spyinthesky

So following players are not involved today: Forster Cedric (injured?) Bertrand (injured) Ward Prowse Hoedt Ward Prowse Reed (Loan) Claisie (Loan) Davis Boufal (Loan) Gabbiadini Elyanoussi Gallagher (injured) Hesketh (Loan) Carillo (Loan) 15 players!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Going to be a completely different game today as compared to Arsenal Expect Huddersfield to be similar to Cardiff and we will need to defend a lot of high balls Two relatively poor sides exerting a lot of huff and puff. Hope our exertions (and skill) are better than theirs. Must avoid another bottom feeding defeat today!!

An enjoyable game for the neutral to enjoy. A good performance from a Saints fan performance if we had drawn or lost. A great performance for a LONG awaited win. Lets hope it is onward and upward from here. The only negative observation from yesterday's game was that we were fortunate to play Arsenal when they were short of defenders and it showed. That said they had formidable attacking options and we were able to cope with them reasonably well

Anyone know if the club has actually been able to shift any?

Whats the Prem relegation odds atm? I guess you wouldnt get decent odds on a combined Saints relegation/Pompey promotion bet?

Cut Mac a bit of slack. He is a relatively decent Pompey fan and can give and take with a bit of humour, the sort of exchanges we should look to have with our nearest rivals. However a different type of response may be called for if the 'Toy Salesman' deigns to return to the fold.

We have had to suffer a few donkeys at the middle of our defence. However until recently they are been cheap or loan deals, as mentioned, not costing the club around £15m each in transfer fees plus say £3m each per annum in wages

The worrying stat here is that we have played the likes of Burnley and Newcastle at home plus Cardiff, Fulham away and gained the sum total of 2 out of 12 points. OK we beat Palace away but think they are probably too good to be drawn into a relegation battle at the end and it is the four clubs mentioned above, plus Huddersfield that will be the relegation battlers

There was forward by the name of Peters who scored goals for fun in the youth teams. He never made the grade with us and then went to Brentford and onward to obscurity

No disrespect to Obafemi (or Valery) but I would be concerned about playing them in an important Championship game as they are, frankly, not up to the required standard at the moment. That said it puts our lack of suitable striking options into sharp focus and also the lack of management foresight in not signing cover at Right back when the services of Pied were dispensed with, even though he was barely adequate for the Prem.

Cant remember the name of the CH we signed from QPR (on loan) a few years back who then went up to Liverpool where they played him (off the bench) up front. He was an international and came with a decent pedigree but was later diagnosed with depression (possibly caused by external sources!!)

Since we beat a very poor Everton side last November (can anyone actually remember what it was like to dominate a team?) we have played 38 games (ie comparative to a full League season) Results have been: P W D L F A Pts. Home 18 1 10 7 16 27 13. (encouraging statistic for those who are considering buying a half season ticket!!!) Away 20 3 5 12 17 39 14 TOTAL 38 4 15 19 33 66 27 Wouldnt surprise me if we struggle to meet the 27 point mark this season unless our new Manager is a miracle worker. One home win in 18 is a dreadful statistic and likely to be 1 in 20 after the upcoming Arsenal & Man City games!!! Since the start of 2017, when we really started to go downhill, our League record has been: P W D L F A Pts. Home 35 6 15 14 33 45 33. (in 16 of the home games we have failed to score) Away 36 8 9 19 37 61 33. TOTAL 71 14 24 33 70 106 66.

There were a group of Spurs fans in the corporates at Wembley who were moaning about Saints fans singing 'Oh When the Saints' as this now, according to them, is a well known Spurs song. Seems that Spurs arent the only 'fans' who have hijacked the song. Think it is now in the Stoke repertoire and possibly Liverpool (understandably), amongst others. Fame at last but perhaps time to improve the range of chants/songs, which has always been a bit of a problem. 33,000 at Wembley provides a very dire atmosphere.

Talking to someone on the train today who made this comment to me re his impression of Saints. Certainly resonated with me. When you think the club (under the well paid auspices of Les Reed, Ross Wilson and Ralph Kreuger) has, in recent times, spent well over £100m on Carillo, Boufal, Claisie (all on loan abroad), a Norwegian/Moroccan midfielder, three central defenders (Danish/Dutch and Polish), all of whom have been spectacularly average ( to say the least), a goalkeeper who has disappeared off the face of the earth but still paid a reported £70k a week and pay outs to failed Managers and Coaches, it is a catalogue of mismanagement of the highest order. All those mentioned will be well paid for their collective failure whilst the rest of us have to fork out increasing amounts for an increasingly inferior product. The new guy at the helm will deserve whatever rewards he has been promised if he can get us out of the current mess and, if he is successful, we should expect him to b*ggar off to a better job. Having spent most of the day reflecting on the negatives, I do console myself with the thought that when I first started supporting Saints we were in the old Third Division, the old Dell was very basic and I got soaked in the rain watching from the old Chocolate Boxes, and I never expected to watch the team at Wembley or follow my team in Europe. Problem is my aspirations are now much higher and this makes the disappointment more intense.

A couple of observations on McCarthy 1. He seems to regularly handle outside the penalty area when kicking upfield out of hand. Lino's dont seem to be in position to notice this so may not be a problem but perhaps one day? 2. When kicking from hand he gets too much height on the clearance which means the advantage goes to the opposition which, to be fair, is not difficult as since Pelle we have no forward with any aerial presence. McCarthy should be advised to lower the trajectory of his clearances, similar to those Jordan Pickford makes for Everton Small things but surprised our goal keeping coaches havent mentioned them

Anyone looked at the BBC website and enjoyed seeing our 3-1 win over United in the famous half time kit changing game? The last goal by Le Tizz just showed what a great player he was. Cool, cal, collected. Can you imagine any of our forwards scoring a similar goal. Perhaps Gabbi on a good day but the rest of them...no chance!!!

I think we basically have a Championship 'roster' already. Lose some of the less bad players with even poorer replacements (can we trust Ross Wilson?) and we could struggle in the Championship

I wish people would not use the term 'squad' It is 'ROSTER' as regularly spouted by our respected Chief Executive and also used to describe our well paid and highly skilled team members on the official Saints website. Irrespective of this the management of the club has been on the same downhill trajectory as our on field heroes for a few years now and the club seems to be in total disarray.

Always nice to win a game, especially by such a wide margin but Notts County are a struggling 4th tier side so we should be walloping their youngsters Similar score to when we thrashed Pompey in the Youth Cup a few years back

Would we be better off looking for a Manager who is likely to try and get us out of the Championship? I am afraid this Management team and 'Roster' is unable to save us from relegation this season

1200 sold for what may be a reserve team fixture and bearing in mind our pathetic form, is a decent turnout

I dont think Cedric is as bad as many make out. He is small and therefore a weak link when isolated at the far post by a taller opponent, He is quick and relatively skilful on the ball. One of the problems he has is the cover he gets from the player in front of him. Neither Gabbiadini (when he plays right side) or Mo Whats his name offer much protection when opponents attack down the left hand side as was evidenced by Fulham's second goal

Unfortunately, we will stay in the bottom three for the remainder of the season

I guess minimal interest in this game If we do manage to scrape through I wonder how many tickets would be sold for the Man City game when we would expect to get a hammering Possible team? Gunn Stephens The forgotten Pole The tall chap with blond hair Targett Ward Prowse Romeu Davis The Norwegian Guy who cost us £15m but is not very good Austin/Our new Irish striker Our Postman who is can really deliver and is fitter than most of our players This selection shows what a great in depth 'roster' we have