Saint Matty 76

Just praying it's not a case of Downes was "close" with a "slight knock" and then is gone for weeks again Smallbone at DM is objectively terrifying but the Cardiff team is remarkably weak by the sounds of things

Some fucking decision that

👀

Like you say, it doesn't matter too much but I've always thought this looked ridiculous.

I remember thinking that a point at Ipswich didn’t matter and it was win or nothing, funny how quickly it changes

Will always have time for him after 17/18, but his handful of appearances last year proved that he’s a way off of those days Be nice if we can get a big 4, or 7 games out of him now so he’ll at least leave in a positive light after just collecting a (giant) pay check for a while

McCarthy KWP - Bednarek - THB - Manning Stu - Downes - Aribo/Smallbone Arma - Che - Fraser

Taken as little out the players as possible ahead of Cardiff/Leicester over the next week Perfect for Downes to only have 45 as well Still don’t think we can win them all, but play like we did in the first half and we’ll have a damn good chance

Manning very good today Let’s just hope we don’t disrupt this back 4 on Saturday… wishful thinking I fear

We’re the Northam etc chant truly the worst All the more embarrassing when you’re battering a team and it’s all we can muster up

Get Stu, Arma and Che off. No point risking anything against a team who can hardly be fucked to be there Sulemana and Edozie minutes ideally

At our peak we’re the best team in this league, just a shame we’ve not seen this more than once every 4/5 games throughout the year Unplayable stuff, rewarded with a beautiful second goal too

This version of Stu we get every 3-4 games ffs, too good for the league

That's him done for the year, let's hope McCarthy looks alright

I assume the McCarthy contract stuff would be related to him being in the squad, so he'd potentially hit a clause just by sitting on the bench

Well at least McCarthy has some history of being a decent keeper, but he looked just as shite at the back end of last season Terrible with his feet also, so fuck knows how that's going to look tonight

Wow. McCarthy starts

Is real. Limped out of the warm-up and then RM came out to talk to the players on the pitch, presumably about a change in tactics somewhat?

Well then, the "surely we've got better than Bazunu" conversations are about to go one way or the other

Completely agree, he's a player with potential quality above this league but I just think I'd have given Edozie a shot tonight Weirdly underused in recent times, not for the first spell this season

Hmm, surprised Brooks gets the nod again but very happy to see that back four, and what I believe is the strongest midfield

There was a year in the Prem (multiple, probably) where we’d constantly throw away leads so I’d throw a tenner on whenever we were 1 goal up with about 15 to go. Happy to hold on or a few extra quid for the evening Haven’t bothered this year other than my £10 on Alcaraz Championship top goalscorer at 100/1 though which I thought was genius at the time

Yeah if that wasn’t Mara I’d be fuming at that

There's probably a player in there, but it's not worked out here. Time to cut our losses in the Summer and hope we can get some money off the fact he's still a France U21 international He's looked okay off the bench a few times but never grabbed an opportunity from the start. The last couple of sub appearances have been shambolic and the biggest indictment is that I saw he was suspended for 3 games and legitimately believed it to be a good thing Hope he succeeds back in France, but this season should be it for him in Southampton. Had ample opportunity to break into the team and he still legitimately looks lightyears behind Che Adams in terms of his all-round play

Bazunu KWP - Bednarek - THB - Manning Stu - Downes - Rothwell Arma - Che - Edozie Unlucky for Bree to miss out as I don’t think he’s done much wrong, but a bit of rotation surely required at this point. Aribo and Smallbone looked dead on their feet on Saturday so may be a chance for Rothwell, even though he’s never impressed me from the start. Could be any of Edozie, Sulemana or Fraser, but I’d lean Edozie as he’s completely fresh, had more output then Sulemana and didn’t give the lino the opportunity to flag offside like Ryan did on Sat