Holmes_and_Watson

My initial thought was that I'd rather nothing got said at all. We are in a decent place, so why mess with it with such statements. I was hoping, that with the new owners in place, he'd get to see the fruits of his hard work for a long time to come. But it's a long time away. I hope we're in a position where there aren't calls for him to go before then. That our trajectory is upwards. It also gives the club every opportunity to plan ahead. Better this, than scrambling around in the last summer, when he decides not to renew. Besides, we'll always have his play book.

No doubt there's been players who have patted and kissed their badges and who were the first out the door as soon as the next window opened. But I'd prefer seeing Armstrong's actions to him taking off the shirt and throwing it at the manager. 🙂 I hope that if there was anything behind him not playing ealrier, that it's all resolved and that he'll stay for a long time to come (caveat of keeping up at least a decent bit of form during that time).

Weird ref decisions in this one. Over zealous with cards in the first half. A game littered with stoppages for free kicks. Ref's reluctance to follow through on his card decisions meant there were bookable, persistent fouls in the second that were let go. He booked someone for winning a header at one point. Yet, he was always in control of the game and there weren't too many complaints from the players. He did offer his book and whistle to Salah, after some complaining as if saying "are you running this game?"

Thanks for the league update Vectis. It's opening up a bit more than I thought it would.

Ex-Saint scores winning pen at AFCON. Can't imagine it being a different headline anywhere else. 🙂 Back up headline of brother of Saints player scores in AFCON final.

Snack

Trick

Thanks for the summary Chez. Good to see there were positives in there.

Perhaps, like a modern day Samson, Grealish's man-child attitude was all in his hair. I doubt it, as I doubt seeing the restraint shown by Romeu to not rearrange more on his head than his hair, will have had an impact either. We'll see.

It didn't look good for him. It's unfortunate, but I'd have fancied Broja, on current form, and in the way Coventry playes, to have more of an impact on the game. And impact was needed. There is the question on there being too many starting changes prompting the need to bring him into the game. But then, he was one of those changes. Had he started and got crocked, I'm sure the manager would be getting questioned too.

Disapointed that, from what I'm reading, Small didn't have a good game. Hopefully, he'll be taught/ learn from that game. Disapointed about Walcott too. We're probably going to have him for another season, and I'm sure everyone was hoping he'd have more of an impact.

Two good bits of skill to get us the points. At the end, Coventry were coming forward and Long, Armstrong and Redmond looked to control it. But no excuses for the 5 mins before that, when in the lead gifting opportunities for Coventry to equalise. Good 'keeping and an offside kept us in the lead. I didn;t see the first half, so can;t say if Saints played with more intensity. They seemed to lack drive even when 1 down. Some things to learn form this one, but got there in the end. Yay!

Oh for ....

I can only hope that would have been offside.

Yay!

Not really anything to suggest Saints are going to finish this off. They need to step it up to avoid pens. Coventry have had some moments, that didn;t come to anything, but were more likely to than anything we were doing.

Some Broja run...

I only got back to see from 50 mins on. Not lots of momentum, in either exploiting Coventry when they tried to counter, nor in working their defence when they sat back. Redmond coming on was an improvement. But it took a super Armstrong strike to get Saints back into this. I'm not sure they would have been able to without it.

I'd like to think that The Diver Formerly Known As Alice Band Boy would have wound me up had he played for us. But if he'd come up through our ranks with goals and assists...

Not to mention allowing endless rolling subs to allow a better reflection of a club's true xG potential for those 90mins. Offside can go too. If that still isn't enough to stack the deck, big clubs should go into games with xG bonuses based on their last season plus a bonus based on their TV audience draw. The future of football! 😊

Stand

U-Turn

Submarine

That was my first thought on it too. Put the proper badge on it. If you're trying to merge it, then it's not really our badge.

Dusty