The Cat

A few years ago the cricket team I played for arranged a friendly. Turned out to be a team of kids aged 17-21, all of whom were from Indian families. They were incredible. Some of the most confusing spin and sweetest timers of the ball I'd seen. Afterwards I asked them if they played in a league because a few of them were better than pretty much anyone I'd previously played against. None of them did, said they weren't interested in it and pretty much spent their time playing in the park or on the street. I've no doubt there are similar kids who have slipped through the system in football. For example my son plays with a kid whose Dad is from Afghanistan. He joined the team at 9 years old and is the most skilful player they have. His family have zero interest in football and he learnt by practising in his garden. In a couple of years and with the right coaching he will be absolutely brilliant.

We looked down under the shelf part and the seats used in the original lower tier were visible. As for the stadium itself, well it's mightily impressive but as a football ground it isn't great. It would do my head in having to go there every other week if I was a West Ham fan.

Through a friend whose son knows academy players. I also know someone who works at Staplewood and St Mary's sometimes. Granted they might not seem like the most ultra amazing K Billy type ITK contacts but from what they've both said it does appear that the atmosphere around the academy is so much better.

Spurs players were pushing and shoving each other in the tunnel after the game and had to be separated while being physically escorted back into the dressing room. Seems a bit much after an U23 match but I guess it shows they care.

Puel is dealing with the Academy players in a completely different way to Koeman. Morale amongst all the youth players is extremely high again and the hunger is back. From what I hear they are all loving the new management team; they feel involved because Puel spends time with them all, takes a huge interest in their training sessions and matches and the promise of a pathway into the first team is back on track.

Agree with all of this. Problem is they are all competing for viewers, listeners or clicks and as much as the other hundreds of clubs fans love their team they don't generate as much media traffic as the big 5 or 6 do. For me the worst part is when a top club loses and the other team get a patronising mention like "didn't Southampton play well" at which point they move back to discussing what the big team did wrong.

If you want to experience a proper English atmosphere I'd sugvest give this one a swerve and going to wherever Pompey are playing that day instead.

Brilliant. Tadic was warming up by us when Hesketh scored and was celebrating with a massive smile on his face

Highlights coming up on C5 after the break.

I would have thought so. We won 3 away games in a week in January 2015 (Man Utd, Ipswich, Newcastle) which is a record that not many teams would have achieved.

Weird to see him playing so deep in midfield. I got the impression Palace really weren't bothered about the result.

Most flights out Wednesday and Thursday morning will be full of Saints. Can't wait to see all the selfies from the steps of the plane posted on social media.

My Brother Jake by Free We love you Jake Making the plays The way Puel says We love you Jake Don't ever think about changing your ways

Solid performance against a pretty dire Palace team. Pretty much everyone came out of that with credit, but the main thing for me was that the players are always looking for forward passes. The movement is much better than it was under Koeman and everyone is looking for gaps and runs rather then being happy to turn around and build slowly from the back. I'm not saying that we will get better results with Puel, but it looks like we will be playing far more attractive attacking football.

Jordan Robertson got locked up after he left. Only managed 10 games on loan for us, his single goal was an absolute screamer against Norwich.

Turns out it was better than reasonably good source, it was spot on.

Heard today from what should be a reasonably good source that we will get more tickets. I'm still not convinced it's true though.

Redmond MOTM according to Danny Murphy on MOTD. Also said great credit should be paid to Puel for playing him up front which is quite at odds with a few comments on here.

He was injured either late in the Sparta game or in training. Wasn't in the squad today.

McCarthy Martina Stephens Yoshida Targett Hojbjerg Reed JWP Isgrove Austin Long Give VVD and Tadic the night off.

Rotated out of the squad according to a tweet from Solent. Pretty sure he'll be in the team on Wednesday.

Really enjoyed the performance today. We are starting to look really fluid and once we add Boufal into the mix of options up front we will terrorise some teams. Romeu was very good again, VVD is just wonderful to watch and Tadic linked the play superbly. Excellent finish from Austin. We could have scored more but 1 was enough. Only real negative was the absolute whoppers singing Austin's name after Redmond missed. That was seriously out of order; we should be chanting Redmond's name there to encourage him. I feel very pleased for Puel. Hopefully people will now realise what he is trying to do and how pleasing on the eye our football will be.

Heaton's save was good. Tadic's worst penalty was at Stamford Bridge when it trundled in apologetically past an annoyed Courtois. Boufal takes penalties too so with any luck we'll see a 3 way scrap over one later in the season.

No it isn't. Don't be so overdramatic.

I thought it was funny. As soon as Austin scored Tadic ran over to celebrate with a smile on his face. Really don't see an issue at all.