trousers

He looks a tad more shouty than your average son-in-law, so that'll please some people

I think this is where I'm leaning towards now, although I'm always inclined to give a manager up to c.10 games at the start of a given season before calling for them to go. Yes, I know we've arguably got all the evidence we already need about Ralph's pedigree, given the woeful second half of last season, so there's some merit to the "why wait, get rid of him now" camp, but there's still a possibiliy he could rekindle the successful first half of last season but without the wheels falling off the wagon half way through again. That said, I agree that his apparent lack of tactical agility, especially in the second half of games, is a significant issue. So, in summary, I'm struggling to get my arse of this fence that I'm currently sitting on!

No-one is saying he can't make interceptions, we're just interested in how good he is at it based on % success rate. Over the last 12 months, I've hit the fairway off the tee 84 times. Does that make me good at driving a golf ball off the tee or do you need to know how many times I missed the fairway too in order to make a judgement?

I wondered if anyone would notice that he conveniently skipped over that point

Yep, would be my first choice, if we can afford him

Would be interesting to know what his "percentage completion" rate on attempted interceptions was. A player with 84 out of, say, 200 inteception opportunities/attempts could be considered poor at interceptions compared to a player with 62 interceptions out of 100 opportunities/attempts (for example) Or maybe I'm over-thinking stuff for a change

That's a much better hypothesis than mine! Either way, it highlights that there is usually more context behind raw stats.

Fair point, but I'm just slightly wary when someone gives a politcian-esque answer to a question. "Nat Phillips is not a target" would have sufficed if we had zero interest in him. Adding "right now" on the end suggests they haven't ruled him out. (somewhat pedantic semantics I admit, but just a wee observation)

Could a high number of interceptions by a defender be more of an indication of the quality of our midfield rather than how good the defender is, per se? i.e. maybe Brighton's defensive midfield was more effective at protecting their defenders than we were (for example). Alternatively, I could be talking nonsense. (evens bet usually)

Do we know what Cahill's fitness status is? i.e. is he in the "his legs have gone" category of older players yet? I'm just wondering if his experience and leadership qualities, and how that might help improve our younger CBs, could outweigh the cons of his age and dwindling fitness/pace etc?

Not "right now" but could be "tomorrow" (for example).

I guess it could be argued that doing Leicester a small favour for this weekend's game could indirectly favour us too given their opponent (Wolves) are more of a direct rival to us than Leicester are...

Eamonn Holmes

What's happened to Smallbone's head?

10th

https://twitter.com/SouthamptonFC/status/1424024379793494029?s=19

Late to the party... Do we know why Walcott hasn't been in the starting line-up for either of the two St. Mary's friendlies?

0-0

I think that's a decent hypothesis. Villa have only posted one relatively low-key tweet about Ings joining them which gives the impression that the deal came as a much a surprise to them as it did to us. You'd normally expect to see a fanfare of tweets for such a high profile signing. So, yep, it's a fair hunch that it was Saints pulling the strings on this rather than the other way around.

Textbook

It's 837 to be precise, but fair point.

Well remembered that man... It's a fair cop. I'll figure out a new way of ducking out of futile discussions on an internet football forum in future