CSA96

Do you think West Ham and Man City loaned us Downes and THB without caring if they sat on the bench? There's even strong reporting of Everton taking Holgate back because we haven't delivered the game time they were expecting. I think it's pretty standard for a club to want to know if their player will actually play or not, especially if they've just been on a loan where they didn't play - as with Carvalho in the Bundesliga.

I call that a Salisu.

Sulemana is probably off to AFCON... Arma is a striker and if Che goes he will soak up more of the ST minutes. Leaves us with Fraser (best contributions have been as a sub) and Edozie (who is really good right now, but has been hot and cold across his time at Saints in general) We said we wanted a RW in the summer and tried for Philogene at the deadline, so clearly something Martin still wants. Makes sense because if you look at our build-up play it is lopsided and totally different on the left compared to the right.

To be fair, I'd have described Edozie as flimsy and lacking work rate until lately, where he's locked into Martin's system. Hopefully MB is not injury prone, given we only need him to stay fit for four or five months and contribute. We have other good wingers and could rotate quite easily.

There’s this guy at Lyon called Ainsley Maitland-Niles…

The change in the atmosphere as the season has progressed was well-illustrated by the fact Itchen North, Northam and Kingsland were chanting his name immediately after the fuck up and he responded later on with applause 👍🏻

Also suggests that the Saints commercial folks got the pricing right in the summer when we were all waiting to see what they'd do with STs and general admission - fair play, having seen some of the prices around the league (looking at you, Sheffield Wednesday) I think ours are pretty fair.

Four goals conceded in 10 games is really impressive stuff.

Should be a belting atmosphere

Also revealed that he told the squad and staff he’d decided they could all have Christmas off after the run of form, but that he was trusting them not to totally slack off when it came to today’s game. Fair play They’re now in at Staplewood every day between now and NYD

For the opener he also went 'ARRIBA, ARRIBA, ARIBO!'

FFS

Steven Schumacher is leaving Plymouth Argyle to become the new Stoke City manager. Nathan Jones to Plymouth just in time for December 29 @ St. Mary's?

In which case, those fans should be given free season tickets.

Leeds and Ipswich both play on Tuesday night (Sunderland and Watford away, respectively) so we'll go into this knowing if there's a chance to pull the gap back down.

FT: Watford 1-1 Saints

Fucking ballbags.

Holy shit, 3-0

Ryan Fraser has been really impactful since coming on

Well finished from Adams too. Nice little touch and then absolutely rifled it with his left

I mean, surely there's no chance (given he is a Cardiff fan) but his old assistant at Saints, Alan Sheehan, is currently the Swansea caretaker and the Swans' DoF is Paul Watson, who was the head of operations at Luton Town when old mate Jonesy was there...