SNSUN

Anyone else nervous? We've not been at our fluid attacking best tonight. I'll take a scrappy 1-0 but all it takes is one Norwich attack... Still, this man could change things. Not sure who I'd have for MOTM though, Romeu or KWP. Romeu probably. Or Angus Gunn for them. 😶

I remember Ostenstadt scoring one on his arse too. Scrappy goal but they all count. Another drunk baby for luck.

Some excellent passing early on, one moment of danger from Norwich and then it's gone a bit scrappy. Norwich will like scrappy. We need to put one away to open this game up - a draw would be a good result for Norwich but they'd love a win - the sooner we deflate them the better. If they score first I worry we'll have to break down a team that parks the bus. I'm not bringing the nuns out so here's a drunk baby for luck. Let's see if it works.

Don’t Chelsea have first dibs anyway? Aside from the obvious points that - we can say no and why would he go somewhere he won’t play when he’s “as good as” first choice with us...

He's a good striker for where we are in the league and he's in good form. He's a hard working, unselfish player that leads the line well, has a bit of pace and definitely has an eye for a good pass. The downside is his finishing and perhaps consistency but if he was a 20 goal striker he wouldn't be with us very long. He's definitely improved since being picked for Scotland, similar to how Brereton Diaz seems to have improved at Blackburn having been picked for Chile. He's worth the money we paid for him, in the summer where a few Championship strikers were pilfered by the Premier League. (Maupay, McBurnie, Sessegnon, James, JRod, Ayew) and was overshadowed at the time by the signing of Ings. Let's hope Armstrong can come good in time.

My wife (Norwich fan) failed to rub their victory in my face earlier in the season (the fool) so I've promised her if we beat them on Friday then I won't do the same! 😈 Honestly for all the improvement Norwich have made under Smith, I still think defensively they're frail and they're still relying heavily on Pukki up front to get the goals. We have it in us to beat someone heavily soon, so why not Friday under the lights and live on Sky. Same line up unless Perraud can come back in. 3-0 Saints.

No Vardy no party. Poor transfer dealings have cost them.

15 points from 13 games? That's almost relegation form, possible but unlikely unless we lose JWP and Salisu etc to injury against Norwich OR hit the beaches early. We'll get above 50 IMO starting with 3 against Norwich.

Dare I say it the omens are good this season... we're unbeaten against Manchester clubs, we can beat the likes of Spurs, we are beating our bogey teams, we're bang in form AND our bogey team, so far the only team to do the double over us, Wolves are out of it.... ...we have a bloody good chance of winning the FA Cup this season. West Ham are stuttering. Beat them and we are 3 games away...

A second goal would settle the nerves here. God willing it sounds like we’ve deserved it...

Well that’s a turn up for the books for me as a shift worker, Newcastle on the Thursday and Watford on the Sunday now means I can attend both games. Expensive weekend then!

Weirdly after our recent form, I’d be tempted to take a draw here as they’re a bogey team but our first XI is on fire so I’d risk the win/loss. I think our midfield will dominate proceedings and our back 5 is pretty solid so it depends on whether the attackers can keep finding goals... and Adams is in form. It’ll be tight, like a 1-0 Either way. Richarlison worries me... but I think their defence is poor so 2-1 us.

They'll still rush him back before he's properly fit. At least they've got Mighty Matt Targett on the other side to keep their attacking prowess on point.

Ha! Maybe a play on the song "He's got the whole world in his arms"? "He's got tiny T-Rex arms, he's got motherf*cking tiny T-Rex arms..." SNSUN does not endorse swearing at football matches. Nor crap songs. But sometimes...

I hope it’s the penultimate game of the season and I hope that miraculously they’re still in with a shout of relegation. A Saints victory would rarely ever taste so sweet.

Livramento, Broja, Salisu, Walker-Peters, Perraud, to a point Diallo, If these are the quality of young people we aspire to bring in to our club, then I’m all for the project. I’m wary though that it only takes a few Djenepo/Adam Armstrong failures for the plan to suffer. That said our scouting seems to be decent of late so fingers crossed that doesn’t happen. We also need to bring in the odd “old head” for experience... again hopefully not like Walcott and more like Stu. If our long term plan by the new owners is to be the Leipzig of the Premier League, then that should help us with player progression. It’d be like getting first dibs on the new Sadio Mané. As for manager in two years, I wouldn’t fully rule out Ralph changing his mind if things are going well. Fergie changed his mind on retirement a couple of times iirc. That said, again, we currently seem to have the right people in charge of us to pick correctly.

One thing I’ve noticed recently is our heads not go down when we concede. Against Swansea, Coventry and Spurs we showed that being behind isn’t the end of the match and showed courage to get the wins, heck even against United we didn’t let the early goal faze us. Saints of old were too keen to capitulate when going behind. Now we seem to thrive on it. We may lose points from winning positions but we seem to gain points from losing positions these days. Players-wise, so many players are in form. Forster seems to make us more solid than McCarthy, almost as if the opposition fear him more than Alex. Salisu is simply class. Having two proper full backs in form is also important, KWP playing well with the knowledge Tino isn’t far away, and Perraud adapting to the league. Further forwards we have Romeu, Armstrong, Adams and Broja in good form, but there’s one player for me that seems to get better and better... Captain Fantastic. Actually it’s hard to pick out a poor player right now, we don’t have any (Ok, you could say Adam A but he’s hardly getting game time to play his way into form). It seems having a better squad makes players fight harder for their positions. Also so look at our possession against Spurs. We were better by miles than them. Normally we soak up pressure and try to break... against Spurs we were the dominant force. If we could just be a bit more clinical up front we will be smashing teams off the park like we did against Brentford. Will our form dip? Sure, I don’t think we will keep this up all season, and the inevitable injuries will happen, but I’m enjoying it right now. Of all our games remaining though, the one I really want us to be in our current form for is Newcastle in the rearranged game!

