adrian lord

Not as good as one would’ve hoped, that first half, given the lineup and the sense that we have been on an upward trajectory of form.

Need to get to half time evens.

He's very vulnerable to relapse. I suspect Sky, who have sacked everyone else in his generation of pundits, only keep him on out of pity because they know that without the structure and purpose of his job with them he'd probably fall apart.

Shot!

Need to stop fannying around at the back - and I am not talking about the action on the pop-ups!

Fast and furious at the moment .

come on Saints!

Thank you, but what I saw on the links certainly wasn't association football!

What I enjoy is hope, anticipation, and some success as perennial underdogs. Whatever the league, but as a general rule, the higher the league that one experiences that, the better it is. But inevitably, these things are less likely the higher up in the pyramid we are. There are problems inherent to the Premier League that suffocate the essence of why we love football. I have concluded that VAR, or perhaps the way it is operationalised, is the biggest problem. It kills sporting spontaneity and the elation of the dopamine hit. Superfluous technology rarely improves sport for player or spectator.

Interestingly, Riyadh was looking to "normalise" relations with Israel. So it would have been fine, but... Riyadh is a sworn enemy of the present Iranian regime, who are fighting Riyadh via their proxies, the Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Iranian regime has of course expressed the wish to eliminate Israel from the map Hamas (and Hezbollah) like the Houthis, are in effect Iranian proxies fighting against Israel Hence the warming of relations between Riyadh and Tel Aviv, has among several motivations, that they share a common enemy in Iran and her proxies. There is therefore a school of thought that the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7th was in part motivated by an Iranian desire to torpedo the imminent normalisation of relations between Saudia Arabia and Israel. If so, it has certainly postponed any such diplomatic thawing for probably at least several years and therefore been a success on that front. ...so who knows now? It is 11 years away so a lot can happen.

You can just see Alcaraz is good for dressing room morale. I like him.

Goodness knows where 8 minutes came from. Getting on for 10% of normal duration.

Overall this has been an immensely improved performance, most notably Martin's much-vaunted passing game has finally clicked for long periods. Crucially, the players' movement has been far better, and accompanied by more rapid, and more accurate passing. Some great finishing to cap it all off. We remain vulnerable when harried aggressively by teams - I believe the youngsters call it "pressing"?

YES!

Fraser??

come on Saints

Dare I say it, but we may have weathered the storm from Wayne Rooney's Birmingham.

Better.

Our passing has collapsed.

oh my giddy aunt.

FFS

This is a classy performance.

nearly....

Smallbone having a good game.

So far so good.