VectisSaint

Debating all this is a complete waste of time. As far as I understand it is already all sorted. Forster and McCarthy were both offered new contract last summer, but there was no guarantee they would be No 1 after this season. Forster turned it down, McCarthy accepted (and allegedly signed). Forster effectively said he would let his contract run down and leave on a free transfer. I imagine that he is already sorted for next season given the time he has had to find a new club. Whether we want to keep him now is almost certainly immaterial, he is going and we will have a new keeper. The only complication is whether McCarthy will be welcomed back into the squad for next season after his behaviour in the game he got injured, Ralph was clearly incensed, and it is strange to me that he is still "injured", is he, or is he now just persona non grata. We have Caballero who we could turn to for a backup next season by offering him a new contract.

Hopefully 11 plus the cup final (the play-off against "the North")

Pos Team P W D L GD PTS 1 Ipswich Town 20 16 3 1 53 51 2 Oxford United 20 15 2 3 43 47 3 Southampton FC 17 14 2 1 57 44 4 Gillingham 21 11 6 4 8 39 5 Bridgwater United 20 11 4 5 24 37 6 Crawley Wasps 19 10 0 9 11 30 7 London Bees 23 9 2 12 -1 29 8 Portsmouth 19 8 4 7 21 28 9 Plymouth Argyle 19 8 0 11 -10 24 10 Cardiff City 21 7 2 12 -15 21 * 11 Milton Keynes Dons 22 5 5 12 -16 20 12 Keynsham Town 21 6 0 15 -57 18 13 Chichester & Selsey 20 4 2 14 -36 14 14 Hounslow 18 0 0 18 -82 0

Spuds are thick as shit then, as we all know.

Not clumsy at all, as Chez said it was sloppy or reckless, he didn't need to put in a challenge, City player was going nowhere. Not the first time this year, but he gets a free pass because he is Salisu. He has directly caused us to lose 2 games in the last week or so, game changing errors, if it was Bednarek or Stephens making these mistakes they would be crucified on here.

What was Salisu thinking, with the pen. Not the first time he has cost us even in the last few weeks. Really needs to learn. There was no need to make that challenge, as Shearer says, idiotic.

Phil 'no dirhams' Foden.

Actually you are wrong. The 3pm Saturday kick-off time has been traditional since football began. The reason for the time is based on the passing of the Factories Act in 1850 which prohibited employers keeping staff at work past 2pm (on Saturdays) and lead to the idea of a recreational weekend. When football started to be organised the 3pm kick-off was considered a reasonable time to start to allow workers to get to the game after they knocked-off at 2pm. Kick-offs pre floodlight days were at 3pm, bear in mind that half-time breaks were shorter and there never used to be Fergie time, so you could get a game finished before it was pitch black (I suspect maybe they kicked off a little bit earlier, especially oop north where it got darker earlier - this is a peculiarly English phenomenon, but Saturday 3pm has been the tradition since football started. Anyway Sunday 2pm is clearly not ideal, for most on here it is difficult to get away from Church and get to a game by 2pm on Sunday.

Not sure it is too much of a worry, his appointment is nothing to do with Saints, his role is to identify new clubs across Europe for Sport Republic to acquire. Unless he cocks this up royally, it shouldn't impact us. It could be that this is what he is good at, if as Monk suggests he was a disaster as head of football operations at Skatesmouth. Its a mistake to think that everyone connected with Sport Republic is connected to Saints, we are merely one cog in that wheel (albeit the biggest cog at the moment)

It's OK as long as it doesn't mean 5 substitution periods per team per game. Time wasting/game management is bad enough already, imagine the game being stopped 10 times in the 2nd half to make subs, it would be a nonsense.

Standard buy back clause implementation. No one is going to sign up to a buy back after one year. FIFA have rules about these things.

To be fair even after today's results it is still in our hands, and Oxford are less of a threat. But it is a lot of games that need to be won with little room now for error.

I support having KWP and Perraud, but note that Livramento is not even on the bench. Injured?

They can't until 2023.

Decent result, it was important not to lose, a win would have been better of course, but makes our hand stronger overall.

