sandwichsaint

A good gutsy win in the end. First half we were pretty poor, second half much better. Disappointed for Martin who was given a rare start but on this form easy to see why he's behind Jaidi and Seabourne in the pecking order, but I'm sure he will bounce back. Yeovil were quite tidy for the first 30 minutes but faded very badly in the second half, over those two games you would have to fancy Walsall's chances of staying up over Yeovil's. Atmosphere was shocking (what atmosphere?) - a bit of board banging and singing at the back of the Northam but that hardly reached halfway down. Can't really put it down to 'nerves' either as it wasn't a nervous night. More like we seem to have reached our collective tether watching Saints make hard work of beating very limited sides, have to say I prefer away games by a factor of about 10! I didn't hear much booing or getting on people's cases either, but I did hear a lot about the people around me's love lifes, what they had for tea, and what they watched on telly last night ... and this was is in block 41 row U. Sort it out fans!

**** poor so far! Scratchy at the back, disjointed in midfield and jack acuity up front. We are making Y look good and they really aren't. You gotta luv winning ugly!

Tempted to have a tenner on Yeovil at 8-1! I'm quite happy to pay a ten pound premium to see Saints win, and I don't think I could face another carp drive home after Hartlepool and Walsall; eighty quid to cover my fuel and ticket might just provide a small tad of comfort - not sure how I cover the draw though? Tense, nervous, bad-tempered evening, 2-1 Saints (just).

The only good thing about bourno going up is that they would likely fill one of next years relegation spots. If they go up it' s a crapp away game you can't get tkts for. And it perpetuates this faux 'rivalry' for another season. Fair play to where they are and fully deserved but I would be quite happy if they didn't go up, for forty years they have barely registered on my football radar, let's leave them to well deserved lower league obscurity. PS Howe well is Eddie doing at Burnley?

Magic result , well done team, well done NA, well done all who went. Can't wait for Tuesday now, lets see 22k happy smiley faces getting behind the team for 90 minutes!

Park at the station, exit, go across and right towards the town centre and takes you into a road with the Norfilk and a couple of other pubs. Shuttle bus to the ground is cheap and efficient but you do have to queue after the game. Last year we got on in 10 mins but it takes 30-40 mins to clear everybody. Colours no problem. Hopefully a better performance and result than last year!

Interesting thoughts and this has crossed my mind on more than a few occaisions - standing at Walsall, 1-0 down and mindlessly hoofing it down blind alleys and watching Walsall defend doggedly and then pick us off with some neat passing and counter-attacking I thought it again. All we have to do to be successful is sign 11 'Walsall' players - no more Ricky, no more Kelvin, no more Dan, no more Adam even - we haven't been overly successful with these players, we pay them a fortune by league one standards, yet they are regularly found wanting in terms of playing consistent, winning football. Let's get 11 of those Walsall boys in, think how good they would be with the facilites, opportunities, crowds, that Saints could offer them. They are pretty good playing on carp pitches and playing in front of carp crowds .. think how 'good' they would be playing for a better team! But is that really a true analogy? As soon as they moved to SMS they would move straight into the 'Saints bubble', away from training on school playing fields, riding round in mini-buses and playing for the money to sustain their modest lifestyles, and into a situation where they joined a mini, in all-but-wages, 'Premier League Club'. The best of training, the best of sports science, the best of treatment, a fantastic pitch and stadium, big crowds etc etc. How long would they remain the same players and with the same attributes that make them effective for Walsall or Tranmere or Hartlepool? The reality is they would fall into the 'lifestyle' in a matter of weeks. Saints/NC/NA are performing a very difficult juggling act trying to balance our costs/squad size with the need to get out of L1, we need to get out of L1 asap but we don't want to spend more than is necessary; what's the answer? Brighton and Bompey have found a model that works for them but is it the right model for us? In the real world you might say 'performance related pay' £1000/week (!) basic and £5000/win - nothing for a draw(!), although of course people will tell you 'that football doesn't work like that'. The reality is that a lot of Saints players live and work at a level that is far in excess of most of their peers - fairly much regardless of 'performance', call it a comfort zone if you will. Could it be that a lot of the players have no real incentive to gain promotion? If the better ones want to move up a league then all they have to do is change clubs, for the lower ones if we move up a league they will also be changing clubs - to one that has cold showers and where you wash your own kit! Have to say in all this that I think NC may have steered the wrong balance between 'Ambition' and 'Consolidation', looking at our current position (great set-up, good team, good manager, great fans! BUT struggling to win winnable games and to make the top two in a weak League one) I find talk of the PL, the CL!, and a 50K stadium!! faintly embarassing, it demotivates me every bit as much as it enthuses me, although I know that many fans lap it up (cue the number of posts this week of people who 'have had enough of this carp league'). Is it not somewhat ironical that it is the 'pressure' and the 'expectation' that is probably making it so difficult to get out of this league? Have to think that if we came out tomorrow and said that we are keeping Adkins for the next three seasons we would be further on and in a better place in three year times, than if we have three more mangers over the next three seasons, and who would bet against that at the moment?

