SNSUN

Exactly. Listening to Talksport earlier and they were discussing Villa winning the title. If that happens, I'm a baboon's butt. Even Cundy last night was listing half the Premier League that could win it. (Saints were not one of them). Far too many people jumping the gun this early into the season.

Looks so far as if that will be today....

Palace getting what they deserved for defending the entire game. I bet their fans are glad they aren't at the stadium to watch that crap. Speaking of ultra defensive, here come West Ham with a 5-4-1 formation against Spuds. 😖 So much dross in the Premier League this season. Glad to be a Saints fan right now. We have a great manager in charge.

United 2-1 now against Newcastle. 1 more goal for United and we go above Newcastle back into the top half of the table. #littlevictories EDIT: Done.

https://streamable.com/04imq9 Link to the Vestergaard goal (Don't watch if you're waiting for MOTD and haven't seen it). Nicked from REDCAFE https://www.redcafe.net/threads/pl-weekend-fixtures-17-10-20-19-10-20.458226/page-26

Hence the last line of my post. 🙂 Even teams playing not to get beat sometimes score enough to win. I did however enjoy the friendly last week.

No Ings or JWP in the starting line up. Such a boring starting XI, it's definitely like GS is trying not to lose than trying to actually win games. James over TAA? No Grealish? AMN over the left footed Saka? I'm still unsure of Southgate as manager. Makes some odd decisions. Still as long as he keeps getting results, we keep him as manager. England 1Pickford 4Walker 5Coady 6Maguire 2James 8Phillips 7Rice 3Maitland-Niles 10Mount 11Rashford 9Kane Substitutes 12Mings 13Pope 14Henderson 15Saka 16Alexander-Arnold 17Gomez 18Ward-Prowse 19Grealish 20Ings 21Sancho 22Henderson 23Calvert-Lewin

I’m more of an R’s man myself! 🤦‍♂️ Anyone think if he’ll be on the bench against Chelsea? I assume he’s fit if he played for France U21. Or is he not ready like Salisu?

😆 Well none in the last couple of minutes so seems you've sorted it! 🤞

Repeat 500 errors today. I like the mobile layout but it took me a few "temporary technical errors" to get on the site. It was definitely better in the last few weeks that it was before though. Keep up the good work though Steve, much appreciated

Cliche, but I like players with pace. Whether he has the footballing brain to go with it remains to be seen. Is he any better than Sims?

Liverpool Man City Chelsea Spurs Arsenal Man Utd Everton Wolves Leicester Newcastle Southampton Leeds Aston Villa Crystal Palace Brighton West Ham Burnley Sheffield United Fulham WBA Is how I roughly see it, maybe with a few swapsies of teams close to each other, but predominantly I think we could finish 10th, but more likely 11th/12th. I do think there are at least 7/8 weaker teams than us in the division so if we finish 13th or worse we've had a bad season. Any higher than 10th and it will have been a great season, as I think the top 9 in that table are all ahead of Saints squad-wise.

Thanks @Rebel, you’ve saved me typing a long post! That’s effectively how I see it all word for word. However I do think we have a better position, incrementally, every season from the dark days of Pellegrino and Hughes, and a lot of that is to do with Ralph making use of his meagre resources. Ralph is everything to this club right now, Long May he reign. It’s a 7 out of 10 window for me, so I went good. We brought in KWP to fill the difficult right back spot, knowing he was decent thanks to his loan spell, and strengthened CB with Salisu, who even without playing must be better than Danso, surely!?! Diallo comes in and fills the Hojbjerg spot too, but Romeu and Vestergaard have had decent performances in the last couple of games, so the bedding in of Diallo and Salisu is less urgent. I was worried that we would have no attacking signings but then comes Walcott, and while I’m not gushing over that signing, at least it adds some experience in forward areas. I feel we could have done more in attacking areas, I think we are one AM short of a great squad, and for me the two year contract to Long was an odd decision (One or one and a ‘games played’ clause surely would have done). Also there are questions over the keeper situation (though our hands are tied with Forster) and full back cover. However we still have the EFL window. If we do good business there, I will bump the window up. Incidentally I think we did very well to get Carrillo and Boufal off the books permanently.

