The Kraken

Good luck with that. Given the shirt numbers used today the poor old official is gonna have trouble holding up a 2 and 2 board to tell Salisu he’s coming off, whilst also holding up the two and a seven board for Diallo coming on. What’s that, Nathan Tella is coming on for Will Smallbone? Dammit. Has anybody got any spares 2s??

Not sure I quite agree with this idea at this point. The women’ game still has a long way to develop and it needs to do so organically within some sort of structure that shows that it may live within its means. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t need a little bit of a helping hand from the club at times, and I don’t think it would be unreasonable to expect a member of the media team is assigned to accompany the team for all home and away games to provide live updates and a decent match report with photos of the game. Other clubs are already capable of this, whereas our OS is still in the habit of showing “game not started” on the OS when it is either underway or even finished. The last game against Crawley saw fans logging in to the opposition’s Twitter feeds for score updates, Saints seemingly did nothing.that’s really poor, and easily fixed (could potentially even do it on the cheap by having a tie in with Solent Uni and get journalism students to do it as a project, accompany the team on away games etc.). Not sure if it happens already, but from time to time it would be nice to have one or more of our coaching team attend women’s training and pass on some hints and tips. If one or two of the first team players could spare an hour of their time to do this every now and again, it might create more of an idea that the sides are integrated and follow each other’s fortunes. Perhaps St Mary’s could be made available for more than a game or two a season. Again this may generate wider interest and start to attract more of a following at games. If the games could also be daytime games that allow children to attend (I see the next game is against Pompey but kicks off at 7.45pm, which is going to be difficult for those with young kids to come along). Get a bumper daytime game on the go and it could even start to bring in new generation of young fans and future players to the womens game. Just some thoughts, I think there’s probably a few more things we can do better before loading the wage bill significantly. Media exposure during and after games seems the easiest fix, if the club genuinely can’t get this done either by themselves or volunteers then I’m left scratching my head.

Sounds more to me like he’s engineering himself a move away. Either way, big loss if he goes.

Four points in the game, three substitution windows plus the half time break.

OS still reporting that the game hasn’t started. Good work media team Ffs.

Uncanny. I’d never heard of this method of telling left and right in my life, and in the last two days I’ve heard it twice. Spooky. What happens if you turn your hands palm side up though? Hmmmm?

It only brings us into line with IFAB and other European leagues so meh, just get on with it.

Yes, there is that. You’re correct, teams will try to exploit it. Football teams are genuine shithouses. That said, this is too important an issue to continue to ignore. I’d rather have teams trying to game an advantage by getting a fourth sub on, than I would team forcing a player back on the pitch who is genuinely in peril for his health.

If anything, the FA acquiescing to this nonsense does more damage to the cause of head injury prevention than it does good. I genuinely find it sickening the FA get on board with this pathetic charade of pretending they’re actually doing something about a well chronicled disaster in football.

Dear god.

It does seem that way. Chris Sutton has been excellent in championing this cause, given his personal situation with his dad. The lack of reaction by the authorities is shameful. Itsxall very well bringing it to people’s attention by this thing (I wasn’t even aware of it, mind). The authorities in charge of it need a fucking rocket up their arses as they’re literally killing their players, and some half cocked no-name campaign isn’t going to make a slight bit of difference. I remember you bringing this to the forum about your dad before, so I know I’m preaching to the converted I this respect.

Who was the organiser of the nameless shirts? If the FA or the premier league were in any way involved they should hold their heads in shame. Concussion protocol in football and general head injury injury reaction is pathetic. We’ve seen year upon year where football goes out of its way to avoid bringing in proper rules that allow head injuries to be immediately assessed without the side being penalised. It’s very simple: allow a rollin subs for head injuries, do a proper assessment that doesn’t take just two minutes, give clubs that temporary sub the whole while that the assessment goes on, and force players to stay off if a neutral doctor advises so or allow them back if the doctor gives the thumbs up. premier league sides are shit at managing this, and the league/FA are equally culpable in continuing player risk.

He started it, Miss.

Agreed. Our historical kits can be seen here. http://www.historicalkits.co.uk/Southampton/Southampton.htm Commercialisation of kits really got going at roughly the same time shirt sponsorship kicked in. I’ve always loved the red and white 1976 kit, and also the rank xerox. Hummel/draper was our best stripes kit IMO. After that, I find pretty much all of our regular striped kits extremely boring. Some are really terrible (Pony and Under Armour especially) but the rest are just a history of averageness. The only times I’ve really liked our kits of late are when we deviate from the norm: the sash kits and the revived rank xerox were excellent (we’ll leave out the Cortese fuck ups as they should be stricken from history). I’m coming to the conclusion that I’m fed up with stripes and wouldn’t mind a deviation away. Our side’s history and our formation were based on sides playing in sash, quarters and halves. Yes, for the true purists, Southampton football club started its days wearing red and white stripes, but our formative clubs played in those others. And times change. I’d go permanently red and white halves and make it ours, no other team in England’s top divisions have got that and it’s a real nod to our formative years. Mix it up with a sash and a quarters kits every now and then too. #sackoffthestripes

The Denmark half and half was absolutely tremendous. I find that mock up a complete abomination. The 1976 mock up is a beauty though.

Yeah, seen that one before. Hopefully it’s next season but if not, we know it’s in the pipeline.

Hummel half and half recreation please. Failing that, I’d like to see Saints do ‘a Feyenoord’ and have a full on red and white halved shirt, with black shorts and black or white socks. We’ve had the sash, which was great. We did quarters for the last Dell game. We’ve never done red and white halves since they were initially worn in the 1800s.

I would hope we get rid and get someone better, though I can’t see too many teams being ready to throw tons of money at us for Bednarek. And the scouting hardly did wonders for Lyanco, at a fee rumoured around £6-£7m he was hardly cheap and it would seem from subsequent comments that he’s now barely good enough for 4th choice CB with us.

He was crap for us, terrible defender.

Depends how much money we’ve got, but IMO a new keeper is a priority. But then we’ve got other priorities too (new centre back, striker if Broja goes, ‘number 10’). A new, decent keeper is likely to cost £10m+ transfer fee plus wages. As we saw with Gunn, spending a lot doesn’t guarantee quality, so if a keeper isn’t deemed a top priority we may end up keeping FF. hopefully Ralph has his eye on a bargain though.

Yes. Yes it was.

Shots 4, shots on target 0, sums his game up.

It’s often overlooked that Salisu is still only 22 years old. He’s got great promise but he’s still got plenty to learn. Bad mistake from him today, just very naive defending.

The Saints website doing a bang on job of reporting on the game…..

He made some good moves and got into some good positions. But his shooting was utterly atrocious, he just he seemed to mis-hit absolutely everything.