The Cat

I'd rather have Stephens in there. At least he can shithouse a few strikers along the way and seems to actually care. Bednarek averages out about one good game in 3 or 4, then reverts to type and makes silly mistakes. Lord knows what he was doing for the second goal yesterday.

Poor today I thought. Obviously not the reason we lost but really should have saved the second goal and distribution was bad. Compare his performance with that of Raya who was neat and tidy and comfortable on crosses. Just goes to show there are perfectly adequate keepers out there who don't cost much.

Part 1 is complete.

Probably drop Bednarek for Lyanco, not sure about 3 at the back. Put Romeu back in place of Diallo. Adams has to play as we'll need someone vaguely competent at holding up the ball when we play it forward.

Kjetil Knutsen from Bodo/Glimt? Been linked with Burnley. Plays exciting football, done well in Europe.

I'm going to Leicester. By that point it might be like seeing the lifeless corpse dragged out in a coffin.

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Heard some talk that the new owners want to overhaul the coaching staff but Ralph is resistant to it. Don't think they were/are necessarily thinking of getting rid of him, but can see failings, or gaps in the set up around him. However he is/was happy with how it is currently. I say this as what I heard before today, whether the terrible defeat changes anything I don't know.

Contemplating putting my tickets up on the exchange, especially if Man City drop any points beforehand. Not sure I can sit through us getting hammered while watching Liverpool fans celebrate being a step closer to the title.

Didn't notice that. What bit of the away end was it?

That was a weird juxtaposition between an absolute horror show on the pitch and one of the best away ends of the season. Players rightly got a load of shit when they came over at the end. We have some proper moody fans these days. Loads of flares, people getting kicked out, some tried to get at the home fans outside.

100 ITK points for me.

Yes, I'm surprised by that too. I expected similar to when Koeman went back to the Dutch league for a few signings. The high press is quite a popular tactic in Germany so many players would have been able to slot into our system and be effective in it straight away.

That's actually really nice. The comments from their fans under the tweet are great. Seems like he's had an excellent experience up there which will be good for his development.

Partly due to the league form, partly due to the 18's fielding strong teams because they had a chance to win their league. Otherwise I expect we would have seen a few of them appear in the matchday squad, even if they didn't get on the pitch. I imagine the club are comfortable with the U23 game time a lot of the 18's have had. That's quite a step up in itself, especially with the physical aspect of the game.

Mitchell was very highly rated at Birmingham and they were gutted to lose him when he joined us. Not sure why it hasn't worked out for him or the other two. Many players just don't kick on at 18/19. Look at Pascal Kopohomou. Man City academy, signed for Saints, played for England U16, U17, U18. He's now at AFC Totton. With his youth pedigree you'd have thought he would be a shoe in for a decent career, and he may yet have one, but it just goes to show what can happen.

It's especially dangerous when the player in question is so young they haven't signed a pro contract, this leaves us in a perilous position if other clubs become interested. Every top club in the country already knows how good our youngsters are because they have been playing against them in Academy games for years, however if they make a debut for the first team and look good in that environment it increases the chances of one of them muscling in and making a serious move.

Pretty sure they way it works is that Ralph says "we need a player in X position with X attributes." The scouting team have a list of players they have looked at which match the description. They present him with the list, he narrows it down to a few possibilities and the club go off and see which are achievable signings. Once that's done, and everyone is in agreement, we start negotiations. Of course it's plausible that he may know a specific player he wants, however we all know it isn't that easy to sign the number 1 choice every time.

That Bamford game was a different season because Luke Shaw, Chambers, Ward Prowse etc were playing in it. I went to watch both of those games at St Mary's. The Pompey 7-0 game was probably 2013/14 season? Think the Bamford one was 2011 or 2012. He's 28 now so that would be about right.

Yep, he's been with them all week. Should be on the bench. All very exciting. Hope to see him come on and make his debut.

And that buffoon Royston Smith is still saying Boris Johnson is the right man to lead the country. Tories down to one Councillor in Eastleigh and lost control of Portsmouth. Fareham still Tory though, never thought you could trust anyone from there.

I went to watch the Southampton cup final at St Mary's. Finished in a comfortable 3-0 win for Totton over Folland. Had guest tickets because I know one of the officials, sat in the comfy seats just above the clock. Got to wander around the corporate areas, the honours board with the list of ex-chairmen is still there with Rupert Lowe's name scratched out, haha.

Hopefully the fact that Real have nothing to play for over the next few weeks will mean they come into the final fit and refreshed, whereas Liverpool have to play at full pelt to try and win the league and FA Cup with 2 games every week.

Stoneham 5-0.