Patches O Houlihan

In case you didn't spot this this previously I will post it again - to try to raise some spirits after a frustrating afternoon at St Marys. Although I do recognise we need some attacking threats too.

Needed: Edozie to the Championship on loan, replaced by someone more creative than BBD and Arma on the wing. New striker to compete with BBD, Archer & LND if fit. Just toothless today, Smallbone has been fine mostly but today was all that frustrates you about his game. On the plus side: Taylor & Fernades looked pretty good and combined well to create a 1 yard tap in opportunity that Archer really ought to be burying If Aribo had given it a bit of Peter Kay the score would have looked a lot better. McCarthy didn't fuck up today. Well done Alex

Taylor & Fernandes creating best opportunity if the game

Is it just me or has every corner we’ve taken across both PL games been utter shit?

Joe had an opportunity to boot it away and didn’t

Great play by Suga

THB having a bit of a shocker today

By all means, but maybe you can enjoy doing it without having to play Eeyore every week 🐴

There’s the fighting positivity we know you for Alex. Never one to write off a player too early. Always willing to give the benefit of the doubt. 💪

Remember that it was our first game in the PL. Sugawara’s debut, and after BBDs antics all of St James’ Park was baying for blood. I’m not surprised he wanted to leave one of our most experienced & streetwise players on the pitch, particularly our captain. Without care we could very easily have gone to pieces and embarrassingly lost 3-0; but we didn’t, and as a consequence the atmosphere for todays game against Forest is still positive.

No I think you're more likely to have it right. Ramsdale's best mate is at Bournemouth and they have deeper pockets, so surely he Is more likely to go there? We may be ahead of Wolves though in his interest. Also there is the small matter of money. He would be comfortably our top earner if we were ever to pay all his wages. Does that potentially create a rift in the squad with a newbie?

Cardiff on Wednesday maybe. No chance RM will throw him in to play tippy tappy passes with defenders he doesn’t even recognise. Although in fairness unlikely to be worse than McCarthy at Newcastle

From the Reddit thread: Flamengo fan here. Victor Hugo has been massively sabotaged by our club, something that happens to everyone of our academy players nowadays. I'm confident Vini Jr wouldn't get playtime if he was coming up now, especially with our trashcan of a coach who sabotaged current-level Vini at the freaking World Cup. Victor Hugo carries the ball really well, is capable of beating his man, is phisically developed for his age, has a knack for getting into the box and scoring. The problem is that his confidence is shot since he barely plays and our coach hates youngsters, so he hasn't been doing these things in the rare instances he gets a chance. He was never given time to develop, but he's only 20 and started featuring for us at 18. He's not a player to be involved in a trade, he was supposed to go for 20M minimum, so if you develop him you'll be good. [13 upvotes]

I'd say that Flynn or THB are more natural leaders. When he first joined us he did used to visibly flap when under pressure, and English isn't his first language of course. I don't remember too many times when he has been sent out to face the cameras post match either. That said I feel like his game has really come on since returning from Villa, and he is rightly amongst the first names on the team sheet and our first choice centre back. Keep up the good work Jan would love to see him sign up for another 4 or 5 years.

I note that Sky are describing the Ramsdale loan discussion as 'Loan with option to buy' ie Arsenal get their player bought; which they want. We get a solution that is more flexible for our finances over the next season or two. Also as suggested it might just be a negotiating tactic for Bijlow. Either way we would end up with a high quality no2 from a national side who is trying to impress enough to be in the no1 shirt.

The way RM talked about him in the press conference and the way that every Portuguese person seems to comment on him suggests that they think he is going to be something special. The Portuguese seem to think he has potential to be one of the stars in the Portuguese national team, and they want to see him progress well. RM said that they were recruiting specifically for players who really wanted to be at Saints, and not just in the a shop window. For Fernandes and for other players that want to fight for a place in a national team (like Bijlow) Saints offers the chance to play every week, and in the toughest league in the world: Much better than weeks on the bench at a dysfunctional Chelsea or Man Utd.

