Jimmy_D

Think it's expected to be three at the back with two wingbacks that Southgate will play.

Rose has looked a shadow of his former self since his injury, hence consistently being dropped for Spurs. His own manager doesn't rate him any more, let alone pundits.

On the reserve list.

Apparently the combined cost of sacking Allardyce and hiring Silva could stretch to £16M

I think it's less that Bertrand didn't deserve to be dropped and more that the others didn't deserve to replace him.

The fact that Rose has been injured most of this season means he's a lower injury risk than Bertrand?

https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=bertrand&src=typd Seems that 99.99% are mystified by the Bertrand omission.

The 2058 Walking Football World Cup?

http://www.thefa.com/england/mens-seniors/squad Bertrand misses out.

It definitely feels weird this season. I was a kid supporting Saints in the 90s. Saints surviving relegation battles wasn't just something I just believed would happen, or even just expected. As a kid back then, all I'd ever known was Saints surviving when they were in a relegation battle, it was something I KNEW would happen each time. Of course, the fact that we kept on surviving whatever the odds just continually reinforced that. This season is actually the first season I've ever had where I've gotten to the point that I expected us to get relegated, had accepted it, and then we've actually stayed up.

Yeah, I'm sure it was always planned for Man City to score with a tricky finish with the last kick of the game after the ref could have already blown up for full time.

This thread is like Jupiter. Any discussion about that rabble usually ends up in here and avoids polluting the main board. Look on a Pompey forum and sometimes half the threads there are about us, but that just doesn't happen here.

Actually feels a bit weird that we're still in the Prem! When we were 5 points adrift with 5 games to go, on a run of 1 win in however many.... it seemed unlikely we would stay up. I'd started to come to terms with going to watch Championship football next season. Even after we beat Swansea, the close nature of the last three games, sqeezing out results, doing just enough and finally getting some luck actually going our way this season... it still doesn't seem quite real that we actually pulled it off, to the point I was going to the game today almost expecting some sort of karmic retribution and the 10 goals to be turned around. It'll sink in at some point that we've done it and I can relax

His football wasn't pretty to watch, but it should have been more effective than it was. One of his main problems was that on top of everything else, he wasn't a lucky manager. Our goals scored is well below our expected goals from the chances we created this season. That meant the players lost confidence, which contributed to poorer performances. Bringing in Hughes helped to give the players confidence and belief again. That alone got us playing better, as well as the more positive tactics.

Should have won that, never mind losing it, but at least we've stayed up.

To be fair, Stoke could put wheelie bins out on the pitch and Swansea would still struggle to score at the moment. It's possible it could be turned around, but how confident would you be if the situation was reversed and it was Saints needing to make up 10 goals and 3 points?

https://southamptonfc.com/news/2018-05-10/southampton-fans-player-of-the-season-vote-2018 https://southamptonfc.com/news/2018-05-10/southampton-goal-of-the-season-award-1718 In case you hadn't seen, votes for Saints' Player and goal of the season are open until 5.30pm Saturday. I know McCarthy is sticking out for me because of recent heroics playing a huge role in us (probably!) staying up, but it still goes to him for me. Yoshida a close second. Can't see past Boufal for the goal against West Brom. It still gets better every time I watch it.

I can see us sticking with something similar to the current design. Stripes don't work so well with the rules meaning striped backs are banned.

That's their highest finishing position since they got relegated from the Championship in 2011/12. It's also lower than Saints have finished since 1958/59.

Yeah, our treatment by the ref there certainly wasn't consistent with what normally happens.

Fair play, wasn't the best football on display, but they fought for that one.

This is almost like a replay of us vs Leeds in the Championship promotion season.

We've had better. Avoiding bottom at Christmas on goal difference (back when it was an unbroken curse), before going on to avoid relegation on the last day (I think) comes to mind. These last few games and results have given us a bloody good escape this time though.

It's not often I can claim any sort of foresight with football, so I'll take it where I can lol.

Hughes is the exact manager these players needed to get them playing and get them over the line. He's done a fantastic job. He's earned a new longer deal, no doubt. I do have some slight reservations with what has tended to happen to teams he's been at for a while, but at Saints the manager is just part of an entire recruiting team. If Hughes can work with that and we can build him a good team to work with, he might just be a perfect fit here.