BARCELONASAINT

With the way the Cup results have gone today it is highly likely with our luck we will be drawn away to one of Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea or Newcastle

And even further to be considered in the same standing as Lawrie Mac!

Has a non-Premier League side ever won the FA Cup? A non-Premier League has never won the FA Cup, but teams from outside of the English top-flight have won the competition before the rebrand of the Premier League in 1992.

For me the club are making a decision on what is best for the clubs future not what football fans romantically would like to see. If we go back to 1976 when Saints won the Cup there was not the Sky money and there was not the huge wages being earned by todays players. It is all about money today even if we do not like it! Even if we a slight chance of reaching the Premier League then it has to grasped and the FA Cup play second fiddle to it.

I'm not sure why some are getting worked up about us playing fringe players for this. We are 1 point away from the playoffs and as far as the club and finances are concerned the Premier League is the Holy Grail. Can you imagine the fallout on here if we had played a first 11 and any of our better had got injured. It's just not worth the risk for a competition that we are unlikely to win.

A little bit upset by little Southampton wasn't he. Hope there weren't any bridges on his way home!

Without doubt you cannot ask for a better debut and i think when that bullet header went in we all thought "wow I wasn't expecting that", i certainly wasn't. It is far too early to say if Larin will be hit or miss BUT he is already an upgrade on DOWNS because he scored and he uses his physicality to hold up the ball and cause defenders a bit of a nightmare. My one concern is he appears woefully unfit. He reminds me of Tall Paul in that respect "blowing out of his arse within 10 minutes" At the moment he has not got 45 minutes in him and this is one of the things that fans from his previous clubs cited. We need to manage his game time carefully as we have with Stewart and hope to god Stewart stays fit. I see him being used as an impact sub at best for the last 20/25 minutes of games.

Unfortunately I did pick up on him looking in some discomfort soon after scoring and rubbing the back of his leg. He obviously carried on to the final whistle so hopefully was only a tweak.

something has gone on behind the scenes, there's no way you freeze out an asset to the point no one really made a concrete offer to sign him. I would love to know what he did because i can't believe he didn't do anything....it just does not make any sense.

For me today is where this set of players need to show they are still very much in the hunt for a playoff place. I want to see a statement of intent from us and to go at Watford from the start. We need to be winning all our home games now without fail as we have left ourselves a mountain to climb. Lose today and unfortunately i will not see us as a playoff contender.

I think the fans will give him a fair crack of the whip, lets face it Damion Downs only started to get negative crap from the terraces after quite a run of games where he contributed nothing whatsoever. All Larin has to do is put himself about, run around a bit and he's automatically better than DD.

like any signing Saints make i really want them to be successful and want to be excited about watching them wearing our colours. Even though most of the more recent stats and reports don't look great i will get behind Cyle when he steps on the pitch and wish him all the best. I listened to his interview last night and he came across well and he has all the motivation in the world for performing well for us!!!! Do this business for us and his World Cup place is a certainty.

Even the media team are totally disinterested ffs!

they don't watch anyone anymore, that much is evident by the last useless striker they signed!

your club are touting out Marks Inchaud to an American team, this is the 4th player Valenciennes have tried to entice the American team to take this month! It sounds to me the club are desperate to claw some money back in.

I'm guessing the same

So seems talk off Archer going to Rangers on loan maybe premature. Saints were in talks for another striker coming in on top of donkey Larins but talks have stalled meaning Archer goes nowhere!

woke up this morning thinking "fuck me that was one horrible nightmare" and then i realised it had not been a horrible dream!

This Cyle Larin makes Alia Dia look like a world beater...ffs!

AA is not young, hungry or likely to improve......time to move on, there are definite signs his appetite has gone and he's had his fill of Saints.

I have no idea if it is true but i've heard Wrexham have made an official approach to sign AA

To put this into perspective i have some insight into modern scouting as my son is the Chief scout for a team in the 2nd division of the MLS. He does not live in the USA and in fact has only been to his team in Arizona once. Yes he has travelled to watch players in the country his lives in (Venezuela), he did travel recently to do some scouting in Africa (Senegal) and he does go to games when back in the UK to visit family but that is generally as much face to face scouting he does. The vast majority of his time is spent analysing video footage and stats. Anyone that knows him recognises he has an eye for a player and this pre-season for his American team has been telling by the number of players his side have signed purely on his recommendation. I'm off the older generation where my idea of a scout is someone that goes to watch players all the time but i appreciate everything changes and nowadays it is possible to discover players purely through the ability to watch video footage.

why can't we battle like this every week?? Flynn, THB, JS all putting it about when they normally can't be bothered at all. Generally a crap game because Pompey had one game plan and i don't blame them, hoof ,hoof, hoof. We created the clear cut chances but only took one and today that was the difference.

hoof hoof hoof, no quality in this game at all. Pompey are doing what they need to, pump the ball long and high because we can't defend and we are just booting it away and repeat. So lacking in quality

Before the lineup was announced i wasn't bothered about todays game. The owners, the manager and the players bar the odd one or two have sucked the life out of me......but after seeing that lineup i am just angry, so angry with the absolute bellend of a manager who claims to understand what the derby means to fans and how much we need a result today after our pathetic home performance against the shit down the road. My wife has told me not to watch the game!