I tracked down that World's Best Goalkeeper rating article at everybodyscoccer.com (1st January 2024) Everybody Soccer returns with its installment of the top goalkeepers in the world. Goalkeepers are rated on their form with club and country, taking into account their success in shot-stopping, distribution, cross-management, and ability to improv on a broken play. To view past rankings, you can click here to see the prior lists in a spreadsheet or visit the list of the top 24 goalkeepers under 24 years old. Now anybody can write a list. So I'll let you pull it apart and see if you can find fault. I've highlighted players we have been linked with Allison - Liverpool, Brazil Jan Oblak - Athletico Madrid, Slovenia Manuel Neuer - Bayern Munich, Germany Thibaut Courtois - Real Madrid, Belgium Ederson - Man City, Brazil Gianluigi Donnarumma - PSG, Italy Arnau Tenas - PSG, Spain Emiliano Martinez - Aston Villa, Argentina Alphonse Areola - West Ham, France Marc Ter Stegen - Barcelona, Germany 11. Unai Simón - Athletic Bilbao, Spain (26) 12. Kevin Trapp - Eintracht Frankfurt, Germany (32) 13. Kepa Arrizabalaga - Real Madrid, Spain (29) 14. David Raya - Brentford, Spain (28) 15. Dominik Kotarski - PAOK Salonika, Croatia (23) 16. Alex Remiro - Real Sociedad, Spain (28) 17. Justin Bijlow - Feyenoord, Netherlands (26) 18. Gregor Kobel - Dortmund, Switzerland (26) 19. Andriy Lunin - Real Madrid, Ukraine (24) 20. Iñaki Peña - Barcelona, Spain (24) 21. David de Gea - Free Agent, Spain (33) 22. Edouard Mendy - Al-Ahli, Senegal (31) 23. Illan Meslier - Leeds United, France (23) 24. Mike Maignan - AC Milan, France (28) 25. Keylor Navas - PSG, Costa Rica (37) 26. Wojciech Szczesny - Juventus, Poland (33) 27. Luca Zidane - SD Eibar, France (25) 28. Péter Gulácsi - RB Leipzig, Hungary (33) 29. Aaron Ramsdale - Arsenal, England (25) 30. Lukasz Fabianski - West Ham United, Poland (38) 31. Hugo Lloris - Tottenham, France (37) 32. Walter Benítez - PSV Eindhoven, Argentina (30) 33. Kasper Schmeichel - Anderlecht, Denmark (37) 34. Matheus - SC Braga, Brazil (31) 35. Pau López - Marseille, Spain (29) 36. Rubén Blanco - Marseille, Spain (28) 37. Lukas Hradecky - Bayer Leverkusen, Finland (34) 38. Anthony Lopes - Lyon, Portugal (33) 39. André Onana - Manchester United, Cameroon (27) 40. Rui Patrício - Roma, Portugal (35) 41. Bernd Leno - Fulham, Germany (31) 42. Jordan Pickford - Everton, England (29) 43. Franco Israel - Sporting CP, Uruguay (23) 44. Maarten Vandevoordt - Genk, Belgium (21) 45. Salvatore Sirigu - Nice, Italy (37) 46. Pepe Reina - Villarreal, Spain (41) 47. Paul Bernardoni - Konyaspor, France (26) 48. Robert Sanchez - Chelsea, Spain (26) 49. Mathew Ryan - AZ Alkmaar, Australia (31) 50. Sam Johnstone - Crystal Palace, England (30)

Apparently Bijlow was rated the world's 17th best keeper back in January. He is currently 2nd keeper for the Dutch but is pushing for the no1 jersey: That's why he has been approached by Liverpool, Manchester United and Atletico Madrid and turned them down. He wants to be first choice, play every week and nail down that Netherlands place. We are currently probably the 28th-40th most powerful/richest club in the world. If you bear in mind that the super clubs will have multiple top level keepers we are punching above our weight with this guy. Something has got to give, and in this case it is that he has been in collisions a bit too often. Feyenoord supporters have accused him of being too brave. No wonder RM wants him.

You know you have a problem when Raheem Sterling is captain of the bomb squad, and you have committed to paying him another £50 million between now and June 2026.

I was there, and he did. Gillingham were 3-0 up, and packed the final third. Because we didn't have our first team out, they were trying whatever they could, and that included putting it in the mixer. I don't remember him even getting his head on one. The only player who made a difference that day was Charley who played like a man possessed. But even I can see that it doesn't look likely to work out for him at Saints.

He didn't at Gillingham

No pressure! 😁

Personally I think that Edozie needs to go on loan to the Championship. His skillset is not going to regularly beat PL defenders, and even when he does, historically he hasn't been able to find a Saints player with a pass - and that will only get harder playing against better defenders. Sulemana - do we need a specialist psychologist or trainer for him? He's been hopeless for us, but you see glimpses of a very special player in training videos. I guess only RM & his staff can really answer that. Dibling got pushed off the ball a bit against Newcastle, but hopefully he'll learn from that. SAA I also think is worth having around. If one or both of Edozie & Sulemana depart for cash then I can see us getting a winger. What concerns me is that against a big solid defence at St James's Park, Archer and Arma (and to a lesser extent BBD) looked swamped. We needed a big strong physical centre forward (not Tall Paul). In that situation last season a fully fit, athletic Ross Stewart would have been just the ticket. But of course there is a big question mark about that this season. That's why if funds are limited I would prefer a solid centre forward before a winger.

Charley was

I could see the argument that we don't have a Tadic. Would your opinion change if we swapped Alcaraz for Victor Hugo? Do you think Fernandes might be able to provide some creative output? Will signing Big Les allow Flynn to play up a bit more? He created 3 chances at Newcastle.