Sheaf Saint

It'll be even sweeter if Everton and Leicester both lose tomorrow, as we could end up climbing into the top half on GD. Too much to ask for though?

Villa were always going to improve. Deano isn't an awful manager and he identified what was wrong, and made a change to address that at HT. Credit to Ralph because he recognised the effect this had and made a tactical change to adapt to it. Meant we lost a bit of control and didn't have as much of the ball in the attacking third, but McCarthy was never troubled and the best chance of the half was Ché's header.

That highlights Moi's biggest weakness - a total lack of pace.

Should be. Ref has bottled it.

We're really missing Redmond's corner delivery tonight.

Nearly.

That's 2 fouls from Cash in quick succession but no thing given.

Oh Stu!

Need to wake up to that danger. Got overloaded then.

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.