VectisSaint

He didn't actually sign for us on 11 Feb 1980 either, it was announced that he would sign and join us in the Summer of 1980. His transfer must have happened some time later. He actually made his debut on 23 July at Lansdowne Road in a friendly against Shamrock Rovers. So other than it wasn't 40 years ago today and he didn't sign, good shout. 🤣 I have only a vague idea where I was 40 years ago today, probably working in Bracknell, but cannot be sure. I know 41 years ago today I was in Maryborough in Queensland but I may have been asleep by the time the announcement was made, probably did not hear about it until at least the next day, probably a while after that in them there pre-internet days.

Or it could be that the vast majority of people acknowledge he is a good player, would be a big loss for us - but are (fairly) pointing out that since the contract thing has come to a head he has been injured and had Covid and that this is the reason for his poor form. Why can't people listen to, understand and believe Semmens and what Ralph has said. I know we have had problems in the past with the Club not telling the truth but there is no reason so far to doubt Semmens and Ralph. The bloke is recovering from injury and illness.

Scored on his debut for the u21s against Liverpool (forerunner to the B team/u23). Played 4 times in all.

To be fair there haven't been any opportunities. Apart from Sunday (when he was presumably still away with the 1st team) there has only been 1 B team game since the beginning of December, and he wasn't back in training before that one (West Ham on 29th Jan).

2 points dropped from a winning position 🙂 The young lads are matching up to the first team style (only good thing about last 2 first team matches, is that we haven't added to our total of points dropped from winning positions)

Looks like we are making some attempt to hijack Ahmed Musa's move to WBA. I know he's not a full back (striker) but interesting that we do seem to be interested, but sounds like money is the issue for us like it is for Big Sam. So maybe we are still on lookout for a free agent after all, just not at FB. No idea whether the sources are good or not.

The negative passing is not the issue. That is the way we are set up to play, move the ball around waiting for an opportunity to open up/be opened up by off the ball movement, and then getting that trigger to launch a fast attack. The problem is that the quick attacks are not happening, so it looks like the players at the back are just aimlessly moving the ball around. For the last few games we have lacked any sort of quick, incisive movement in MF/up front, no energy, this was happening before "that" game but people got sidetracked because of the refereeing issues. Admittedly yesterday the pitch didn't help, but we have lost all energy from MF upwards. Maybe it is partly because we have lost KWP who is the chief provider of the fast outlets, along with Stuey. Also Ings is completely out on his feet, and isn't providing the energy, dynamism and creativity that is such a huge part of his game, I'm convinced that he has not really recovered from his injury before Christmas and then his subsequent Covid illness. He is operating at 80% (blaming it on looking for a move is bullshit in my opinion), having an Ings80% is still better than any other options hence he is playing but I think it will be a while before we see him back up to his early season standards unfortunately, his frustration is there for all to see. Unfortunately Ralph's tactics are a bit one-dimensional, and they can be seen to be a problem on heavy pitches especially where we cannot zip the ball about. We don't have anyone with enough guile to make play differently especially when Armstrong is out. It might be a while before we get back to winning ways yet, but I do think the key is getting KWP and Armstrong back fully fit.

Haven't actually worked how he is an Aussie. Born in London. Did he grow up out there or something?

Oriol only missed the last game after he came back. I get the feeling that KWP is the least likely to feature. We have to play Romeu if available, but I would not risk Vest, when we have others who are not only available but also keen to put right what happened the other night. Hopefully he won't drop Mccarthy, though he could, I'm sure Forster would like to play up there. Destroyed Gunn when he got dropped after the Leicester debacle.

Red card overturned. Thank goodness there are still some sensible people at the FA/PL

Who is this Kanye Ramsey? Is he a rapper or something?

Don't be silly. We'll also be remembered for losing the largest number of points from a winning position since Ralph took over. We are reminded of it every game, even the ones where we haven't taken the lead.

Perhaps we could play Shane Long as CB.. Oh wait.

How would we do that with 10 men.?

There was nothing wrong with what you said. Takumi has spent 6 seasons playing in the Bundesliga, in Ralph's home country. Ralph would certainly have known about him there. You've only compromised yourself since by mentioning Germany. The attempt at pedantry was a dismal failure. 😊

Not if Romeu and Diallo are out he won't Showed on Saturday that he is too much of a missing MF to be wasted at RB (and isn't very good there either).

Thought we had been told that KWP injury is not too bad, not ready for tomorrow but sounded like the weekend. Walcott would be out for at least 6 weeks for hammy, that's a given.

Maurizio Pochettino has joined Watford from Spurs. Not sure he was actually officially ever on our books, but he certainly used to train with our Academy when his old man was in charge.