RIP to Minsk and condolences to his family. Sorry to hear he didn’t make the Spurs game but he leaves us with a recent upturn in form, and the takeover, and he can watch over us with, hopefully, a long term smile on his face.

To this day one of my favourite tunes. I'm not from Southampton, I'm a Berkshire boy and was influenced into supporting Saints (which obviously stuck) from the very late 80s although I really only truly got into it around the formation of the Prem and the Alan Ball era... thus not being terribly conscious of the Branfoot era bar a few football magazine posters that my school friend gave me when he got them. (Neil Maddison was one...) Despite not being from Southampton or the area I still had badgered my parents enough that we used to holiday a lot in the Lymington/New Forest area (then they bought a static caravan as a holiday home in New Milton so we holidayed there permanently as they love the New Forest) and so Solent was available to me in school holidays (and occasionally when BBC Berkshire would share the airwaves with Solent At home.) Ergo I remember the days of Bruce Hornsby and the results, the cheers when a goal had gone in. I was listening there for the 6-3 and recorded MOTD on VHS. Ceefax was a staple - I remember hunting through pre-season fixtures in the hope I'd see Southampton but was rarely lucky. Then there were the rotating pages of scores, waiting to see another goalscorer added for any team, the short summery of a result, the snippets of transfer news. I miss that... but when you have access these days to most football Live, or at least within easy reach, we are world's away from those days. I've mentioned it before, but my Club call experience got me into trouble with my parents for ringing up the phone bill... it was the last 15 minutes of the Saints vs Norwich 5-4 and some of the aftermath. I went mental when Monkou scored. I forget how much I cost them but they weren't happy. It was a simpler time but you can't deny the Internet has changed things massively. (Yes I'm aware there was Internet in the 90s but I didn't have it then!)

Shamoon Hafez. It’s not the first time I’ve noticed his biased comments against Saints and pro- any team that plays us. He seems to hate us. Wonderful BBC impartiality. I’m not watching the game as I don’t have BT so largely I read the positivity and negativity on here. It sounds like we started slowly and came back into it. Be brave Saints and keep pushing. The best thing about Saints win against Spuds is our heads didn’t go down.

The difference now to, say, last season us that we're in great form, and have a strong first XI and a better squad. That means we CAN beat United. Simply if our performance levels are like Spurs we can beat United. Even though they have better players than Spurs IMO. WILL we beat United? Well that's the question. We've been a bit Jekyll and Hyde this season, I was at St Mary's for the godawful loss to Wolves, but we can. Simply said, with the win at Spuds behind us, I'd take a draw here. Even so a loss isn't a disgrace at Old Trafford. I'll go with 1-1. Same line up.

It seems we've beaten Tottenham twice in a week by the looks of it as they wanted him. We're also about to sign one of their young prospects from what I've read. Hattrick of blows for them in a week if so by the mighty Saints.

Beating Spurs is so sweet as I gravely dislike them. Beating Spurs with that angry tosser Conte in charge is even sweeter. What can I say... what a win. Just seem MOTD and we looked brilliant. If that performance had been Man City the media would be raving about it for weeks. Stats look great too, especially chances and more importantly possession... when we are usually the ones soaking it up and breaking. All 3 goals looked good but my god those assists from JWP were different class. He spotted Moi's run perfectly and was pin point for Adams. Just wow. If we still have JWP next season I'll be amazed... the lad just gets better and better. Great line up today and it showed, our squad is good as it showed even missing Livramento, Redmond, Tella and Lyanco didn't matter. That result has banished any lingering doubts of relegation for me. I thought perhaps we could slip with some tough fixtures to come and teams at the bottom picking up points but nah. We good for a top 12 finish at least I reckon. I like Elyounoussi. He may not be the fastest but he knows where the goal is and has a decent footballing brain. A good squad player. Fraser over Alex every day of the week for me too. We'll dine out on this for a while. Before tonight I thought we'd have more of a chance beating United than Spurs. United is now a free hit and they are beatable. I'm off to read The Fighting Cock forum to spy on some, umm, fighting cocks.

Redmond? Not incredibly pacey that team but solid. Would definitely take a draw. Keep it tight at the back and hope for an Adams special.

Our 4-0 win in 2003's FA Cup third round - the goalscorers were: Michael Svensson (CB), Jo Tessem (Str), Anders Svensson (off the bench, AM), James Beattie (Striker). The same thing will happen tonight so: CB - Salisu, Str - Adams, Elyounoussi (off the bench, AM), Armando Broja (Striker). Woo 4-0 Saints. I'll stop smoking crack I swear. 😑 In all seriousness we drew against them late December with Salisu sent off and Valery in CB. They only equalised with a penalty. Since then they only just beat Watford in injury time, they only just beat Leicester in injury time and they've lost a lot to Chelsea. I think we can at least get a point tonight - I'll be happy when we finally cross the 30 point threshold so every point counts right now.