SNSUN

James Maddison is out according to their local rag. Bonus.

Tuesday 21st, around 5pm.

If Ayoze Perez scores a hattrick of hattricks against us on Saturday, I'll get a tattoo of him on my butt. (These words are not legally binding.) Either way we need to be quite solid, they have an abundance of attacking riches including Iheanacho who loves a goal against us (but not as much as against Villa, whom he's now scored most of his goals against). I'm hoping Vardy isn't fully fit, although he looked it last night, but maybe he'll have knackered himself out a bit. Either way the line up writes itself for us, and I'd have Armstrong in over Djenepo, and Long over Adams or Obafemi. (McCarthy, Cedric, Stephens, Bednarek, Bertrand, JWP, Hojbjerg, Armstrong, Redmond, Long, Ings. Subs: Gunn, Yoshida, Danso, Romeu, Djenepo, Boufal, Adams.)

Well they have Dier that can play there and Sissoko at a pinch (although he's now injured) and I think they've tried Foyth there recently (unsuccessfully) but maybe they're looking to bring someone in.

Not transfer news on our front, but it might inadvertently be good for us - Palace are set to secure the loan signings of Cenk Tosun and Kyle Walker-Peters. Palace have been looking to add a right back to their squad, and have been one of the teams linked with Maehle, so them going for Walker-Peters (who we have been looking to sign too, but Spurs only want to loan him out) is a positive - one less team interested.

Must be yellows then.

Choudhury has looked decent since he came on IMO. (I was about to post until his header just then!)

I might be wrong but I’m sure I heard cards were now competition specific. So no sending off would affect our game against them. Injury’s though...

Curtis Jones goal of the round for Liverpool. It was decent, but if it had been scored by some crapoid from Craptown United the media wouldn’t be yanking themselves over it nearly as much as they are that a Liverpool youngster scored it. Vokins’ was better anyway.

Didn't Ralph say he wanted one transfer in early or am I imagining that? For £7.5 million and with Palace sniffing around, I'm surprised Maehle hadn't been put on the first place to Heathrow on NYD!

Norwich (as per) please.

I'm not saying Red Bull is the way to go, but if we want to stay in this league AND compete regularly with the bigger boys, we need great investment in the club that a lot of SaintsWeb doubts Gao can give us. IF Red Bull is the clear and obvious choice, then so be it. Maybe more Mane's coming our way!?!? On the other hand we could be looking back at this thread in a couple of years time, and going .

Joakim Maehle was apparently given an asking price by Genk of £7.5 million today. While I don't know how good he is, aside from what websites etc say about him, and the fact we've been trailing him for a year, that seems like a good price for a right back that will potentially be first choice at the start of next season.

I wouldn't sell him for anything as right now a goalscoring striker is the difference between safety and relegation unless Adams or someone steps up. But there's also his injury record to look at. He seems as fit as ever, but how Saints-like would it be if he got an England call up then got crocked for the season. I wonder if £50-60 million would make the board's heads turn? Hope not, especially as he's a local lad and seems to want to do what's best for the club.

JWP covered the second-most amount of ground over the Christmas period. Engine. [TABLE=class: sp-story-body__table] [TR] [TH=colspan: 2]Which players ran furthest?[/TH] [/TR] [TR] [TD]N'Golo Kante (Chelsea)[/TD] [TD]48.01km[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]James Ward-Prowse (Southampton)[/TD] [TD]46.71km[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Fred (Man Utd)[/TD] [TD]46.49km[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Ashley Westwood (Burnley)[/TD] [TD]45.52km[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Dele Alli (Tottenham)[/TD] [TD]45.3km[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Source: Opta[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE]

By comparison look at Rafael Varane, played only 23 league games for Lens, was captain in that time, and joined Real Madrid where he’s gone on to be one of the best defenders in the world. All players have to start somewhere and if he’s turning Scout’s heads this early in his career, he must have something about him. I’m not saying he’ll go on to be a Varane, but still... The thing with a centre back is, six weeks ago we were screaming out for experience to plug the gap. Now we have a partnership forming of mid-20 year olds, so attracting a top youngster may be a good way to go about things. (I still don’t know what to think about the Danso signing though!)

Nominated for December player of the month. Surely a no brainer but as it’s a public vote it will probably be TAA that wins it. Get voting people, Danny’s the man!https://www.premierleague.com/news/1552879

Well we shall see whether they are "on crack" or not come the end of January. After all Ralph has already stated he's looking to bring in players, and he's not going to paying for them with Unicorn farts is he, so he must already have a pre-agreed budget. IMO I think our budget will be less than the £30-35 million quoted in the papers but that's just conjecture.

“Villa lose Wesley and Heaton for the season” Well if that isn’t a headline that screams relegation I don’t know what is! But it made me wonder if they’d be after a new Keeper, and whether we could offload Forster on a permanent, maybe in a battle with Celtic. I guess it depends what the terms of his loan are.

Daily Mail apparently has it at £35m plus any sales I read which should be enough for 2/3 decent players. I'd be very surprised if we didn't go for Maehle pretty soon, he seems to be a long term target in a position we've been looking to fill.

Yes, they are two that I would rest - but as we currently have no right back or left back cover, both really need to play. (Short of using the likes of Ramsay and Vokins or players out of position.)

Nah, I'd still choose Hasenhuttl. We certainly need a change up if we want to continue the League form but I wouldn't be changing too much as we should be taking this competition seriously. Perhaps this is a chance for those that haven't seen game time since the 9-0 to make up for it, while resting a couple of the harder working first team players. Gunn Cedric (if Valery still not fit) Yoshida Bednarek Bertrand (unless Ralph feels like giving Vokins a shot) Romeu Hojbjerg Armstrong Boufal Djenepo Obafemi

With Yoshida OOC at the end of the season (and most likely off), Danso nowhere and Vestergaard tipped to re-join his old club (or be offloaded somewhere if not there), we still need to be seeing a CB come in this window - but I agree, it's a less pressing concern than it was a couple of months ago. A partnership is blossoming and both players have stepped it up - however an injury or suspension to one of them and we could see the brick wall come down. A CB is a must this window. Jack Stephens ≥ Harry Maguire...

Crazy League - 12 points between 5th and 19th. So really we could go either way. Keep playing as we have been and we should pick up enough points for a top half finish. 7-10 would be a decent return from those 5 fixtures and as we now know, we already have 3 of those in the bank, so we are now looking at 4 to 7 for the next 4 fixtures. (If anything, 4 from the next 4 now seems a little tight!) Anything more than ten points is dreamland. With our new found confidence we should be looking to give the FA Cup a good go too.

Surely Ings for POTM