Rooney at Everton must have been a while... *Just found this link: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/nov/06/which-players-have-had-the-longest-gap-between-spells-at-a-club

I need to go to bed soon, wish they’d hurry up and announce Walcott! With Boufal gone I’d rather have Walcott than nobody. I guess with the EFL to Prem (and vice versa) window still open for another 11 days, and with us offloading so much off the wage bill today (2 permanently) then we may still see some movement IN in that time. Plenty of jewels there still to be had. Also OUT could go the likes of Gunn, Hesketh and Sims potentially. (Although Personally I don’t mind Sims...)

I think if we'd signed Walcott when we were linked with him before (then he joined Everton) I would have been quite pleased with the signing. But after a couple of years doing very little with them, I question if this is the best player we could have brought in. If we have to sign a loan player over a permanent, I'd much rather we brought Loftus-Cheek in. Does Walcott still have the one attribute that stood out all those years ago? If it is Walcott, sure he'll get my support, but I don't believe he'll add much to us this season. Didn't he used to say he was more a striker than an AM/Winger? I wonder if this is a smokescreen for someone else? Or possibly one of a couple of signings?

I left Watkins on the bench in my Fantasy team! Fuckity fucksticks. Still worth it to see Liverpool suffer for a change. Interesting League so far

We’ve not won by more than a two goal margin in nearly 3 years! (Stat 1.) I didn't see the game as I was working but saw the Romeu goal. Great hit! Nice. We’ve not won 3 in a row in the league since the last Koeman season. (Stat 2.) Would be nice to beat Chelsea and/or take Everton down a peg or two.

It's a shame we're skint, or I'd like to think we'd have been linked with Benrahma. There's a player that would be first choice and properly raise our levels.<<sigh>> I wouldn't be against RLC signing, although his injury record isn't brilliant, Ings has proved it's not impossible to come back from bad injuries, and he's fit currently. He's played for England and he can score goals, he's versatile and a decent age. Plus, if we do only have him on loan, with no purchase option, if he likes it here, maybe a deal could be done next summer with Chelsea and his wages. After all, is he EVER going to be first choice there? It's hard to see it. Also I've always advocated looking at Chelsea for young players that don't seem to get much of a look in there. It worked with Bertrand. TBF With one day left of the window, ANY AM would be a bonus.

I'm fairly relieved about that. I don't think he'd have added much to the squad. There are better AM options available IMO. Plus if there was no option to buy then we'd just be loaning a Spurs player to make him better for them. I'm hoping, if the Grujic loan comes off, there's an option or even obligation. Although if he's good enough to improve the first XI then a loan without a purchase option isn't so bad I guess. I agree with Verlaine though, Diallo, Grujic and say one of the Arsenal young talents (OK, any decent AM) would be perfect and make for an exciting season.

I was going to put Chilwell in my team next week when I have two transfers to use (as I have to cheap out on another defender to do it). Wish I'd been able to do it this week. Goal and assist already. Chelsea have started the season a bit stutteringly (if that's a word) but it seems they're getting up to speed for us next week. I still think they're a top centre back away from being a title-winning team but they must be a lot closer this season if all the signings gel quickly. Certainly it could be their year next season. No Loftus-Cheek today though...

It's a shame he has two L's in his surname or D-I-S-C-O by Ottawan would work... 🙈

Good age, not much to go on in the stats department but we need a CM so we can only hope he's a hidden gem rather than a cheap panic buy. His attributes (as oppose to his match statistics) seem decent and he's been linked to Leicester and Arsenal which is a positive. He's a Monaco youngster so has decent pedigree. I hope he's better than the last signing we got from there though! If more than 50% of Saintsweb posters are happy with it, then I'm happy with it. 😀 Just another AM and we look OK strengthwise.

So we're going to get some deadline day action for a change? 😁

Yep. Sessegnon played against us in the FA Cup third round in January 2018 and a certain out of position, almost untried Jan Bednarek played right back and kept him in his pocket. Yes there was a League between us, but we were crapola under Pellegrino and they were on their way to promotion. I don't think Sess would be a bad signing, and would certainly strengthen left back and cover Redmond's position, but I feel there are both more pressing issues with other positions, and I would hope there are better AM options than him available too. It would definitely have to be a loan with an option if we were to get him, it would make me feel dirty loaning a Spurs player, making him better and sending him back to strengthen them.