david in sweden

I heard the story first hand from a former ALCOA employee......?

..and their " success " was in fairly well-balanced Saints sides, and not having to be grafted into one of Arsene Wenger's ever-changing European squads.

and with Palace and Everton as FA Cup Semi-finalists.....and with Man City still in CL makes you wonder what sort of teams they might out. Villa are most certainly down (this weekend)....Palace and Everton are " safe " and City will have to think about holding onto 4th place. and going for the CL Final.

this story has been published on many other links, with one of them quoting Ralph saying something about .....CHINA (?) Might not seem like much to the Saints fanbase in the UK, but the No. 2 supplier in the U.S... and likely others around the Globe might bring a bigger awareness to many.

some business names come about in strange ways......I know that when the "Aluminium Company of America (ALCOA) began..there was a disasterous starting week .... when they discovered that the printers had delivered millions of sheets of office paper with the wrongly-spelt letterhead.. Aluminum . Rather than ditch the whole lorryload, they just changed the name of the Company and the product name ...hence the "unusual " American spelling.

Difficult to put him into any category, but he must have looked promising in Spain, but the transition to the Prem. can be hard - even for players better than Juanmi. I hoped he might " do something " with his sub.apps..maybe an assist, or dare I say it ..score a goal:rolleyes:, but many times I hardly noticed when he was on the pitch. He can go down as... another Mayuka ?. (I can't say Gaston because at least he's scoring goals - even if it is for another club). You win some - lose some. £5 million - (was it £ or Euros?) is no small sum, but fortunately it's not a bank-breaking deal into today's transfer market, so just put it down to bad luck. Best to let the lad go and try to re-make his career in Spain, and that we let McQueen / Seager / Gallagher types have some time on the bench instead.

.and to think that this will be re-evaluated again and again ...... after every game:scared:

we comiserate (with ourselves) by agreeing that Gaston actually does have talent - even though we didn't see that much of it at SMS, but also let's remind ourselves that he is playing in the Championship at the moment. If he does stay at Middlesboro (?)..he may find life somewhat different against some of the " grittier" Prem. sides and he'll be back in the treatment room more often.

The Swedish season kicked off at Easter with fans eager to enjoy games again after the long winter break, which is from November to March in Sweden. Stockholm's sides had rather mixed results, except for Djurgården who won their first three games with a commanding goal difference of 9-1 ...at the other end of the table,west-coast newcomers Falkenberg found life at the top a bit tougher and sit bottom having lost their 3 games with g.d 1-9 Stockholm club AIK,have had a slow start but fought out a 3-3 draw with Gothenburg yesterday in a game riddled with defensive errors, although Jos Hooiveld almost won the game for AIK - except for a brilliant one-handed save by the Gothenburg keeper. Jos who will be 33 next week, returned to AIK last season to a hero's reception from the fans who recalled his previous time at the club (pre-Celtic) when then won the Swedish title in 2008. Stockholm's other big club Hammarby looked drab in their first two games, but came to life when they trounced the luckless Falkenberg 5-1 on Sunday. Gothenburg sit in 2nd place and last years champions Norrköping in 3rd place, with newcomers Jönköpings South (some Saints fans recall them) Malmo who made Champions League group stages in the last two seasons have started poorly, as have Elfsborg who will certainly miss Anders Svensson who finally retired last year at the age of 39 (!) Not so much glory for Henrik (Henke) Larsson, who made a name for himself as a goalscorer at Celtic. His managerial career (now with Helsingborg) doesn't look quite so bright, as they already sit in the relegation spot with only 1 point from their 3 starts. There's a long way to go until October, and some Swedish sides have a habit of drastic form changes after the summer break in June. We'll wait and see.

far too much vossip on this thread already.....it's enough to make you bomit !

I watched my first Saints v. Newcastle fixture over 50 years ago. These fixtures have always been entertaining and although we hadn't played them so regularly over the years, I always regarded Newcastle as worthy opponents and their fan base - even when they were in a lower division - has always been very loyal. What I saw yesterday was a very poor side, which bore little resemblance to the good Newcastle teams they've had in the past. Of course I was pleased for the 3 points, but the fact that we only scored 3 was perhaps a blessing in disguise for them. With better finishing, we might have had 5 or 6 by HT, but they were a sorry sight to be sure. Given a choice, I hope they can survive, they deserve at least one more chance, the other 3 are really not Prem. material It would really cause an upset in the North East, if both Newcastle and Sunderland went down and Middlesboro' were promoted.

my thoughts , too.

