sandwichsaint

Cheers.

WPP?

Slightly over-doing it to say we played 'well' yesterday. To beat Chelsea we need to have everybody at 8's and 9's and for them to have a bit of an off-day, the way they played yesterday the result was never in doubt from their first goal onwards. As it was we had most of our players at 4's and 5's, we looked tired and leggy with lots of slow possession and lots of poor decision making and quite a few unforced errors, obvs we did play well in short bursts but no real penetration or end product. The 'well' bit was that we stuck at it, rode our luck, and didn't get hammered! Could easily have been 0-3 or 0-4. Chelsea were very good, we had a collective off-day, didn't really see that one coming. Hopefully we can get back on it on Thursday but the fans need to be patient, a gritty 1-0 will be a great comeback from Sunday.

Clearly 'no cheques will be written', he might as well have gone on the telly box and said no paper bags full of cash will be handed over. Any subsidy/cross subsidy will be hidden well off the books, to the benefit of all involved (on both sides) and so that every other exporter in the country doesn't claim the same privileges. Best-case scenario is we now have ministers going around offering sweetheart grace and favour deals that are not on the public record and not subject to any democratic accountability, not much cause for concern there then. Alternatively we've had a word in their ear and made it clear that May has no intention of a hard Brexit and we will be (paying a levy) to stay in the single market: huzzah, we will be Norway! So which is it then?

Going old school tonight, that bloke from Solent and whispering Dave, takes me back to the SaintsPlayer dayz!

Looks like Bertrand available for Sunday then? Good news.

[/VIDEO]

I might be wrong but I make it 3 foul throws for Martina now? Israel away, Citeh away, and a home game too, on the Itchen side?? Either way twice must be some sort of record, three is just ridiculous (he could have been pulled up three times today0 . And don't get me started on Forster's time wasting, embarrassing. Great performance today and me of little faith was expecting a European hangover (much like the fans). It's certainly a measure of how far we've come that 6 points from the games at the San Siro and the Etihad wouldn't have been undeserved. Now we face the classic not-quite-a-big-club dilemma, Sunderland and the chance to progress in a competition in which we we have as good a chance of anybody of a Wembley final and a trophy and Chelsea next Sunday who we would all love to beat and keep up our position pushing for the top 6. In Claude we trust, 1-0 1-0 will do nicely.

I actually did have chicken for dinner and we lost, where does that leave me? Just back, fantastico doesn't come close. Lovely city, very chillled, not sure where the horror stories on here came from? Would definitely go back, acoustics from their end (and ours) were awesome, would love to see a game there in front of a full house. JWP and Romeou our pick on the day, nothing wrong with the selection, if Jrod/JWP/Long score in the first half we win that game. Maybe naive of us to keep driving forwards at 0-0, hindsight's a wonderful thing but it got very scrappy after they scored; 1-0 to the Italy and they knew enough/did enough to keep their noses (just) in front. Hopefully we will spank them in the return but it won't be easy, free-flowing football that lacks the killer touch v niggly get-the-job done football. 'Patience' is our friend, win 1-0 and we will have one foot in the next round....

Was going to say in the absence of any sort of audible PA system get the (oppo) subs up on the big screens but now that they've done that I'll have to go with my second wish, relocate the whole club somewhere down the M20 corridor between Maidstone and Ashford; plenty of room for a 50k stadium, straight home after the match, purrfect.

NV Remover on the passport?

I assume we are going to be first on MOTD2?

Chin up, sure the nipper will do you proud.

Come on, when their Ultras start giving it I'm really looking forward to us snapping back with 'Johnstone's Paint Trophy, you'll never win that'.

