SaintBobby

No. He usually doesn’t score after falling over first. He usually just falls over. So having the two together is damned rare!

Well, that was boring…! Have no real idea how we didn’t win that at a canter. Such is life. What a brilliant match.

Yeah, their C team is better than our A- team. It's the way it goes....had we scored in the first 20 minutes, maybe different. Good effort, but we didnt make it. The bookies had Liverpool as 80% to prevail ....and our 20% didn't come up....

They are top of the PL FFS....we were always likely to lose....

Disappointing, but a decent effort. My analysis that Smallbone is just not at it (5/10 on everything....sometimes a 6 at best) was proven!

Tonight's horror show has led me to change my mind. A win tonight and an imagined win at Leiecester and the shot was, just about, on the board. Just. Now it's a fight for second between 3 teams.

Truly woeful 1st half. Terrible team selection and also poor performances by many. RM got that badly wrong. Really bad wrong. Good 2nd half, but not good enough. Smallbone should not be in the starting XI in my view. He is bang on average across the board (not terrible, just 5/10 at everything). Not having our two goalscorers from Friday or our best cameo player (Aribo) in the starting line up was absurd given that Downes still wasn't fit. A very bad night for Martin and possibly a terribly costly one.

I have a spare ticket in the Saints bar for the match if anyone is interested. PM me if you are.

Unlikely. Not impossible. It’s not wild fantasy to imagine they might lose to Leeds, lose to us and lose 1 or 2 more.

I think the bookies are about right, we have maybe a 15% chance of catching them (and a 10% chance of winning the league)

If you think bookies’ odds are a reasonable guide to probabilities, we are currently 9/1 to win the league (ie a 10% chance). So maybe I was even a little bit pessimistic in my posts above. I guess we’d be maybe 3/1 to win at their place? If you wave some magic wand and “make that happen”, that would suggest we’d then be about 3 or 4/1 to win the league.

If we win our game in hand and beat them at the KingPower, we’d be 5 points behind them with 12 other matches to play. Big ifs…but seems to me to be just doable in those circumstances, but we’d need to be pretty faultless and require them to slip up a little. If we don’t win at their place, it does start to seem barely conceivable possibility - a mathematical chance, but hardly a real one.

It’s just about possible, but vanishingly unlikely unless we beat them at their place. If we manage that, it is maybe a 5/1 or 6/1 shot to catch them? Obviously, that’s to catch Leicester. To win the league, we also need to be ahead of Leeds & Ipswich. So even if Leicester lose all their remaining matches, that doesn’t gift Saints 1st place.

Head said Leicester win. Heart says Leeds win. I sort of feel we have enough quality to finish 2nd anyway, so am damned reluctant to give up on 1st. Long shot though.

VAR can intervene until the corner is taken, right? The ref can stop play if he wants a VAR check.

Don't agree. KWP was a solid 7. Smallbone and Charles were horrific.

Smallbone has been very poor

What a flop....sloppy performance....

Nigeria were dreadful....mind you, the match was pretty poor overall. I guess Aribo is available again for the WBA game?

If I had a guarantee of 2nd v a guarantee of winning the play-offs, I’d take the latter. Obvs, the playoffs don’t offer guarantees though - so I can’t imagine hoping we lose v Leeds and come 3rd on the final day. What would our chances be in the playoffs? Maybe c 50%? I still haven’t lost hope of catching Leicester, but they would need to “do an Ipswich” while we keep up our form.

I wouldn’t say I’d blame him for it, but I think he maybe saves an effort like that as often as not.

Brooks was excellent I thought.

On Bazunu, definitely not at fault for the 3rd goal - it’s just a nightmare deflection. However, maybe at fault for the 1st? Not dissing him though - his distribution is incredible (he’s basically a sweeper with the right to wear gloves).

Worth saying, Huddersfield were very good. 17 shots, I think the stats say? But they basically kept 3 men up front throughout, which is utter balls of steel. And it nearly got them a result. They were the better team in the first half too. Met a decent Hudders fan at the bar afterwards who was very gracious (“I expected you lot to score about 5, but never dreamed we would score 3 here, so I’ll take it!”) Haven’t really followed their manager/caretaker situation, but tactically they were excellent.

A few nerdy questions: 1. When, if ever, have Saints scored 5 goals in the 2nd half? (Sunderland 8-0?) 2. When, if ever, have 4 goals been scored by Saints substitutes? 3. When was the last time Saints came from behind twice to win?