.Mmm.....you mean something along the lines of a cig. lighter, or a box of matches?..

all this talk of "must win " is obvious, but we need to win this sort of fixture as those improved performances against Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Man.Utd seems to fade into insignificance - when we still drop home points against the likes of Stoke and Aston Villa, and turn in shocking performances like Bournemouth and Norwich away. Consistancy is lacking at key times and if we had another 10 points we'd be looking a lot healthier in the Prem. right now.

agreed!.....although not sure that Ronald Koeman sees it the same way.

as others have noted, he has a lot of competition ahead of him....and who would you drop in order to play him in the Prem side? He looks quite good ...at the U21 level....which is like " Disneyland football " compared to life in real football, and this season the U21's have been poor. One of the best player in the U21's to be sure, but with injury crisis, around a dozen U18 lads have had game time, and U21 still depends on 3 or 4 of them. He needs loan out next season, and should try his skills in the Championship.

Strange thread? ...so many people are quick to judge players in their first season, and often before they've had a chance to settle in. Tadanari Lee was such a player. I can think of several contributors on here who condemned Sadio Mane (..worse than Ali Dia )..said one, early on in his first season. ..and Shane Long (get rid of and try to get money back)....when they arrived. Noted that RK recently said that Long " was a bargain at only £12 million." He made barely a dozen starts before being crocked, but the You Tube clip Tadanari LEE 2011-12 shows a bit of action from just a few of the televised games. Seemed to me, he had quite a bit of pace, and more than a little skill.. I counted 3 assists as well as that spectacular goal (v.Derby) seen in the first 20 seconds. We'll never know what Lee may have achieved had he stayed, but the injury he sustained certainly put pay to any thoughts of a successful Prem. career.

8 million "what"?... is that £ounds....or Euros? better ask for £ounds Sterling..instead of that " funny money "..... in case BREXIT comes to pass.....

....is likely to raise a few older voices with comments on his time of management (1973-1985). That means if you're under 40 ..it won't mean much to you, so don't feel that you must read further... Echo quotes a few incidents where Lawrie is " a bit outspoken " about some players/incidents during his time. Both Lawrie and Terry Paine DAJFU .....in their own way, and " if everyone didn't get along with everyone else ".......then that's part of life. In over 50 years in a variety of workplaces, I've never knew one where everyone was buddy, buddy with everyone else, but most of them did their own jobs well. I'm steering clear of comment /criticism, I admire both men for their (differing) contributions to the club. END OF .......

Interesting. Is there a site that shows who reffed which matches? I've often wondered what our results look like with different refs. on the whistle. Oliver and Clattenburg especially.

with our available strike force stronger than it's been all season .....if we don't ....it'll need a major re-think before next season.

well after 550 posts on the match, the key issue seems divided between people who think that both incidents were penalties, or that only one was, but not everyone is agreed on which one...and those who think the ref. got it right ....and neither was a penalty and Leicester throughly deserved their win. The net result was 0 goals and 0 points. In its way, it was a "must-win " game (I know, I hate that phrase, too) but a win would have pulled us closer to Man U and West Ham. Now there is a 4 point gap above us, at a time in the season when we are running out of games....and Chelsea have hit form and Liverpool have game(s) in hand. Unless we can produce a last month's revival we will most certainly "miss" any Euro football next season, and be lucky to finish in the top half.

.........you mean when we played away against the Premier League leaders?

81 changes ? ...doesn't surprise me in the slightest. 4 goalkeepers, 3 right backs. at least half a dozen midfielders. Suspensions: Fonte , Mane twice and Wanyama 3 times. Since start of season, we've had injuries to; Clasie. Mane, Targett, Long, Cedric, Rodriguez, Fonte, Cedric again, Stekelenburg, Cedric (a third time), Pelle again, Bertrand, Steven Davis, Long again and Austin, and Targett again today. Long didn't play today due to an international injury. and they wonder why we've had so many changes..

.....but apparantly....not his " attitude problem ".