Nicholl was as steady as you like and Mark Wright was up there with Van Dijk in terms of quality and ability. As others have said, the likes of Golac and Dennis, bought for peanuts but hard as nails and superb footballers with the likes of Statham and Mills. Later Monkou and Deano, Richard Hall who I though was very underrated and unlucky with injury, and then we are into the Svennson era. Any of those would walk into this side and most other Prem sides.

He didn't, wish he had as was terrific, I think Minsk might have meant Derek Statham - a class act.

I always thought him a bit of a ponce. I was a Zippy man at the time, the 70s children's TV equivalent of Piers Morgan. When good players are looking to exit Saints they should insist on them wearing this shirt for their farewell message. That we we should avoid the final year contract scenarios.

Bollocks, I'll have to click on the link now...

Great stuff, and a warm welcome to Adam Armstrong - Newcastle, Blackburn, Saints - our very own ‘reverse Shearer’. I have high hopes for this one, looks a nightmare for defenders 😀👏

I think that Ralph and the rest of the side often struggled with that too.

Regarding the heightist comments on this thread, from what I've seen of Armstrong in the videos he reminds me somewhat of Kevin Phillips - a right pest around goal and a niggly player for oppo defenders, just what we need. He is also a full inch taller than Phillips and will have a home video security system to monitor tradespeople whilst at work. All of this is progressive.

With Saints as long as he is Jonno Quick he'll be golden!

If Saints get this one and the Chelsea unit over the line there will be cause for an injection of optimism and joy in terms of attacking power.

Thought Saints may have learned the lessons of previous summers but it appears not. Seems Vestergaard will follow Ings so we will likely need a finished article goal scorer and a first team centre half to essentially stand still from the end of last season (when we were shite). All supporters can see that this side desperately needs an injection of new blood. Three or four more in, five including the keeper we aren’t going to get, so final place will be effected by transfer acumen - a flawed and high risk strategy for any club let alone SFC. Add to this a manager who currently looks beaten and frustrated before a ball is kicked and it’s difficult to be optimistic. So, if this seemingly disconnected Board sanction what is needed and we get some backbone and luck (Tella turning in a Pahars type season per se) we could end up around 14/15. No investment or poor investment and I think we are down this time.

Destined to disappear up his own Uranus...

Austin will still be droning on about Saints when he's back hod-carrying on a building site in Swindon aged fifty 'I was on forty-grand a week nipper, Koeman and Van Dijk I shit 'em...' Thick as mince.

I think the club have arranged the big name departures to coincide with the final friendlies, so I reckon JWP will be off up the A34 at around 2.45 Saturday - brace yourselves! I blame Matt Targett as he is clearly the catalyst for this exodus, like Lambert when he went to Liverpool. The thought of the trio strolling down the Bournville Boulevard fills me with dread

Looks like Ward-Prowse was the Patsy all along, they were really after Ings. To be fair to Danny he has made no secret of always wanting to play for Aston Villa and live in the midlands. I have no doubt that he has the potential to be the new Charles N'Zogbia.

They need to get Les Reed to market this for it to be viable - we don't do intelligence, we artificialize it...

The problem is how do you capture those issues in a suitable dignified pose for 10 seconds before kick-off. You don't want to weaken the message to the masses by turning it into a psuedo-political hokey-cokey.

In the latter stages of the EUROs it was more of a 'taking the curtsy' - by October it will likely be just a knowing nod.

Let's hope so.

Looks a terrific young player and something of a coup for the current Saints set up. Would be great to see these prospects blended with some quality experience (like Walcott with Tella) to hone their abilities. I am of the McMenemy era so a degree of romanticism in this regard but would be great, and moreover entertaining, to see and Christ we all need a boost!

What a shithouse!

I think we should hold out for £65 million, or £25 million and Matt Targett.

Par for the course in Thornhill.