The Cat

Hi tajjuk, do you train goalkeepers, or were you one at a decent level? Otherwise I suggest that a lot of your criticisms of McCarthy are completely wide of the mark. On your 1-7 points I only really agree with you on 1 & 2. Saints are clearly trying to coach that into him, however it's rather late in a keepers career to be doing this. He's played probably 20 years without having been expected to do much of the more modern sweeper keeper style football. We clearly bought Gunn because of his footballing ability but unfortunately he hasn't yet shown the form we expected with the gloves. Therefore we decided to try and add this dimension to McCarthy's game instead. He's clearly trying to improve on it but unless we get a new keeper then you'll have to accept his limitations in this area. Points 3, 4 and 5 are incorrect. He's fine on those, not outstanding but fine. Point 6, I believe he was up there on crosses claimed last season compared to other Prem keepers. Point 7 is pretty much redundant because all keepers do this, even the best ones. Lloris is a world cup winner but still got tackled on the goal line by Ings last season. De Gea is one of the best in the world but makes mistakes. Unless you're expecting Saints to sign Oblak your're going to be disappointed in that respect. The technicalities of keeping are vast. Can you tell me about McCarthy's set position or whether his footwork allows him to push off the correct leg? How about his split step or head position when he dives or the angle of his body when the ball is coming across? As I said earlier on the thread he's not a world beater but he's a decent keeper who does a job in this league.

Defensively we played well. They didn't get behind us much and Vestergaard cleared most of their crosses. Wood's a tough striker to play against but he did very well. He also broke the lines coming out of defence with the ball a few times. Romeu was my motm. Covered a lot of ground and far better on the ball than previously. Going forward was, the good goal apart, fairly pedestrian. Djenepo looked very rusty. I expected to see him running at a makeshift defence and causing all sorts of problems but he seemed content to cut inside a lot and play a short pass. I did enjoy his battle with Bardsley though, I think he proper pissed him off. Very pleased with the win, it wasn't great but that doesn't matter.

I'll be going to Sholing today. They've had a decent start to the season, bit annoying they have just been drawn away again in FA Cup especially as it's in Cornwall FFS.

People are getting a bit carried away saying he's crap because he clearly isn't. He's not going to be one of the top few keepers in the league but neither is he a bad keeper.

That seems a common scenario at the moment. It's a total shambles. This is from Private Eye and explains some of the problems.

You might be right on the economy but I think things like track and trace would have been run a lot better under Labour because they would have kept it in house rather than flogging it out to private companies stuffed full of their mates.

More interesting detail in the new Private Eye about how terribly run the testing is and how useless track and trace has become. Mostly it seems to come down to the government's insistence that this would be carried out by private companies such as Deloittes and Serco, rather than actually just letting the local authorities and the NHS sort it out. In Germany you can get a test from your GP. Instead we shut surgeries and made everyone jump in a car and drive to a car park somewhere.

Popmaster is the only thing on Radio 2 worth listening to, the rest of it is complete tripe. Will be interesting to see if there's much change in the BBC's editorial output now it's being run by Tim Davie who has a Tory background and once stood for them in council elections.

Disallowed goal one was a cleanly hit volley from 8 yards. Can't remember the second one. First goal he should have come for but then the shot took a deflection. Otherwise he would have saved it. Next 3 were all 1v1's with Son having most of our half to himself, not really sure what blame he can have for those. On a good day he might have saved one but none were his fault. Didn't see the 5th goal because I'd turned off by then. He's no world beater but neither is he completely terrible like some make out.

Playing the defence so far forward might work against Burnley where they have no quick strikers but against anyone with a fast forward it's suicidal. We were the better team until their 3rd goal and should have been 2 up at half time but then fell apart once Mourinho worked out that chipping the ball over a static defence put them 1v1 in 40 yards of space. I understand that the high line contributes to better attacking play but we'd need to score 7 to have any chance of winning most games with such slow CB's.

If there's any event likely to trigger a second wave its pubs around the country all rammed with people watching Burnley v Saints.

Might not have any effect on their future selection seeing as Walker still got picked after he had those escorts over in peak Covid times.

This woman used to be my boss 20 years ago and was really quite annoying. This has made me laugh quite a lot today. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12595312/bbc-executive-unleashed-leftie-outbursts-twitter/amp/

They hadn't even sold 9000 a couple of weeks ago, I wouldn't have thought there have been 6000 renewals since then.

Everyone has a pass? Are you and your mates only allowed out if your girlfriends let you? I just want to be there watching. By myself, with my kids, with my mates or whatever. Doesn't matter.

Boufal for Redmond? What games has Pilchards been watching? Must be completely different ones to the rest of the world.

Sotonians seems to have an overriding air of smugness about it. It's a no from me. Not606 is alright though.

I can get in by going to activity and then using next unread topic, but if I try and click on a thread it never works.

A few lads in the U15 team have sponsorships, it's not uncommon. Some of them had them last season too.

Wasn't it Leon Best who stole a toilet seat from B&Q or have I totally just made something utterly ridiculous up?

I guess, although I've always just gone to football on a Saturday, any game, any level. Must be mad but I'd rather freeze my tits off watching Southern or Wessex league than be indoors with Soccer Saturday on.

Can't remember the last time I watched it. Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather spend my Saturday afternoon at live match than sitting on the sofa watching other people watch football.

Wow. He must be harder than Terry Hurlock to have got up from being tasered.

Maybe the police in the US should be given Tasers as well as guns. Go for Taser first, use gun only as a back up if necessary. Jacob Blake could have been tasered before he got anywhere near the car door. He wouldn't now be paralysed.

Redbird, who are the main company rather than RedBall, are minority investors in the New York Yankees along with MSD. https://apnews.com/3cff30de8b44464b8d0b6723cb620bcf