Cabrone

*last 15 years - not 26.

Really starting to dislike this Belgium team, they remind me so much of England over the last 26 odd years. Arrogant, couldn't care less, strolling around as if they were entitled to the win, only woke up when 2 down and the only really decent move they put together came in the 94th min and was the winning goal. Guys like Lukaku, De Bruyne and Hazard who tear up the prem were bang average. Play like that in the next round you lazy, entitled gits and Brazil will hand you a new one. Gutted for Japan, the moral victors.

Now that Iceland are out England's coast is clear...... Still think 1/4 final at most, defence is not good enough.

I watched Colombia steamroller Poland over the weekend and they looked bloody good, poweful midfield and a sharp attack. It depends which Colombia turn up on the day, my guess is that they'll up their game against England and we'll be in a real dogfight. 50:50 for me.

That was hilarious, they couldn't have shown less enthusiasm if they tried. Funny how none of their shots were on target atall. 1-0 down and meandering around like it's a practice game. FWIW I think they should have gone for the win but it's obvious they wanted to lose. Don't know why, Colombia are a fine team and will tear strips off England if they aren't at their very best.

Shame, decent player and £10M is a snip but it looks like he wants to go so no point trying to force him to stay. If the club could get Shaqiri instead then great but I doubt he'd come. Recent history suggests either we won't replace him (major mistake) or we'll get a substandard replacement (major mistake).

Took our chances today unlike against Tunisia which was great. However Sterling needs to be benched - goal scoring is mandatory in my book if you want to be considered an England striker - plus I'm not atall convinced by the defence. I reckon they'd wobble badly against decent opposition. That said so far I'm enjoying this England team far more than any of the others that I've endured over the last 15 odd years. At least they look lively.

If Mexico can get a point in the last game then it's looking like Germany v Brazil in the last 16....very tasty and gets rid of one of them at least. Revenge for the samba boys?

I'll be sorry to see him go, always thought he was a decent player who was (along with everyone else) pretty poorly managed over the last 2 years. I don't think it was a coincidence that as soon as someone competent started managing us again his form picked up. I'd be happy if we could land Shaqiri as a replacement but I can't see him coming here TBH.

He's a very decent player and I'd have thought he could get a better offer than us. Swapping one relegation threatened club with (what he may think is) another may not be what he wants, even though I firmly believe we'll be OK next season (mid table mediocrity). If we were to get him though it would be a great signing. How did he get on with Sparky in his time there? Swap deal for Carillo, maybe he could do a job in the champ .

Personally he'd be my 1st name on the sheet, a real general and potentially a big star in the prem. Wasn't his fault he (like all the players) had to labor under a total idiot of a manager last season. Now we've got a competent guy at the helm I expect big things from Mario and I don't think he'll disappoint. Just hope the club can keep hold of him. A reenergised Romeu + Lemina is a tasty central mid pairing to me.

Last time around we had this. This time round his head might just blow off.

The ones that stand out for me.... 83-84. Just started watching Saints on a regular basis and was spoilt rotten by a top class team who rarely dropped points at home. Steve Moran was my hero at the time. Possibly the best Saints team of all time, awesome defence and razor sharp forwards. Next would be 89-90 which was top entertainment, goals all over the place plus the odd tonking too but it was never ever boring. With the benfit of hindsight Nicholl was a great manager much maligned at the time. He understood that fans wanted entertainment and delivered it. Definitely my kind of football - Tiss\Shearer\Rod were box office. Next would be 11-12 in the champ, winning is fun, doesn't matter what league and with Nige in the hot seat and Ricky up front that season was brilliant. The whole club was so positive and going places, a great time to be a fan. Finally 02-03 was good fun too, Strach got the team playing really effective football, BT was banging them in and Killer\Niemi were giants at the back. The cup final was the icing on the cake even if I thought we were a bit flat on the day.

England have ground any passion out of me, they regularly stink out tournaments and never seem to want to really go for it. They bore everyone to death most of the time. I'm not being 'cool', it's a view garnered over 30 years watching them. MLT was far too exciting for those boring sods and was discarded despite being one of the most talented players England have ever had at their disposal. In my heart I still support them and could get enthused pretty quickly but I could count on my fingers the amount of times they have genuinely got my pulse racing over the last 30 years, I'm actually looking forward to seeing the minnows go for it, there's going to be some great games in there and chances are most of them will feature the 'lesser' sides. I love how the Iceland's of this world show so much fight and passion, England take note you dullards.

Ex Saint 2 - Ex Saints 1 Was that 5 or 6 ex Saints out of 22 players? That's quite a feat TBH,shame we couldn't have kept them.

At the time we all thought this was a pretty crucial 73rd min substitution...... To this day still the loudest I've heard SMS.

Worst Saints manager in my time and probably in premiership history. On top of everything already mentioned he worried about winning. Now I've seen some poor managers at Saints but I've never ever known a manager that fretted about winning, wanting to win is what the job is, or was until we got Pellegrino. However even more blame needs to be laid at Reed's feet, he appointed him and kept him until it was almost too late. Not taking anything away from Sparky who did a top job and turned us around in the nick of time but let's be honest - we got lucky with Swansea's nose dive and the board got a massive let off. https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2017/jun/24/mauricio-pellegrino-complete-coach-southampton-manager

Safe but damn we were lucky, Swansea decided to nose dive at just the right time, their 5 straight losses saved us. Get Sparky in and let's get back to mid table safety.

Didn't we wind 5-4 at Norwich in one of the 90s escapes and Tiss scored from a corner or something like that? That was a great escape, this was a great FUBAR.

1) Sign up Hughes 2) Get rid of Reed, possibly Kruger too 3) Keep Gabbi if atall possible 4) Sign up a new CH 5) Lose Forster and replace - too expensive if not no 1 6) Lose Redmond and replace - hasn't worked for me 7) Lose Boufal and replace - hasn't worked for me Bring in some leaders, the team is too quiet and anonymous. Need some steel in.

I'd like him to stay, he's a talented player who showed what he could do when he first arrived. I feel we have hardly seen anything of his real potential. Unfortunately he's been badly managed, even more so than the others, a real shame as as competent manager would have picked him a lot more and IMO we wouldn't have been in the situation we were in.

Phew. Take a bow McCarthy, my player of the season. Take a slap in the chops Reed and bugger off. Take a course on how to think positively Pellegrino you '1 up front' nutter. Take a brown envelope Pep, you can have a 1-0 and your hundred points and we stay up. Take a sympathetic pat on the shoulders Baggies, tremendous effort but not quite enough. Take a bonus Sparky, well earned. Proper management at last. Finally take a bow every Saints fan that has endured this season, it's been a tough one but we're still here. By christ we left it late but we got there......

Feels to me like that playoff game at Derby 11 years ago, this is pretty much a playoff final for us. Time for Charlie to step up to the plate and do the business like Rasiak did that night. Swansea are there for the taking.

I think we'll draw against Swansea and lose to Citeh but I'm not at all convinced that a relaxed Stoke won't beat a nervous Swansea on the last day, there really isn't much difference between them. Also no-one is talking about West Brom but look at what results they have been getting since resigning themselves to 'relegation', beating Newcastle and Man U away + Spurs at home. Their last game is at an 'on the beach' Palace, compared to Man U it's definitely winnable. If we draw with Swansea then they are in with a real chance of staying up. WBA pulling off one of the greatest escapes ever and us + Swansea going down is not a crazy scenario anymore.

Can't see us getting anything from citeh so this is the last real game of the season. I want to see the team give everything, no slacking anywhere. If we go down we go down fighting.