syd_barrett_saint

Big shout out from the Saints fans in Argentina, watching here from a bar in Buenos Aires! First ever Saintsweb in Argentina meeting? (with Rojiblanco)

I think they are only 7th because they didn't have a great start to the season... it took a while for the team to get used to Bielsa's ideas of constant pressing, possession and attack attack attack! I'd love Bielsa to be the next England manager... but it'll NEVER happen unfortunately. Maybe the next Saints manager when Adkins becomes England manager in a few years time? ;-)

Great, I'm not the only one here then! Do you support any team here too? I'm a Velez fan, have been for almost 7 years now. Shame about the colours though... Where do you usually get together for streamed games? I think Leeds on Sat March 3rd is on TV, fancy meeting up for that one? My email is bsaires@gmail.com, best to contact me there. Cheers!

Cool, I'll try to help where I can, and perhaps we can meet up when you're here to talk Saints etc. Best to contact me by email: bsaires@gmail.com (I'll edit my email address out of this post after you have replied, I would have PMed you but it won't let me!)

Love the look of that team. I think Puncheon is on the bench because it's a squad game, he's not 100% fit yet and can't do two games in a few days, so I presume Guly starts this one and Puncheon comes on as sub in the 2nd half if needed, then Puncheon starts the West Ham game. I'm also presuming that Chaplow, although fit, has a way to go to get his sharpness/intensity back (very important to his game) before he breaks back into the matchday squad.

I think the table is ordered by PPG, because the teams have played different numbers of games.

I have to say, I would be very close to having Guly on the bench ahead of either Chaplow or Lee. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Adkins has both Guly AND Connolly on the bench ahead of Chaplow and Lee. If it wasn't for the stupid 5 subs rule, as you say, we could have all four of those players on the bench. Grrr.

Pma ftw!!! Coyr! ;-)

It's been a long time since I asked this, but any other Saints fans in Argentina? Or in the rest of South America? I play football a few times a week here in Buenos Aires and there are two Doncaster fans, and no Saints fans apart from me. Bad show! They ain't too happy about us nicking Billy Sharp. There are also West Ham, Cardiff, Coventry, Forest, Palace, Leeds and P*mpey fans in the same group, a big Championship presence and not so many fans of Premier league teams. Quite strange, but its making things more interesting this season.

Assuming Jos is back, and that Chaplow will perform better on the right or left of midfield if needed as a sub for half an hour: Davis Richardson, Fonte, Hooiveld, Fox Puncheon, Cork, Schneiderlin, Lallana Lambert, Sharp Subs: Bialkowski, Martin, Hammond, Chaplow, Lee

Let's see how the next couple of games go... you could hardly say we have defensive problems with almost all of our squad to select from for the Cardiff and Birmingham games. I would be very surprised if we concede more than 2 goals total in the next two games, especially if Jos is back. Of course, I could be proved wrong. But I'm pretty sure that both of us don't want me to be!

Right, but we have had something of an injury/suspension crisis. Coming out of that now, in the last two league games, we have sorted our defence out. And the signs are there that the goalscoring will return... unless for some reason Lambert and Sharp don't click.

Leaky defence? The Millwall game is irrelevant, we didn't have our first choice midfield protecting the back four, and we were without Davis and Fox. Go back to the previous two league games, and we kept a clean sheet at Birmingham, who had been steamrollering all comers, and should have kept a clean sheet against one of the best teams in the division, Cardiff, only letting a goal in because of a foul on the keeper. If Jos is back, we'll be looking even tighter at the back, I'm sure.

Birmingham and Blackpool will come unstuck at some point. West Ham have been extremely lucky and that luck will soon dry up. Cardiff always bottle it. The rest won't even challenge. All we need to do now is get back on track and we'll be fine for automatic promotion. "All we need to do"... haha! I trust that Nigel, with the full squad available for selection now though, will be able to do it. The FA Cup result is irrelevant, I was confident after deserving to beat Cardiff and battling to a draw in difficult conditions at Birmingham. An unlucky result in the cup without our full strength team has nothing to do with our chances in the league.

Only the Millwall commentary on SaintsPlayer is working for me too :-/

Nolan sent off for West Ham... not sure it'll matter all that much, they had only been sending the ball sailing over midfield from the back all game so far!

Still can't understand why so many at the ground and on here are moaning about Guly. Apart from the two goals (and its ridiculous to start a sentence like that when you are defending a player) I thought he was one of our better performers today (only Morgan and Jos stood out more for me). He made a few silly errors and miscontrols as per usual, and I think that side to his game just sticks in some peoples minds too much. They didn't cost us, don't usually cost us, and he offers so much more to the team, not just including his large amount of goals and assists. My only doubt with Guly is whether we should play him in some away games, especially the freezing cold oop north ones. Apart from that he should always be one of the first names on the team-sheet this season, whether up front, in the hole, or on the wing.

Calling someone negrito in Spanish is not racist abuse. It's actually more of a term of endearment where Suarez is from. And Evra, himself a speaker of another Latin-based language, should be aware of that. Though it seems the FA are not.

I was interviewed by a Peruvian TV channel at Machu Picchu this year as the reporter was interested in the likeness of the Saints sash shirt I was wearing to the Peruvian national team's kit. Of course I told him that they had clearly stolen the design from us, as football hadn't yet reached Peru 125 years ago :-) Everyone else in South America thinks I am wearing a Peru or River Plate shirt when I have the sash on, even though their sashes go the opposite way diagonally.

I actually thought Guly (along with Fonte and perhaps Jos) was one of the few players that came out of the game with any credit yesterday. He was basically on his own upfront, with a load of crap behind him, and still managed to create some chances and space on his own. Granted he made (and always makes) mistakes, but he also was far more of a threat than anyone else in the team, and that was playing in an alien, isolated role for him. Plus he put the work in, which a lot of others didn't seem to. Cork, Hammond and especially Fox are the ones that should be singled out for criticism... I can't understand how Guly is the fall guy again in this thread.

This isn't a knee jerk reaction post, however... this is a knee jerk reaction post. :-/

42. Francis Benali's bullet header against Leicester

Messi (and I know this thread says excluding Le Tiss, but the best player I had seen in the flesh was always him, until I saw Messi live for Argentina in their 4-1 win against Spain recently)

I watched us get beat at home by the skates in the cup last season on the internet, in a cabin overlooking a huge blue lake in the middle of the Andes mountains on the southern border of Argentina and Chile. I was depressed for a moment, but then glanced to the other side of the cabin to find my lovely Ecuadorian girlfriend had just woken up and was beckoning me back to bed. Yes, I'm boasting. Unfortunately it's not so great now as we broke up recently and I'm (unsuccessfully) trying to get her back. Hence this slightly drunken forum posting... :-/ (Still, I might never have got with her in the first place if it wasn't for Saints. She's a football fan and "El Tin" Delgado meant we actually had a shared interest of sorts to talk about the first time I was trying to chat her up in a bar. Safe to say she thinks a lot more of him than I do, though!)

And we (Velez) just went top of the Argentine league after beating some team wearing a kit the same as Saints :-)