Spurs. Its not a hate thing though, just that when I started going they were our historic rivals (which presumably had dated back to the Southern League days, no I'm not that old). That's always stuck with me, yes I've 'hated' others since, Man U especially, Liverpool more recently, but it always comes back to the rivalry that was there when I first stood on the Milton Road terrace back in 67. No one really even cared about Pompey back then, we hardly ever played them, they were just the team down the road that lots of people went to see when Saints were away.

Big game on Wednesday (Oxford away).

Spot on Charlie. We were completely out fought in midfield, torn to shreds by their midfield 3, with Coutinho (usually) completely unmarked. Ralph tried to fix the problem second half but it was too late and their quickfire post half time goals finished us off before we could get the revised system going. It was always likely that eventually a team would do this to us, when we play with two in the middle and two CBs behind with the FBs bombing forward. In some ways it is surprising no one has done us before, perhaps it is just that previously Oriol and JWP have played out of their skins to counter it, unfortunately yesterday they were both well below par. I don't think the CBs actually played badly, and I don't think Salisu would have made that much difference on the day, you cannot expose a CB pairing to what we saw yesterday and expect them to deal with it. Ralph clearly set up to win the game but failed in my opinion to take account of Villa and how they would set up[ and play. Coutinho is a superb player and has the capability of pulling any team apart. Ralph should have started Diallo alongside Romeu and JWP, but the trouble is that we only have 3 effective CMs, so it would have left us with no one on the bench. To me, CM remains the position where we need to strengthen, don't get me wrong, we have some of the best around, but we need more cover in there. None of our attacking MFs really have the ability to drop back into the middle and defend effectively. Yesterday we were tactically out thought and outnumbered, and we lost to a better (on the day) team as a result. Coutinho given a licence to roam (unmarked) with Luiz, McGinn and Watkins all pulling the strings in MF, and with Watkins being very much on form meant we were no match for them. I think Newcastle will be a completely different matter unless Howe suddenly finds a genius in midfield and some other competent players to out muscle us again.

Completely out played in midfield, where we are usually so strong, JWP and Romeu really could not get a look in, and Villa were very strong there. Bit of a reality check, nothing really went right, our passing was off, we lacked energy, our interceptions didn't work. To be frank I think Gerrard with Coutinho just outthought Ralph today, but so many of our dependable players just were not at the races. Put that down to experience, draw a line and go again and (though it grates) credit to Villa.

No Long on the bench, we might struggle. 😉

Why? Has scored very few in last 2 seasons for a reason. More likely that Mings or Chambers will score to be honest (but I know what will happen now of course).

Why Smallbone, having a good game. Diallo is having a mare, Djenepo is just not very good, but he has improved as the half progressed.

Imagine there is complete meltdown on here with that lineup. Think we know what the priorities of the club are now. There is no logical sense in resting Forster for instance.

Sam Gallagher (undisc - thought I read 5m), Jankewitz (undisc), Callum Slattery (undisc), Harrison Reed (6m), Matt Targett (15.6m), Jordan Turnbull (undisc), Dom Gape (undisc), Jason McCarthy (undisc), Obafemi (1.5m). Slim pickings since 2015. Don't know whether loan fees would be included for players we loaned during this period. Did we benefit from any sell-on fees (Alex O-C)? Of course at the beginning of 2014/15 season we sold Shaw, Lallana and Chambers (68m for the three).

You need to look at recent results, yes there was a huge gulf at the beginning of the season, then it was huge between Ipswich/Saints and the rest, but things have changed. The group of teams below the top 3 have caught up (in terms of results/performances, not points). It seems to be the way in Ladies/Girls football, there are a few much more professional sides ready to go at the start of the season and others who need a few weeks/months to get organised properly. It was the same when I coached girls football, the standard of the top few clubs did not change much over the season, but some of the lower clubs improved dramatically over time, by which time of course it was all over (in terms of winning or doing well in the league). Gillingham, London, Crawley, MK Dons and dare I say it even Pompey are all capable of giving the Top 3 a decent game now. Have a poke around on the league web site (Fulltime) and look at the recent results. Ipswich have drawn 3 of their last 6, all against teams outside the Top 3.