Route to the San Siro? Uncle Mick's Hillman Imp from Tichfield Common to the Dell in the back seat with my brother and a packet of spangles and my late great dad and the afore-mentined uncle up front. A ridiculously sunny autumn day in October '66 as an impressionable 5 year old made his way to a long-held place of family pilgrimage, a journey we were to repeat countless times over the years. Up hill and down dale we trudged, the good times and the bad, the highs and the lows, as dad dragged us (willingly!) all around the West Midlands in search of our seasonal Saints fixes. Fast forward to now and the flame still burns as brightly, dad's long gone but uncle Mick still has a ST in the Itchen and at a spritely 70 years of age you can still see a glimpse of the fine looking young man with the sideburns and the whiff of the Hillman Imp about him. Just realised writing this down that this season is my fiftieth Saints-going season and I'm going to see little old Southampton run out at the San Siro, bring it on, I'll be the one with a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye, happy days.

Same ... we're the left side, we're the left side, we're the left side over here.

Low bar; embrace the new Kloppism, it's all about the anti-possession football .. it's all about the goals scored! Play: Tadic/Redmond/Boufal/Austin/Long/SomebodyElse all at the same time .... Watford/Palace/WBA/Stoke/Exerton won't know what's hit them.

Hopefully that was taken on a windy day? I'm available to model the training kit for very reasonable rates.... #whoateallthepies

...

Surely we've seen the ultimate failure of the 'golden ticket' with the San Siro business? I'm sure The9 can come along and add the numbers but the basic scenario is that we draw arguably our biggest game since the Cardiff cup final, with what in the first instance looked like being a much too small allocation. The club set a reasonably high bar for the first round(s) of sales, eg and I don't know the numbers, but for example something like STs plus eg 15 aways and announced there were eg 2000 supporters eligible to purchase in that window, in reality only a quarter or a third(?) of those tickets were sold. While clearly not 'everybody' can make it to Milan on a Thursday evening you would have to think that of our bestest hard core 15-aways-a-season type of supporters that most would move heaven and earth to be there. In actual fact a third bought their own ticket, a third couldn't go, and a third of those tickets are used on rotation by a number of different users and the actual ticket holder didn't take up their own ticket. All very speculative and you can add your own numbers anywhere you like but that's how I think it pans out. Not offering any solutions or judgements, this is the situation as it is and I'm not sure how it can be improved. That Arsenal business sounds absolutely nauseating - buy two tickets, sell the seat next to you at an inflated price either to a regular fan who can't access tickets at face value, or rip off a tourist or a generic plastic PL fan (and then sit by them for the whole game!). I think a little bit more of football has just died right there.

More of an inside forward? The old-fashioned number 8 if you will. Didn't score loads of goals themselves but a sort of all-action hybrid attacking midfielder, defend from the front, run about between the lines, link up with the winger, create in and around the box, bit of a work-horse cum terrier but with good all round ability, not the biggest but could hold their own physically. I think that's him, more of a Beardsley than an Henry for me (if he gets to Beardsley's level, one goal in just over every three games he will be a hell of a player, for someone else of course).

What a difference a few weeks makes! From the rather pedestrian and lumbering performances against Watford and Sunderland to smashing WHU away and playing the champions off the park in their own gaff. Players who looked like square fish out of water now look beautifully dove-tailed into the new system, Romeu a definite upgrade on VW, Hojsberg settling nicely, I don't get the hate for SD, he fits the system well, Tadic if he could add a few goals to his game he wouldn't be playing for us, and Redmond has been generally excellent. Boufall to come too! If Austin can stay fit, and if JRod can play some games, and if Long can find last year's form we would be back as genuine top 6 contenders. Unfortunately too many ifs there and the lack of a top line striker will cost us. But loving our football, just fantastic some of the stuff I saw on the stream yesterday, Leicester were chasing shadows as we mixed it up short and long, with one touch and triangles everywhere. Really looking fd to the Burnley game now.

Said this morning Puel would take draw/draw from these two games, be interesting to see how we go Sunday after this.

Strangely soporific, somewhere between a pre-season friendly and a world cup group game.

Getting going now, is this the second-half surge?