This was presumably the role Wotton was bought for, absolutely the right signing at that time but unfortunately the wrong player! We have been looking for a Matty Holland type character for years but have lacked leadership right through the relegation years, pretty much since killer and claus packed up really. I don't know enough names lower down to bandy many about - where did Bailey ex Charlton end up? Failing that who is on the fringes/going nowhere at the bottom of the prem or the top end of the championship? Look how well Carr and Bowyer are playing at Birmingham after being virtually finished at their previous clubs. Modern footballers seem to go on much longer and we could def do with an experienced old head in the middle of the park, just don't buy one that is already crocked ( a la Conolly or Wotton)!

Oh great! It's their cup-final too. It must be that time of the year again, I've just checked my keyboard and the letters T-U-S-M W-I-N E-A-G-M are starting to look suspiciously shiney, I suspect those keys will be getting plenty more use between now and the end of the season.

Lallana was definitely booked around about the 90min mark for back-chatting the ref after the unsighted lino who was 50m wrongly gave them a goalkick over a corner. Perhaps they were both booked? (he says helpfully) Was Chaplow booked at any stage? (if not, how not? he always looks to me like he's one tackle away from a straight red -he tackles with his front leg straight and his studs up all the time)

I do think you make a good point about the differences between say, long passing, a 'direct' style, and more general 'hoofing'. Considering as our best 'long passer' went off in the first 3 minutes maybe that game plan went out of the window a bit? I did see some accurate 'long passes' from Harding, Hammond and sometimes Chaplow. I also saw a lot of 'hoofing' from Davis, Jaidi, Fonte, Butterfield (especially, but he often had very little on in front of him), and Chaplow. In the first half we tried to play a long-pass, counter-attacking game, often trying to hit RL early in the air and him flicking on first time for runners to get onto, this was fairly effective and produced several shots on goal. When this tactic wasn't on we often by-passed midfield with a more general 'hoof' to no one in particular. The only players that really had the ball on the ground in the first half were N'Guessen and AL and they were often double-teamed and pressed high up the pitch to limit their effectiveness (again we have no fast forward to run in behind and recieve a ball down the line). Second half Saints went very 'direct', trying to get the ball into the box as often as possible, usually for RL but also for LB and Chaplow who also got fd well. Very congested in the Walsall box with often 4 defenders in the CB area and them keeping bodies behind the ball and in front of the goal at all times. Our best chances of scoring always looked like a set play and corners looked much better than they usually do: Fonte had at least 4 attempts on target, one stunningly saved and one cleared off the line (know that cos my nipper had 2 quid on him at 40-1! everytime Fonte was denied we were the ones shouting '80-effing-quid'!). Jaidi also had 3 headed attempts and his spectacular volley that flew wide. Saints did try and play through on the ground as well (LB, AL, Chaplow, AOC) but often the penalty area was just too congested to find the final pass - Walsall showed what can be done defensively if every person puts everything they've got on the line - not pretty to watch but they won't care about that and you have to give them credit for playing with that spirit in their circumstances. In answer to your original point - yes there was an awful lot of 'hoofing' (a bad thing) but there was also plenty of legitimate and deliberate 'long ball' and 'direct play' which on another day would have resulted in a comfortable victory.

On another night we would probably have had at least three goals, we had at least 8 genuine goal bound efforts, their keeper pulled off one wonder stop, and several very smart saves, and two blocked on the line, and a flying horizonal block from a defender about 8 yards out. No comparison with the 7 shots at Hartlepool ... I was surprised after the game to see 11 shots on target as the number given ... we had at least 5 on target in the first half ... and it felt like 15 in the second!

I quite enjoyed it in a 'standing-under-a-cold-shower-tearing-up-ten-pound-notes' sort of a way. New ground, decent turn-out from Saints, typically rumbustuous lower-league game, lots of grunt and graft from both sides, thrills and spills all the way in the second half, a fat keeper that had a Tomaczeski of a game, and a dodgy ref too - what more could you want from a game of football in league one? I'm not sure that NA can do much more with the hand he's been dealt? He picked the team most people on here would have gone for (Jaidi for the physical away game, Harding over Dickson, he started Schneiderlin and kept Chaplow in too, he started Barnard over Gully, he has Lallana coming back to fitness; the early change was forced by injury and N'Guess did 'OK' ie no better or no worse than most other Saints players, AOC no great impact when he came on). Adkin's was also hampered in the January window, it looks like he identified players but it's fairly clear Saints either a) haven't got any money or b) won't pay the prices being asked - I think we have to very quickly (ie this summer) get our collective heads around the fact that we will 'always' be asked to pay more for our players, and if AOC does go for silly money then that situation will only get worse rather than better. We are also playing under the weight of ridiculous expectation (manager/players/fans) - how does NC's mooted plans for a 40k-50k stadium and talk of the Champions League help the current situation? Let's be quietly ambitious, but let's make sure we deal with the reality of finding a way of picking up 90 points in a Division 3 season first. I constantly hear and read that 'Saints have the best squad in this league', 'Saints would come top 6 in the league above' etc etc ... all that counts for diddly squat when the Walsall goal lives the sort of charmed life it did last night. Too many fans seem to completely over-look that the other side has something to play for too, and shock! horror! they also have decent players who put in a shift; in the last 2 and a half weeks I've seen Saints twice, Harlepool, Walsall, Charlton twice, Peterborough, and Exeter and across those 4 games I think it's fair to conclude that there is very little difference between the teams in the league and on their day 'all can beat all'. Saints have lacked 'consistency' for years and that's probably the key thing you need for promtion and it appears it may be the one thing that money can't buy. Not sure where we go from here - we could still finish almost anywwhere from 2nd to 10th(!) - the club motto? 'Never easy, never dull'.

