doddisalegend

Didn't bother to post last night way to deflated on the train on the way home to be rational Thought we were excellent first half pressing was good, we attacked in numbers and at pace. Hoj's goal was excellent. Our defence looked solid and McCarthy had barely touched the ball. At half time I was sat there thinking I hadn't seen saints look that good at home in a good while and figured if we played the same way, in the second half, it was three points in the bag. Then the second half happened... It was like a different team out there all the good things we had done in the first half disappeared and we where back to keystone cops in defence. Despite being crap I still felt we where going to get the three points as Brighton where turd up front And then we gave away a stupid penalty.... It seems we are incapable of managing a good performance for 90 minutes. If we can keep the first half of last nights game going for a whole game we will be fine this season.

Meh 1 out of 10 on the wind up scale...

Maybe we could write to the league asking for Long to get more protection from the lines mans flag or asking for Hoedt not to be tackled when he is trying play out from the back?

Crystal Palace have made representations to the Premier League about the continued rough treatment Wilfried Zaha has received from opponents. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2018/09/17/crystal-palace-contact-premier-league-wilfried-zaha-treatment/ My own thoughts are tough tits Wilfred.

Just another club to add to the list of "If only they'd showed ambition they could have been a champions league team"

nope think he is bloody awful but Hughes seems to love him which is the only opinion that counts.

Gallagher looks the most like for like replacement for Long if we want to carry on playing the same way.

Vestergaard was bought in to deal with just this sort of player hopefully Murray wont be getting a **** load of free headers like he did last season.

He should have moved club if he wanted to play every week. I'm a big fan of his but at 33 and past his best he was never going to be starting every week in the league.

Hence my caveat of established PL sides. Wolves and Fulham have just come up and Everton are as bland as everyone else ( loads of money spent no major return in league position or trophies). Any side, outside the big 6, that spends a few season in the PL is in the same position not financially able to compete for the top places on a regular basis, finding their wage bill spiralling, with squad full of average players. If you happen to find a decent manager or player he will invariably be poached by a richer club. In the end the inevitably of never being able to really compete with the big boys makes all the teams outside the top six pretty pointless none of us are in it to win

That article could pretty much be written about any established PL club outside the big six. Its not a Southampton thing its a PL thing.

International football is just Meh. The world cup was ok but more for the chance to watch odd teams you wouldn't normally see. Even with England doing well I couldn't get past mildly interested. Even more annoying is the break coming just as saints put together back to back away wins no doubt the bit of momentum that was building will now be lost. My weekend football fix will have to be Totton and Ealing U18s vs Portchester U18s in league cup action.

not as good as Michael Svensson for £7,960,000

Some thing I found on the internet which looks at all the PL transfers ever done and then how much they would cost in the current transfer market based on the player transfer inflation. Obviously like all these things you have to take it with a pinch of salt but I found it and interesting way to waste a few minutes at work.. the main page here explaining things https://www.totallymoney.com/press-centre/transfer-index/ and then a live table where you can filter your requirements (be aware it seems to work better in goggle chrome than Microsoft browsers) https://www.totallymoney.com/content/transfer-index/data/ a few of the ones that jumped out when I did a Southampton out going transfers filter VVD is the only player on the list worth less today than we sold him for (In other words Liverpool over paid for him) Mane would be worth 11 million more if we sold him now Shearer would have cost Blackburn 65 million in todays market and Tim Flowers would have cost them 48 million

not sure there is a place for him playing 4-4-2 either.

Wasn't the palace game our second win in a row?

So I see West Ham lost again today....

Hughes said in his post match Ings hasn't trained all week as he is still having issues with his blisters. I can only assume that they became infected or something to be causing him issues still.

whoop a win . a good performance, until the subs, but wo goals and a clean sheet are not to be sniffed at. We've had good passages of play against Burnley, Leicester and Palace now but coupled with some bloody awful stuff to. Hughes just needs to find a way of making the good parts of games the normally for 80-85 minutes.

Just listened to Hughes Solent post match interview where he said Ings hasn't trained all week because of his foot blister problem and Shane has had issues with a foot injury this week and they weren't sure either of them would last the 90 minutes so the that decision seems even more odd. Losing Long and Ings pretty much put us on the back foot. Considering the game plan you'd have expected Gabbi and or Gallagher to be on the bench rather than Austin.

which is also part of the issue If you are a PL manager you are probably only in the job two seasons max. Developing youth for the future is a waste of your time you need instant success to keep your stock as a manager high.

but without MLT...

Listening to Solent before the cup game the other night. They where talking to Eddie Howe about the fact there was an ex Bournemouth academy player in the opposition team who had been let go last summer. Howe had nice things to say about the lad and then admitted that the rise of the club to the PL had out stripped the academy players he basically said if they where still in league 1 this academy kid would have become a big part of the team but getting to the PL changed the levels required. It's basically the same with us (and every other PL team I suspect) Its not like the academy lads aren't decent players a lot of them will probably play league football in their careers but to walk into a PL side you need to be a bit more than decent. I think the issue for saints fans is that we have been watching the senior players turn in turd performances week in week out for some time now and desperately want something to change. So we are all kind of dreaming some academy lads would suddenly step up and change the fortunes of the team with the sort of excitement Walcott or Ox brought when they first played even though we know the reality is that isn't going to happen.

The exact opposite we are relegation fodder because we did gamble on players and most of those gambles didn't come off..

guess you where golfing when this happened...