Sheaf Saint

Flood gates opened. Hattrick for Arma incoming.

He's been fairly quiet but he works really hard and he's played an essential role in the press. I get the sense he's going to surprise us with a quality goal out of nowhere sometime soon.

Smallbone played for the B team earlier today.

Revenge for that absolute travesty at the hands of Lee Mason and Mike Dean last season, perhaps? Or to show Danny that he made a bad choice to leave us for them in the summer?

I wonder if Che could play that role? We know his finishing isn't great, but I've always been impressed with his ability to bring others into play in attack. He's got a good eye and a decent weight of pass on him. Not saying he would ever be as good as Tadic, but he has more strength to win and hold the ball up top than Tadic ever did.

It's not 1st April today is it? 😳

Yeah I'm sure I read that somewhere.

It's great that there is much less stigma about mental health these days and people can feel comfortable talking about their experiences rather than feeling the need to keep it to themselves lest they be told by ignorant, obnoxious twats that they are just being stupid and should get a grip of themselves. There's no shame (or at least there shouldn't be) in admitting your mental health is not good, just as you wouldn't feel ashamed of talking about any physical ailments you may have. Sadly, as a certain poster has proven so spectacularly, there is still an awful lot of ignorance about it in society. Just like physical health and wellbeing, we all have varying degrees of mental health. You don't need to have a chemical imbalance or a diagnosed condition to have poor mental health. If someone's MH is already poor, their resilience to deal with adversity will be severely impaired, and things that they would normally be able to cope with comfortably can become overwhelming. The human brain is a very curious thing, and people can get stuck in repetitive thought patterns without realising it. This is how addiction, which is itself a form of mental illness, grips hold of some people. There have been some fascinating advances in neuroscience in recent years, and our collective understanding of how these thought patterns take hold and how we can use mindfulness techniques to prevent them from spiralling out of control is improving by the day. But it's important that we keep talking and being open, and keep breaking down the barriers that have prevented people from sharing their issues for so long.

They had better pray they can pick up a couple of wins in the next few weeks, because in December they have a horrendous run of fixtures: Leicester A Liverpool A Man City H Man Utd H Everton A And then they come to SMS on 2nd Jan. They could be so far adrift by the time the transfer window opens that they will struggle to convince anyone to sign no matter how much money they throw at them.

That's the excuse they used to not give it, but that rule was only ever meant to apply to situations where a deflection off another body part caused a drastic change in the ball's trajectory and the player couldn't possibly move his hand/arm out of the way. In the instance, Cash had his hand out in an unnatural position and the ball very slightly grazed his thigh before hitting it. Had it not grazed his thigh, it still would have hit his hand, preventing a certain goal. It absolutely should have been a penalty.

I was seething about that for days. Even a Villa fan I work with was sympathetic and agreed how bad it was. IIRC, as well as the Cash handball, Ings had a goal disallowed because his fingernail was offside, and JWP was booked after catching a throw-in from Targett because it was blatantly our throw and the lino hadn't yet flagged, but he subsequently bottled it and flagged it for Villa. Was it Mason as ref and Dean on VAR, or was it the other way round?

And his worldy against Man City, and his thunderbolt against Sheff Utd. Aside from those, I agree 😉

Charlie Austin???

That would make you a 75'er like me. But I wasn't interested in football until I started secondary school, and only began following Saints in 88/89.

😂😂😂

Which makes it all the more frustrating that two of them have already beaten us this season. Really hoping we don't make that 3 out of 3 on Friday night.

Potential breach of FFP rules, apparently. I am not aware of any actual investigation but it seems to be a big concern among their fans on GOT. They have a very rich owner but they've spent a lot of money on players in recent years with very little resale value, and their academy hasn't been very profitable either with very few players coming through and being sold for big fees. Their new stadium is an eye-wateringly expensive project as well.

I would say Everton have a stronger first 11 than us, but they have some key injuries at the moment. They're missing their best CF (DCL), their best CM (Doucoure) and their best CB (Mina). That's the whole spine of their team unavailable. They were also without Digne last night who is one of their best players. The only thing that would see them in trouble is a points deduction, which isn't outside the realms of possibility at the moment.

I thinks someone earlier in the thread made the comparison to Matt Oakley, and I used to say the same about him when debating his value with other fans. Both players whose contribution could easily be overlooked because they don't do flair and rarely stand out, but are reliable players who do what's expected of them very well. The obvious difference with JWP is his direct free kicks, but it's been a while since he scored one of those. And let's be honest, his corners really aren't all that good and Redmond was putting in better ones recently while he was suspended.

Everton fans on GOT forum not a happy bunch. Already sick of the 'play it safe' football being dished up by Benitez and want him gone. Lots of them reckon they are headed the way Villa went a few years ago, and they could be in trouble over FFP as well so could be looking at a points deduction. It's a good job they're not in the process of building a shiny new £500m stadium that will totally bankrupt them if they end up in the Championship isn't it 😉

I agree, but I don't think the rules allow for a retrospective punishment when the ref has already given a yellow card AND reviewed it on VAR.

Better hope nobody tackles Nakamba too hard. He looks quite fragile 😂

In all fairness, calling GM clueless after posting "fucking pull yourself together" on what is supposed to be a serious discussion about mental health is not exactly slagging, it's just a straight truth. That's a truly staggering degree of ignorance on display right there.

28 goals for Blackburn last season suggests he has it in him to be clinical, and his highlights reel shows he is more than capable of sticking it away when he's given chances. He's just on one of those runs that all strikers go through, but he's getting on the end of things as well as carving out chances for himself. I have no doubt he'll start banging them in soon.

Come on mods. Don't make the man have to pay a fiver to get rid of DI's mug on every post he makes!