SaintBobby

Well someone claimed at least 5 or 6 Burnley players would walk straight into the Saints starting eleven. Combine that with what we already have (our best 5 or 6 players, presumably) and you’re surely putting meaningful points on the board. You’d only need 10-12 more points on what Saints currently have (a mere 20-25% uplift) for us to be in the race for CL spots...right now. Given how good those Burnley players are - the ones who would walk into our starting team - I’d have thought that was a very modest aspiration, no?

His team are useless. I’m amazed they’re safe tbh. Obviously others think if we only had 6 of their players, we would have beaten Fulham more handsomely and would presumably now be chasing a Champions League place. The mind boggles . Keeping that Burnley shower of shite in the top flight is remarkable. Probably worthy of being the 3rd best manager in the division.

Tella possibly MotM despite only being on for 30 minutes. Salisu looks like a beast. Def want him to start.

In yet more evidence of the wealth of world class talent at Sean Dyche's disposal....they have just been spanked 4-0 at home to Leeds United. No obvious tactical errors in how Dyche set up the team. They're just pretty damned woeful. I think I've only seen 7 or 8 Burnley matches this season, so maybe I haven't seen them at their best, but they look like real relegation fodder from what I have seen. I guess several clubs this season - Saints included - are just glad that those bottom three teams have set the bar for staying in the division so pathetically low.

Assume we can all agree this one is a "must win"?

Probably not no.

Fulham are in great form. With the run they’re on, they will cruise to a 6-2 win and Saints will be relegated.

Not going to lie, that Skates game was fucking hilarious.

Their other 6 starting XI players must be dire then for them not to be better than Saints.

We get it. It’s fine. You think Burnley have a better first team than Saints. You therefore think it’s no great shakes that Dyche has managed to get about the same points haul as Saints. Others - me included - think Burnley have a worse first team squad than Saints and Dyche has therefore done a fine job - yet again - in piloting them to safety.

He's not bad, but I'm not much of a fan either. If he was a cheap option from a Championship team and aged 19-20, I might be tempted. But he ain't. It's also not obviously a position we need to stengthen in.

A shedload of difference. Ings and JWP are way, way better than their Burnley equivalents. No Burnley player is heads and shoulders above their Saints equivalent - with the possible excpetion of Pope. But upgrading your goalkeeper from a 7 to an 8 isn't a big deal, Upgrading your striker from a 6.5 to a 9 is. In my view, only 1 Burnley player definitely gets in to the Saints team. Put Ings and JWP into the Burnley team though and you transform it. I think seveal other Saints players would make it too - KWP for example, Vestegard, Romeu, Armstronng are all very good shouts. Not absolute head and shoulders over their equivalents, but they edge it. If Walcott was at Burnley, he'd start, I fancy. Clearly, Burnley are the new Fulham.

On reflection, Ralph probably is Premier League manager of the season. Not only does it look like he will keep us above the juggernaut known as Fulham. But he also stands every chance of matching the mighty Burnley toe-to-toe, a majority of whose players would apparently walk into the Saints starting XI. Props to the man.

God yes. I'm kind of hoping for a 4-4 draw and Rotherham somehow winning at Cardiff...

Disagree....possibly 2 or 3 IMHO. I definitely wouldn't say "at least 5". Except Pope, I'd say most of the possible "transfers" into the Sainst team are very marginal. Whereas Ings and JWP, for example, walk straight into the Burnley team.

Nick Pope clearly. Not wild about the rest. Barnes? Wood? Maybe. Other than Pope, there's no one who comes to mind who I immediately think "I wish they played for us".

We may be vociferously agreeing. I think he’s done a great job there, but has had better years. At his peak, he may have been my manager of the season. His squad is measurably worse than ours or Brighton’s or Leeds’, IMHO.

Burnley are shite. They were part of a useless bottom 4 early doors. He’s kept them up again. I’m not saying the Manchester managers are poor - they ain’t. But it’s not obvious over-performance.

Managers of the season: 1. Moyes 2. Rogers 3. Dyche. It will go to Guardiola, of course. But I think Man City would probably have won the league if I was the bloody manager. I couldn’t have got Leicester to top 4, West Ham to top 6 or kept Burnley up though, in all modesty.

We will see how WBA and Fulham get on in their last few games. But it looks like we will see the 18th placed team at the lower end of that spectrum and quite possibly even below 30 points. Which would rather confirm my view that the bottom 3 this year really are pretty awful comapred to others in recent times.

Surely a failure to be able to safely host a match? I assume clubs are responsible for safety in the stadium, at least to some degree. Making sure fans aren't on the pitch tearing it up an hour before kick off that kind of thing? If there aren't penalties for these sort of things, we need a new strategy of invading St Mary's when we have 2 or 3 key players on the cusp of returning from injury. Get the game postponed, get Ings back into the match squad...that kind of thing.

They have a marginally better chance than Fulham to stay up, I guess. But both are almost certainly doomed.

That’s probably true. The bottom 3 are spectacularly awful this season. Feels like the most boring and predictable relegation scrap in years.

We’ve been safe since beating Burnley in reality, but just trying to do the maths. For Fulham to catch Saints, they need to beat us at St Mary’s and take two wins and draw from their remaining three matches and hope Saints lose all our other four matches too. If we avoid defeat to Fulham, they can’t catch us. If we lose to Fulham, but pick up 3+ points from our other four matches, they can’t catch us. For WBA to catch us, given their much inferior goal difference they need to get at least four wins and a draw from their last 5 games and rely on Saints losing all 5 remaining matches. If Saints pick up just one or two points from our last 5 matches, WBA need to win all 5 of theirs to catch us. If we pick up 3 or more points from our last 5 matches, they can’t catch us. Basically, they’re both down and we are totally safe.

I have to disagree with this. I thought Minamino had a really poor game. I was praying for ID to replace him