VectisSaint

Last time I checked Yorkshire was still part of England (even though they like to think otherwise). Unless the Ruskies have been land-grabbing again. Gazza and Cropper are not English.

Injury crisis?

OK, if everyone that has left the forum because of GS could post now that would show him a thing or two. Oh wait... One of the reasons that a team who is 8th in the league has only won once or twice against teams in the top 10 is because they are 8th in the league. This really is one of the more moronic questions. Thats what league tables tend to show over the course of the season, thought there are exceptions. For example Man Utd have only beaten 2 teams in the Top 10 this season, and one of those was Villa, currently 10th. In a surprising turn up Man Utd are one place above us. Newcastle have 4 wins against top 10 sides, though two of them were against Villa. Chelsea on the other hand have won 10 times against top 10 teams, and surprisingly enough are top of the league. Liverpool 7, Arsenal 6, Man City in 4th have won 8. So you see it is quite simple, if you win more games against the top teams you will tend to be higher in the league. There are always exceptions, but this is nearly a self evident truth. Funny old game.

Electro-convulsive therapy. ECT is a treatment for a small number of severe mental illnesses.

Correct, but Prowse could still have prevented the goal, even at the cost of a free kick or even a penalty.

Alpine, it was not a great performance, it was not even a good performance. It was abysmal, apart from the first 7 minutes and a few minutes in the second half. We were sloppy and looked like we could not give a rat's arse. Norwich were so bad that the team just sauntered around without breaking sweat and thought all they had to do was last out the 90 minutes. Boruc tried his best with some help from Prowse, Fonte, Lovren and Guly to get Norwich back in the game, but even then it took them 85 minutes to work out that we were not trying and would have been quite happy to have them win the game. I have seen us play so much better than that this season and lose. I think Boruc was an utter disgrace today. Yes, we scored 4 goals, and it was great to see Gallagher get his first, but really that was a **** performance. The two goals they scored were appalling. It seems to be a trait that we have that we score a goal and then take our foot off the pedal and invite the opposition on, instead of going for the jugular. There were a few who played OK, but MOTM for me was Davis who kept running and working until literally the end, made the first goal (though Ramirez will get the assist) and was superb and unselfish for the fourth, could easily have scored himself but set up Sam to get his first PL goal (which he nearly fluffed but thats OK, it will do him a power of good). Really missed Cork today, and please Poch don't ever play Prowse as defensive midfielder again.

Agreed. We actually were awful in the 1st half. Norwich worst team at St Marys, even worse than Fulham. Was Boruc on drugs? Seemed intent on getting Norwich back in it. In the end the score was decent but it covers up one of our poorest displays . Motm Steve Davis

Thought this thread was about Shaw. 30m for Chambers sounds like a decent deal.

No, they still have a chance to win the league. They certainly have a chance of qualifying for the final stages. Currently 2 points of 4th (top 4 qualify) although have played more games. Some tough games to come but can't see these loans are because we are giving up on the competition. That said, if they do not qualify there are only 5 games remaining, which means little competition over the next couple of months.

Even gerry Gurr and Steve Middleton were hardly regulars. Gerry only ever made 49 apps and Middleton 30. Recently Michael Poke at least made more apps that Blayney, 4 v 3 to be fair. Poke has at least made a decent career for himself in the lower leagues, though looks like he will be back in the Conf next season when Torquay get relegated again.

Would be happy to see Leicester, Reading and Wigan come up. 3 teams with ex-Saints (managers/players) as managers. As long as QPR don't crash the party that will do me (4 ex-Saints managers/players managing in the Top 7) My wish is unlikely though as I'm sure Burnley will come up and probably Derby with Leicester. Would be nice to see Cardiff and Swansea go down with Fulham, then at least we will be back to having an English Premier League.

Just to clarify do you mean Matty or Matty?

Assume best case scenario now with Citeh out of the FA Cup is 6th place would qualify (previous 7th was possible if Citeh played Arse in the FA Cup Final and both qualified for CL). if so we have no chance, 7th or 8th is possible, but 6th would be most likely beyond us. We really would not be prepared for Europa league anyway, you need a much bigger, stronger squad than we have to compete in the EL. We would be looking at bringing in best part of a whole new team to support a EL campaign, as it is we probably need to add 5 or 6 for next season if we are to avoid the mid-season injury crisis provoked drop in form that has condemned us to upper mid-table obscurity this term.

