Patches O Houlihan

Dibling, Ramsdale, Fernandes, Downes, Lallana were all great today. Haggrid messed up a couple of kicks, but made some excellent saves that no keeper we have had in the last 5 years gets to. Absolutely no chance for the massively deflected equaliser.

Nessie does seem to be missing a little sharpness right now, which to be fair seems reasonable after the best part of two years out and no pre-season. What he does give us is the big target man to hold it up, which we were all calling for at the end of the transfer window. It is really frustrating though; it feels like there is a glass ceiling for strikers when you are a club of our stature. SR went all out for Gakpo and missed out - fan base pissed off (quite reasonably) felt like he was probably out of our league SR have tried to hold onto and promote a promising young forward (Dibling - doing OK so far, and signed a new contract in December) SR tried to sign an injured player who would be out of our league if fit (Stewart, similar to Ings) SR tried to sign Championship strikers who seem like they might make the grade (Archer, BBD - also Arma and Che previously) SR tried to bring in a high scoring experienced foreign striker from an unsexy league (Tall Paul) When you're our size it feels like you have to get promoted with a Lambert or Vardy in your team, because you are unlikely to sign a James Beattie, Son Heung Min or Richarlison nowadays

Because the players are having to play at 100% capacity just to make the grade; they get tired, and mistakes get made. Was the same under Ralph

There was nothing wrong with the tactics or team selection: Play out to encourage a 4 or 5 man press - then play it over them into space for Archer and Fraser to run on to. Way way too easy to try to pin that on Martin. Archer missed one after doing well to enable it BBD missed a couple of opportunities Stewart could have done better getting on a couple of crosses.

He's been good, but Ramsdale's saves have been superb

You know the answer to this - so you'll need to try harder to get a rise out of me 😉

I was specifically responding to this statement from Dark Helmet: "He could end up with a record even worse than Nathan Jones." Even if he was fired after losing 10 PL games in a row he would still have a better record than the Welshman with a chip on both shoulders.

WTF?! RM managed us to a promotion, winning The Richest Game in Football™ for many fans one of the most enjoyable days following Saints they can remember. Nathan Jones wasted the World Cup window, lost 8 of 9 PL games and was sacked after just 95 days. The cup wins against Lincoln Town, Everton plus the genuinely unbelievable match against Man City must be doing a lot of heavy lifting in your head!

Men against Boys 🤔

Benarek will have been knackered Saturday lunchtime - not a long period to recover for this game, and hence would be risking injury. An injury to Bednarek, and Stephens suspended wouldn't be ideal against Ipswich & Bournemouth.

😉

At least it was on target. This one pissed me off quite a lot

Adam Blackmore's interview with Russ suggested a few changes, but that he will be taking it seriously. We can't afford to get humped, and then try to win a six pointer against Ipswich with no momentum whatsoever

There's not much wrong with this, although I might delay Tall Paul for a game or two yet, and I thought Fernandes and Big Les showed good potential starting their first PL games for us.

What are you getting at? You literally quoted my answer earlier! You saying that you didn't think our most consistent international centre back signing a contract extension was good news. I think this statement is that of someone with very little understanding of football finance. That it also insults one of our senior players warrants you getting one of these.

Is that really all you've got? Villa sadly are a bigger club than us, and have deeper pockets.

These quotes are just from the last 17 days. Yes the club don't always make the best decisions, and aren't always blessed with luck. But perhaps after last season's turnaround and promotion, Adam Lallana showing he can still play a bit, and 'Ross Stewart rising miraculously from the dead' we might just cut them a bit of slack for the next month or two... Bloody well done Ross for getting back to fitness and playing your first 34 Premier League minutes; even if it was under particularly difficult circumstances. I'm looking forward to seeing him play regularly, as his style could work well for us, and certainly offers a contrast from BBD/Archer/Armstrong/Cornet/Tall Paul.

So that means win all our league games then (Everton match is in the League Cup)

He played two full games for Ireland - maybe that is part of the reasoning? The write up I saw suggested he was Ireland's best player in the second one (but that they were crap)

Even if you don't think he is good enough for the premier league. Even if you think he should never play for Saints again. The fact that he has signed a contract has just added about £12m to his value to us! Sell Bednarek in January - he's worth ~£3m In June Bednarek is out of contract and he walks away for nothing Or get him to sign a contract and we get a "28 year old CB, with 150 odd Premier League appearances, and 62 caps for Poland (FIFA rank 26)" that we can choose to sell for ~£15m or play him. Bearing in mind since his return from Villa he has easily been our most consistent and reliable central defender; clearly still values playing for us and wants to stay, and has effectively given the club ~£12m I would call that "Good News" In fairness it is not just this comment: There's plenty more on Twitter and elsewhere on SaintWeb that are also worth the odd helmet emoji. Also his signing might persuade KWP that he would be better to sign a new contract too; rather than risk his career going the way of Ings & JWP. Bednarek came close with the loan to Villa and clearly has decided which side his bread is buttered.

Not only this (and I'm very pleased he has signed) but he goes from being worth nothing on 1st June 2025 to being worth ~£15m. It's excellent work getting him to re-sign.

Best pull your finger out then and offer some advice; there's a lanky Nigerian bloke we need to shoehorn into a Süper Lig side sharpish

I'm getting sick of requesting the bedwetting emoji. Maybe it ought to be a helmet emoji instead.

[cynic]But no doubt his parents have paid their mortgage off which they wouldn't have done if he'd stayed here [/cynic]

You know he's been Brighton's player since January right?