Midfield_General

It was. He managed to make both a catastrophic error and an incredible wonder-save at the same time. Let a simple shot squirm away from him, then somehow dived backwards and clawed it away at a very difficult angle just as it was about to cross the line.

No, nothing new (just for the record)… just an allusion to the (alleged) past!

We've got form for ex-players getting in trouble for smuggling beak: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/colombia-midfielder-viafara-gets-11-years-on-us-drug-charge-colombia-texas-mexico-southampton-acting-b1825851.html Anyone seen Claus recently? (allegedly)

What’s really unfortunate is that his middle name is ‘Rammitup’ Poor lad

Bunch of whinging tarts on here. 71% possession to their 29% 10 shots to their 3 1 on target to their 0 8 corners to their 0 …away to a perfectly respectable mid-table side. Reading the comments on here you’d think we were getting murdered.

I got Kick Off for my Amiga 500 that year and used the kit and player names editor to create my all-conquering Saints team, which I named as that exact team. Chris Nicholl's 4-2-4 balls out insanity. It didn't always work by any means, but when it did - like smashing that Liverpool side with Grobbelaar, Hansen, Barnes, Beardsley and Rush in it, who had done the double a few years earlier - it was incredible. It was an amazing time to be a 14-year old Saints fan.

My first ever Saints game was when we beat QPR 5-1 at The Dell on the opening day of the 1986-87 season. Colin Clarke scored a hat-trick on his debut for us and instantly became my hero. Nick Holmes and Danny Wallace also got one each. They had a young David Seaman in goal. So in honour of that, we're going to win 5-1.

What exactly did he do that was taken as disrespectful to the other manager?

Great team performance. Adam Armstrong the stand-out, not just for the goals but for working his socks off, but special mentions to Charles, Manning and Aribo, three players who have (quite rightly) taken some stick in the past but who all put in a great shift today. Aribo in particular looked a different player to the one who's previously been strolling about. On another day that's five or six nil, against a perfectly respectable side. Best performance of the season so far for me.

I mean that would put anyone off, to be fair

The timing of our second goal absolutely floored them. We were a boxer on the ropes at that point, clinging on under a flurry of punches and then blam, sucker punch out of nowhere, put them on their arse. You could see it just completely deflated them. Love it.

Morph was a genuinely interesting one. Highly active around the takeover times, it felt like he was one of the key figures involved, or if not was being deployed by one to drip feed information on their behalf. Always dropping teasing little morsels, more than the average punter would know but never enough to give himself away. Posted sparingly enough that it didn’t feel like he was just a wind-up merchant or bullshitter (although he could have been for all I know), it always felt very targeted. Always very refined and careful with his posts too, until that time he got wasted and went on a rant about Andrew Cowan, of all people. Disappeared once we got bought, I think? All IMHO of course.

Grinding out a result away with a 93rd minute winner - so satisfying, whatever moans there might be about the performance.

You're so right! I think someone who's being paid to co-commentate and give their opinions throughout the game should just sit in silence for 90 minutes. Commentators commentating, I mean who do they think they are?

Especially when we literally have one of the world’s fastest players to have running into space behind.

He doesn’t do himself any favours does he. ’Hopefully most people will have enjoyed seeing their team so dominant’. Christ. Read the room.

I literally said I was only commenting on the last week, so yes, with that comment I was taking those three games in isolation. Compared to the shite that had gone before and how badly we’d been playing, getting 7 points from 9 in a week and ending up 3 points off third is something I would have taken if it was offered before those three games were played. I’m far from a happy clapper and I’m far from happy with Martin overall. I hoped we’d be doing much better than we are, and I thought the manner of the defeats in that previous sequence was absolutely unacceptable. Today was disappointing too. But overall I’m just looking at the practical reality of the situation. Despite not winning a game today that clearly we should have won, I still think that over the course of the season we should be good enough for the play-offs. That doesn’t mean I’m happy with it, or him. I absolutely think that with this squad we should be challenging for the automatics.

I’ve got some good news for you

I accepted that automatic promotion wasn’t happening after the four defeats on the bounce. So, while that’s a real anticlimax this early in the season and with the resources available to us, the realistic goal has to be to get promoted through the play-offs. 3 points off third place at this stage suggests a play-off place is totally achievable. Over the course of the season we should have enough to finish in the top six. Who knows what happens from there. If we don’t, then that really does have to be considered a total failure by all concerned, and should have the appropriate consequences.

Classic Saints. Incredibly frustrating and of course we should have won that, but 7 points from 9, and 3 points off third place - I would have taken that a week ago.

Never heard of him

Anyone know why the second half hasn't started yet?

The European games in the week were using the largely automated version of VAR for offsides, the same system that was used in the last World Cup. Seemed much quicker and clearer in getting to decisions, with much less deliberation and the image then shown quickly to prove the decision in the 3D/ Hawkeye style, rather than the flat lines drawn on the pitch. Seemed loads better, quicker and clearer, presumably because it takes out a lot of the human involvement and discussion out of the process. If that software is good enough to use in World Cups and the Champion’s League, then surely there’s a strong argument to use it in the PL next season. It seems streets ahead of the ‘human’ version.

Standard reporting that Brentford are sniffing about and might still go for him in January: https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/brentford-fc-carlos-alcaraz-southampton-crystal-palace-b1111814.html

Saints' very own Francis Begbie. The wee lassie's got glessed, and nae cunt's leaving the Saints Bar corporate hospitality area 'til I find oot which cunt did it