Sad day, the passing of 'DWSL 613'. I for one will miss it, it had a nice ring about it. I guess this is progress, seems we have no respect for our history.

Will upset our Glaswegian "friend"

Playing/benching regularly while Osvaldo served his suspensions. Seriously though it would have made little difference, Sam would still have made the bench regularly, we are so short of striking options. The point is the B League needs to become more competitive and then there is no point in loaning players out by PL clubs, that's Read's valid point and how we develop PL players. The same system does not necessarily develop players for the Championship/L1/L2, but that isn't Southampton's (or other PL team's) concern.

Why does 3rd place on November 22nd not count? I seem to recall that during the Arsenal game on the 8th we were 2nd at one point but the record books will show us 3rd at the end of the day. Pity that the international break and the injury crisis that exposed are thin squad came immediately afterwards. I enjoyed the WGS era, but to compare that team to today's is stretching credibility a bit far. OK so the wee man got a great deal out of a bunch of journeymen players due to his fitness regime, but really the quality of the football was nothing like what we see today. The PL has moved on apace since 2003, the top 6 or 7 teams are vastly better than the top 2 or 3 teams then. To be fair WGS was also hampered by a very thin squad, outside of the first choice XI and a couple more we did not have much else.

Luke just needs to avoid going to the Theatre of Pompey then. Why he would want to go there next Saturday or at any other time is anyone's guess.

Post sums it up for me. Cannot see why people are "angry". Little or nothing wrong in my view. Boruc was ill or injured, so Davis had to play (unless people would have preferred Gazza). JRod replaced Guly in 2nd half. Otherwise it was pretty close to our first team despite what so called pundits Lineaker and Savage would have you believe (ignorant of the facts). The only thing I thought was a bit strange was that the team travelled back down to Southampton after the Hull match, I would have had the team stay up north in between. We lost to Sunderland, 4 times this season and we failed to beat them 4 times, but some folks seemed to think all we had to do was turn up and Sunderland would roll over. We didn't play a weakened team and to suggest we should have played a weakened team against Hull is just plain silly and naive. By the way Hull have smashed Sunderland this afternoon, who is to say that they wouldn't have done the same to us.

Mayuka at CB you must be kidding, too small, Maya Yoshida is far better (I recall I was crucified when I made the same silly posting error). I know this may seem a bit daft at the moment, but Mitroglou may well be worth a punt once Fulham are relegated. He looked absolutely **** yesterday, but once he gets into the way of things in PL (a bit fitter with the help of Magath) and sheds some of his rustiness he may well turn out to be exactly what we need up front. I think he may turn out to be a decent striker.

3 hour time zone difference would have caused some jet lag whether in 1st class or not, plus return flight from Nairobi to Khartoum (probably 2-3 hour flight each way) only for the game to be called off because Sudan tried to switch the game to Darfour without agreement. I know I would be ****ged after that little escapade, I assume he only got back yesterday as well, so no training.

Not really much of a supporter in that case. No-one screwed up at Sunderland, too many of the players simply did not perform against the Sunderland reserve team.

I don't think you understand Davis' role in that case. If you think he is CAM then why does he spend a lot of time in the right back position allowing Chambers to bomb forward. The two of them interchanging down the right is a striking feature of the way we play. At other times Davis gets forward more and provides some assists, it would be good if he could score a few more but that will come I believe. To say he has been "consistent" is a poor summary, he has been MOTM or close to it on several occasions in the last few weeks, his engine is amazing, it is a shame that Poch does not see him and Gaston on the field at the same time. Last week it would have been better to have replaced J-Rod with Ramirez, other times maybe SRL, but I would like to see SD and GR playing together more often, with GR in the more central/#10 role.

Keegan was still technically a Saints player in 82 when he played 26 minutes and missed a sitter. Of course he never played for us again, but I'm reasonably certain he signed for the Barcodes after the WC finished. Delgado was with us when he played in 2002. Maybe if he hadn't played in the WC he may have actually performed for us.

Not until the banner is updated to include Big Ron.