M271

I agree with others that the performances in December against the top six sides, apart from the Tottenham calamity, has bought him more time. I was prepared to give him more time than some even after the poor start of the season against lesser opposition and the Leicester shambles, but after the Palace capitulation and certainly the similar performance against Watford away I believed that he should have gone then. If we do not get at least 3 points in the next 2 matches and certainly if we loss both and he doesn't get sacked then we will probably have him to the end of the season.

Would be better if the ref had showed some urgency and jogged across to the review screen rather than slowly stroll to it.

Hal Robson-Kanu and Keiran Gibbs both going off with injuries for WBA, hopefully could be out for next weeks match!?

Good result. The six yard box chances that were not coverted looked like the type of chances which hopefully Carrillo can make count, looked like typical goals which he takes (well according to the 15 minute You Tube video anyway, that doesn't show the ones he missed though!) Next 2 matches are massive, wonder what this forum will be like in 7 days time? Depends if we have accumulated 6, 4, 3, 2, 1 or 0 points!

K,Billys supersound posted this on page 57 of the January 18 transfer window thread. I think he has posted 3 times today so cannot respond anymore today. 'From a purely personal point of view im not sure Promes is that good anyway, certainly not worth 30mill. I can't see us paying anywhere near that.'

Come on City, don't let us down

And would be only 2 points off 10th and top half. Can't see a win tomorrow unfortunately, but it's a 'funny old game'. Those 5 points dropped from winning positions against Palace and Watford bitting us big time, putting even more pressure on games like tomorrow.

Hope they've sorted out the pitch since the Crystal Palace match. Drainage problems aside (apparently) I don't understand how the pitch has got into such a state, have the team been training on it a lot to try and improve preformances?

He's going for the win but will likely result in the opposite.

As it stands have dropped 7 points from leading / promising positions in the last 5 weeks, Man City, Huddersfield, Arsenal and so far with CP. Vital points dropped.

I know the feeling, I'm just waiting for the Palace goal from an unmarked header or shot from outside the box! Huge next 35 mins for Saints must hold on.

From today's Daily Echo article / interview with Hoedt "......I think that Southampton is the best club to start at in the Premier League.” Um.....

The player doing the best shooting practice was Hoedt.....

Thanks. In past I seem to remember that they had an appropriate coloured shirt symbol by each match fixture.

Are we playing in home or away kit? I can't seem to find a place to find this information. I'll be there as I was back in Div 1 days, my last away match was against WBA in April when we won 1 - 0 so hoping for the same.

Knee jerkers out in force on this thread tonight. Writing players off left right and centre.

I am in no way supporting what Van Dyke is orchestrating, far from it, however several things happened in the 6 months or so following his 6 year contract which will not have increased his affection for Saints: 1) His fellow countryman and idol Koeman left Saints. 2) His team mate Fonte left the club after an acrimonious period with the club. 3) A non-ambitious transfer window in the summer transfer window 2016 4) Not progressing in the Europa cup (although I seem to remember he missed some chances to get us better results!) 5) As he has admitted, after his injury he had time (to much) to think about his future and influenced by his agent. Many of our players were encouraged to come to the club for the ambition of a plan of being a top PL side and progressing to Champions League contenders, some may be feeling disappointed that the ambitious plan sold to them is not being met.

Quote: Players are bigger than clubs these days, and the Neymar farce hasn't helped things one bit. This is the nub of the problem, players should not be bigger then the clubs and the football authorities have allowed this to happen. The current TV PL deal should have split the monies more equally between that used on players (transfers / wages) with that going to REAL football such as the club infrastructure, fan tickets subsidies etc.. The balance at the moment is far to far towards player and agent rewards.

The way I saw it was that Long had indicated that he was injured and JRod was readed to come on, when Long was subbed he then indicated that he wasn't injured enough to come off but Black pointed to his own thigh as if to show that Long had shown that he was injured. Why there wasn't more positive communcation between the bench and Long to confirm his fitness I don't know!!

I was hoping to read about the Saints injury news on this thread, I should've known better, just more infighting!!

The next 2 matches against Crystal Palace and WBA IMO are crucial, at the start of the season I would have had them down as some of the more winnable games but WBA are having a strong season and Palace are in a good vein of form recently. If we lose these 2 with us still having to play most of the top sides, it could be nervous times. I was hoping that the 3 matches this week would get us over the line but I would now be glad to get 2 or 3 points out of the next 2 games. It's been a strange season with 2 matches a week earlier in the season with lots of rotation, then very few games over 2 months and losing key players for long periods of time, has made it very disjointed and for me difficult to judge the capability of Puel. Next season I hope things will be more settled and the injury gods will be more kind to us.

I've just checked our remaining 12 fixtures and we still have to play 8 of the 9 teams above us in the league, the only exception being Everton!

Was it ever confirmed what the injury actually is? Or did I miss that info.

I can only reflect what many on here have already said, to lose it in the final minutes in that manor is gut wrenching especially having come back in the way that we did. But teams like Man U are so clinical with the meagre chances that they have, unfortunately. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation with our late substitutions, my personal feeling is that we should have waited until the end of normal time in order to assess which players actually needed replacing, I didn’t notice Gabbiadini being tired but surely he wouldn’t have been replaced if he wasn’t out on his feet. Typical that Zlatan was about to be replaced just before he scored, or so I have read. Did we try too hard to finish the game in normal time at the expense of being too open for them to exploit in the final minutes, naive? Did anyone else notice Mourinho being ‘pally’ with Cedric in the 2nd half as he was about to take a throw in, gave him a hug and both smiling, both being Portuguese of course, or being tapped up! I’m not usually one to overly criticise our players but FF in goal doesn’t fill me with confidence, I wince every time a shot comes in on goal, I’d like to see on target shots to goal ratio for our opposition over the course of this season. Mayo and Stephens played well and apart from their last goal but I can’t help thinking what the game would have been like with VVD taking the game by the scruff of the neck. I thought that Saints fans on the whole were good, loud music and announcements up to kick off don’t help an atmosphere build as they used to in the old days. I did think that we were a bit quiet early in the match even before their first goal but after that some good OWTS, come on you Saints (reds) at corners and especially Gabbiadini after our 2nd goal will live with me for the a long time. Like others have observed, I noticed in block 551 all the empty seats, I’m not sure if 551 had always been on sale directly to saints fans (I know that there some were released late last week to buy through Saints). I was told that some ‘attendees’ in that block were not Saints fans but had bought their tickets through the Football League (an allocation for those associated with Football Clubs, officials etc), so maybe the FL retained some tickets which were in the end not applied for, but whatever the reason it is not acceptable to have spare seats when people were desperate to attend the game. Mention to Wealdstone FC who were good hosts to us Saints fans who went there. Also easy getting there by road and easy transport on the tube from Ruislip to Wembley. Overall a great display by team and supporters that was a credit to the club, but still doesn’t help me feel any better about the result, which is what counts in the history books.

Do you have to book with Harrow fc in advance? I can't see anything on their web site.