Firstly, a word of advice, don't judge other people by your own standards of behaviour, just because you are a fanboy and think supporting other clubs is something that you would do, other people have a higher regard for the team they have supported for over 50 years. If I had wanted to support some other team than the one I first went to see when I was 11 and have followed all over the country ever since I would have done so many years ago when other bad performances may have tipped me over the edge. I certainly wouldn't have supported Liverpool at any stage, who would want to? Its a great shame that last night's refereeing issues overshadowed the rest of the game, because it detracts from the fact that we were very poor. Having one great play near the end of a game that we are chasing because of how poor we have played doesn't mean we played well, and whether you agree with the offside decision or not (and I don't) in the end it didn't count, so can't be classed as a great move. Its not unusual to have great chances in the last few minutes when chasing a gam, but you have to consider why we were in the position we were, for 80+ minutes we were toothless, wasteful, error prone, lacking in energy, suffering from players playing in unfamiliar/wrong positions, not pressing, giving far too much room to Grealish (due to players playing out of position). we were dreadful. Of course there are mitigating circumstances, our dreadful injury crisis for a start (as I mentioned we missed KWP more than anyone). But having an injury crisis doesn't mean we can't criticise the team that was out there and call out that they were mostly dreadful (actually I have to say that I was perhaps unfair on Romeu, because last night he was superb, until he went off injured at the end, and showed starkly what we had missed in his absence, sorry but Diallo my be good but he is not in the same class as Romeu when he is on song). To be fair the defence didn't play bad, Bednarek, Stephens and Bertrand did well, but then they were only up against Aston Villa. We couldn't handle the little shit Grealish though, but that was largely inevitable given that we didn't have anyone available who could do a job on him (playing JWP at RB was a double whammy, firstly he is not a RB, we have seen before, too slow, but also it took him out of the position where he has been superb this season. Sure, this is a criticism based on our injury crisis, but unfortunately it is something we have to live with, we can't just say we played well given what we had, we didn't. Ralph does have to address the issues highlighted in this game and a few others recently, we have lost the energy and the pressing game is not functioning. we are not getting in and around the box and creating good chances like we were. Having a good go in the last 10 minutes isn't what its all about, we need to be doing that in the first 80 minutes, and scoring goals. One clear issue we have at the moment is that Ingsy is clearly not fit (not to his high standards). He has not really been right since his injury before Christmas, and I suspect the Covid infection has made matters somewhat worse. His game is not just about scoring goals, its much more than that, its about his energy, his making space, its about his tracking back, helping out in defence, there was little sign of any of that last night. That's not his fault, but it explains why we played badly (please don't mention his contract situation, clearly this is nothing to do with that). In the end, we were as i said very poor, abysmal last night. There are extenuating circumstances, of course there are, but papering over the cracks and pretending we played well and it was only those horrible nasty referees were the problem is to completely miss the point. There were some terrible refereeing decisions last night, but in the end we scored nil goals and nil points because we weren't good enough against a very average Villa.

Do you think we were good then? Honestly? No energy, never looked like scoring in first half, despite huge possession advantage. Sure, one or both decisions could, maybe should have gone out way and maybe we would have got 3 points, but it would have been papering over the cracks. We were very poor, really missed KWP especially. Our passing was all over the place. We didn't press. Blame Mason and VAR all you want but we were rubbish, again. On top of that 3 new injuries.

We lost because we weren't very good, in fact we were abysmal. Decisions didn't go our way but really it didn't matter, we were poor again.

6 Jan 1968, Saints 3 Chelsea 5. Big Ron (2) and Mick Channon for us, Ossie amongst others for them. Martin Chivers last game. Helluva game, dreadful weather if I recall stood in the Milton. Hooked. My old man took me to the game, which was difficult for him being a Pompey man, afterwards he said, I've done my bit took nipper to his first game, never setting foot in that place again (he was true to his word). Palled up with a few other travellers from the Island for future games.

All this talk of bringing a loanee in flies in the face of Ralph's previous line that it takes several weeks to get someone up to speed with our system (I think he said it with regard to Salisu). Now we are looking at bringing someone in and slotting them in immediately. Sounds like an old Les Reed 'philosophy' situation to me.

Strange to send him to Sunderland. Is Lee Johnson considered a good coach (he might be, I don't know) who will help Vokins develop? Surely there was a more local club or somewhere a bit higher up (Championship) where we could have kept an eye on him more easily and even got him back to Southampton on occasions as we used to do with with Stephens and the other guy when they were at Swindon. A lot of our other loans have been to Gillingham (where ironically Sunderland are playing this weekend). True Joush Sims went to Donny, but Sunderland, thats almost a foreign country 🙂 By the way I don't think Vokins did too much to be worried about on Tuesday, sure, made one (big) mistake, but really looked quite reasonable otherwise (better than Valery, who also wasn't really that bad). I think people expect too much when one of the younger players is drafted in, unless they score a hattrick (striker), make a couple of goals or get a clean sheet they seem to be considered failures. It takes time to get up to speed (as Ralph has told us several times).

KWP still out (wonder how long this will go on, with no access to recovery facilities). Presumably Valery will continue at RB. Romeu and Djenepo back.