The sort of player who could do very well with the right 'nurturing'. Def not 20k a week better than what we have but if the price was right I wouldn't say no.

I wouldn't disagree with that at all, in fact if you turn it round and say 'we are average and no louder than them' then that would probably be right. 'The Northam' are nowhere near as loud/'passionate' as they were 4 or 5 years ago, and the other three sides of the ground have never been particularly vocal. I'm pretty sure if you polled 'all football fans' and asked them 'Which are the 5 best-supported non-Prem teams?' Saints would be pretty comfortably off that radar; I'd suggest they would go for Leeds/Cardiff/Po***y/Sheff Weds/Derby/Norwich/Millwall as being the 'best supported'... with Saints somewhere in the next tier along with Palace/Charlton/Ipswich/Bristol City/Burnley.... not saying that's what I think or that I agree with it, just what I think a neutral's perception might be. Agree English grounds are a lot quieter than they were 20 or 30 years ago, but not sure it's got worse in the last 10 years; it's been a long time coming and all seater stadium and dearer tkt prices have been a factor in this for a long time. As others have said, the atmos at SMS would be greatly improved if the away fans were pushed into 48-1-2 and the Northam was extended right across past the goal. Not sure about a kop in the Chapel, I don't think a lot of the current Northam / Itchen corner would move away from the away fans? But what would be even more effective in the short term would be to S-L-O-W T-H-E B-L-O-O-D-Y S-O-N-G-S D-O-W-N !!!!!!

Not getting into a 'who is the loudest' arguement but you will see/hear decent support at: Bristol City, Cardiff, Leeds, Burnley, Po***y, Sheff Utd, Forest. Bit more of a 'family' type atmosphere but Derby, Ipswich, Norwich usually have something going on. Decent crowds that don't make much atmospere: Sheff Weds, Palace, Charlton, Notts County, and Millwall.

Hopefully there will be a Plan B as well then ....

Let's have none of this 'hindsight' stuff after 5pm this evening, your Adkins, wot's your team this afternoon? Davis Butter-Fonte-Jaidi-Harding Morgan N-guess-Hammond-Chaplow-Lallana RL A sort of 4-1-4-1 with AOC and Gully (and Barnard) to come from the bench once we have control of the game (and hopefully an early goal ... RL penalty on 16 minutes after N'Guessen pulled down). That's what I would do.

Shocking news if true(?), top top player for us and without his illness he would have been at the very top for years.

Are there tickets available? I have 3 in the extrabet stand from the original Saturday game but could do with two more if poss. Original Saturday game was 'all ticket' but did we sell our original allocation? Will there be cash admission into the extrabet stand on the night ? Thanks for anyone that can shed any light.

Agree with Venus and Tugay at SMS (the 3-3 v Ipswich was Strachan's first game and also the game where Delgado was paraded and videos shown on the big screen). Another good goal at SMS was Forest a couple of years ago, v drab 0-0 at the time, midway through the second half the ball broke to their centre-mid and without breaking stride he just clipped it fully 35 yards over the top of our CBs, over the keeper who wasn't that far off his line, and hit it so well it bounced on the line on the way in - perfect strike and totally pre-meditated - can't remember who it was though!

Stewards were outstanding last night; absolute credit to their club. Friendly and commonsense interpretation of their role. I'd like to nominate them for 'stewards of the year' if there is such a thing!

Much better than Lambert last night. Reckon hcdajfu as a number 9. Harsh to say he doesn't try, he certainly put in a decent shift yesterday.

I'm not sure there was a lack of effort more a lack of quality and imagination. I called it 1-0 or 0-1 after 10 minutes, and a goal either way in the first half might have made a better game of it overall. Positives the back 4 and keeper all played well a hard Earned clean sheet. Problems started in midfield where none of those 4 had very good games. Chaplow had a shocker and barely completed a pass all game, Adam is coming back to match play, some good bits but not really enough. OX? If he plays wide right surely we have to feed him regularly? Hardly saw the ball at all first half and little impact in the second, would be better used coming from the bench especially in away games. Hammond was the pick but it's all huff and puff and little quality. Gully and lambert never linked once all game. Gully worked hard in defence and looked lively up front in the first half but disappeared se nod half, I don't understand the sub where he goes to the wing? Lambert was pretty meh throughout. Barnard was also rubbish when he came on just running round kicking people and conceding needless fouls. We absolutely didn't have seven shots on target, possibly 4 but their keeper didn't make a save all game. 0-0 a decent result up there, especially with other results going our way!

It wasn't raining and the pitch was OK, HTH