Midfield_General

Watching Van Dijk the other day, thinking how he's probably the best CB in the world (if not right now, then probably over the last few seasons), it got me wondering how many others have passed through Saints who were at some point or other regarded as the best in the world in their position. Obviously it's subjective to a degree, but Shilton for example was consistently rated the best goalkeeper in the world for some time, so that's another one. Was Shearer considered the best CF in the world at any point? Are there any others?

Good old Leicester. Got a couple of stunning goalkeepers too if you're interested lads 👍

Yep. If you haven’t read Benali’s autobiography yet, I can recommend it - there are some very interesting insights in there about Cortese and his attitude. He’s presented as an expert at spending other people’s money, with a huge, unearned sense of entitlement to go with it. I know they fell out and it’s only one side of the story, but it’s a first-hand account and he comes across extremely badly.

Pretty sure he would have buried that chance to go 2-1 up on Man Utd - the one that De Gea saved.

So apart from the roads, the aqueduct, sanitation, irrigation, medicine, education, wine, the public baths, public order and coming on and setting up both goals, what has Nathan Redmond ever done for us?

Do you know who Redmond is? He created both our goals.

If it was me, I'd go: Forster; KWP, Stephens, Salisu, Perraud; Romeu, JWP; Livramento, Tella; Adams, Armstrong (A) Subs: McCarthy, Bednarek, Valery, Diallo, Djenepo, Elyounoussi, Redmond, Walcott, Broja.

Does Stekelenburg count? He was a loan but seem to remember he was first choice for a while under Koeman. He was another odd one. Can't ever really remember him making any really amazing saves, but he never really messed anything up either. Just sort of comfortably saved the ones he ought to. He was the definition of 'solid but unremarkable'.

Best manager we ever had.

Oh Matthew. It's not meant to be a literal statement of fact. It's just an opinion, a whimsical musing based on not very much other than a fleeting consideration of recent seasons when Burnley and Newcastle have both often been in and around the relegation fight, but each time have tended to be able to do enough to pull away. You know, the sort of light-hearted but ultimately throwaway comment you might make or hear when you're out, chatting in a pub, with a big group of mates. Ah. Actually I think I'm beginning to see why you didn't understand.

Newcastle have got much more quality than us, and Burnley are better managed than we are. Neither of them will go down because they never do. Brentford and Brighton both look like they’ve got more than enough to be comfortable. Looks to me like it’s 3 from 4 - Watford, Norwich, Palace, us. If any of those other three are able to defend and grind out draws in tough games in the way that we are incapable of, we are bang in trouble.

I thought Nathaniel Clyne was great for us. Not least for this one he absolutely melted from 35 yards to knock Arsenal out of the league cup at the Emirates... He's got a foot like a traction engine

That’s amazing.

There was another one like that - I think it was against Leicester. From memory, Shane went through, got pushed wide left by the keeper as he came out, but took it round him, stayed on his feet and slotted brilliantly with his left from an extremely acute angle. 'Bloody hell' we said, 'nice one Shane, didn't think you had that sort of composure in you'. Then they showed the replay from the angle he'd scored from. It showed that he'd actually curled it behind the keeper but back away from the goal, Schmeichel had inadvertently punched it in with the back of his fist, and that it had been on course to go out for a throw-in on the far side. Bloody love Shane Long.

When Rideout signed that was another great opening day - beat West Ham 4-0, with Rideout getting two on his debut. Forward line that day was Rideout and Clarke, with Danny and Rodney Wallace on the wings and Le Tiss off the bench. Pretty tasty that.

Here he is scoring a lovely chipped free kick (about 1 min 30 seconds in). MLT would have been happy with that one!

Reading the other threads about former players we could do with now, loads of former centre forwards are mentioned. Everyone from Davies, Chivers, Moran, Beattie, Pahars, Lambert, Pelle… they’re all remembered generally pretty fondly. In the middle of all that we had Colin Clarke. Signed for a very reasonable £500k, scored 20 top flight goals in his first season with us and 16 in his second. Scored two hat-tricks in his first few games. 36 goals in 82 games in total. Yet I don’t think I’ve ever seen him as much as mentioned on here. I remember watching him but I was very young and don’t recall much about him other than he had blonde hair and wore that brilliant Hummel kit. If someone offered us a striker today with those sorts of numbers to replace Ings, we’d take their hand off. Yet he’s been forgotten. Why’s that then?

Lee Todd and Osvaldo

Palace were after Nuno before they switched to Favre, I think? Now Favre is off, if Palace went back in for Nuno and he blew out Spurs for them - now that would be funny. Unlikely, but funny.

A hopeful punt is what Wimbledon and Stoke used to do. Redmond received a 40 yard pass, brought it down, got on the front foot, got his head up, saw Ings in a tiny bit space in the box and played it directly onto his right thigh. Presumably knowing (because he plays with him in training every day) that Ings has got enough quality in that scenario to do the rest. Which he did.

Yep, the League of Wales is a real powerhouse The big boys will all be looking to avoid Connor's Quay Nomads in next year's CL

Who is that - Aleksey Cherednik?

Jamie Scowcroft Cameron Jerome Ronnie fucking Rosenthal All shite. All looked like the second coming of Pele when they played against us.

Yes, you could argue that, if you were really, incredibly dense. But no, you're right. Anthony Pulis, Jacob Mellis and Ryan Smith would walk into this side, which was top of the Premier League in November.

Armstrong was fantastic, regardless of the miss, and would have been MOM for anyone who could think beyond McManaman's 'Ings score goal, Ings best player' banality. McManaman's other brilliant insight that made me smile was some comment about how we should bring Vestergaard's pace on to counter Traore. Yeah. That'll do it Steve. Salisu has got some rough edges to round off but looked to me to be quick, strong, and to read the game really well. He made a lot of important interceptions simply by anticipating the play and getting himself in the right position to deal with it before it happened, something some of our other CBs seem to struggle with. Moss was excellent. Traore should just about be climbing out of Bertrand's pocket. Still intrigued to see what happens with Forster when he actually has some proper shots to save (the low ones away from him and anything requiring a real stretch or quick readjustment of his feet/ body being his real achilles heel when we last properly saw him). Need to make sure we don't get cocky against Bournemouth. If we keep our heads on and treat them with the same respect as we would anyone else, we'll beat them and then it's getting interesting. Sod the league. We'll finish 10-15th and that's fine. Let's go balls out to win the FA Cup. Man Utd in the final please. 1976 revisited. Revenge for Gabby and the League Cup. Revenge for the Mike Dean show clusterfuck the other night. Magic.