HarvSFC

Should probably look to offload Aribo and Mara in January and get SAA back in the first team match squads, as he could start to look elsewhere and given his talent and age he won't be short of suitors. Perfect to give him minutes if we're winning comfortably.

Season making three points that. West Brom being the best and the most in form of the teams we've played on this run and today showed we have turned a corner from September. We lost a bit of the game when Smallbone had to go off. I didn't think Faser for Smallbone was the right sub and it did lose us control of the game and West Brom scored from that with a slight momentum shift also, hitting the bar. But, we responded well and executed the gameplan near perfectly. A few scares at the end with headers, but think given the first half we deserved the three points today. Harwood-Bellis is top class. Should we get promoted he'll be absolutely fine at the back and making the step up like Fonte did. Downes has also been a very good signing. Hopefully West Ham's good form and competition in the centre means they're willing to sell him next summer. Good to see Stewart on the pitch also, who also looked as though he has a bit about him and Holgate having a good game as fill in for Bednarek after his earlier shockers. We aren't putting teams away, but neither did Reading when they pipped us in 2011-12, they were just consistently grinding out wins, like we currently are. 8 games unbeaten, 3 wins on the trot. Need to be near perfection with Leicester, Ipswich and Leeds currently. A tough top four in the Championship. The top club after 16 games last season was QPR on 30 points. We're equalling that, while Leeds, Ipswich and Leicester all have more. Could be another crazy points total needed for the top two this season, like League One last season. Most important thing is that we are good again and watching the football is enjoyable again. Up the Saints.

Recency bias, but playing Elyounoussi every single week despite him contributing absolutely nothing going forward, which you kind of need an attacker to do to win matches.

11 years ago Billy Sharp was integral in helping us get over the line after signing in January with 9 goals in 15 matches. No complaints if Stewart has a similar impact.

1 match, 1 clean sheet.

Deserved three points, felt like it wasn't going to drop for us, but Fraser has that Premier League composure and finishing in his locker, something our other attackers lack. Hopefully Stewart replaces the goals we lost when we sold Tella and is the missing piece in the squad. Unbeaten in 7, a tough game against West Brom coming up next, 4th vs 5th. Leicester and Ipswich drop points. Up the Saints.

Yesssssss!!!!! Ryan Fraser super sub.

KWP gets rugby tackled and Millwall get a free kick.

I think we get fewer Saturday 3pm kick offs down here.

Nigel Pearson's got the sack today, we play Bristol City in a month's time.

Today was fantastic. First half up there with the Leeds first half performance. Second half a bit more of a difficult watch, but ultimately it was a comfortable victory. Nice to see the summer signings Downes and Harwood-Bellis coming into their own now. Both showing why they’re on the books of Premier League clubs. I wasn’t really a fan of Bree last season, he didn’t look like a good footballer and I suggested Meghoma against Preston instead. However, Bree’s proving me wrong and he’s taken his chance well, looked very comfortable today, which is the opposite of Manning. Credit to Martin too as he could have easily put Manning straight back into the 11, but he’s going to have to fight to get back in the squad now. Loved seeing Pahars at half time. I started going to St. Mary’s in 2005 and Pahars was the name I got on the back of my second Saints shirt, Phillips was the first. Unfortunately, Pahars was injured for a lot of that period until he left, but I remember his lap of appreciation then when he left. He also seemed genuinely touched on the pitch today that the club had asked him to come back for this event. One of the good things at the club in recent years is that they’re now acknowledging former favourites and often bringing them out at half time. On a tactical front, I noticed we’re putting a hell of a lot of crosses into the box, we scored from three of them, but there were also a few where it just needed a bit better movement and we’d have scored. Stewart’s YouTube highlights suggest he knows where to be, so hopefully he can convert a few more of the crosses coming in. As we saw today, Sulemana got an assist from a cross he’s played a few times in recent matches without an attacker getting on the end of it. Also shout out to the subs. When Aribo came on, I groaned, and not from excitement, but he was good. Don’t want to see him start, but he has a place in helping us to see out matches. Fraser also, showed his good and bad points (the attempted chip). We’ve also escaped a few penalty calls so far this season. Stoke, Preston and now Birmingham today. Big club bias? We do seem to be on Sky every other week. Unbeaten in six, Ipswich are riding the momentum that we had 11 years ago, but our form dropped and we finished two points above West Ham, hopefully we can be the ones to take advantage when Ipswich lose their form.

Bazunu KWP - THB - Bednarek - Manning Downes Alcaraz - S. Armstrong Edozie - A. Armstrong - Sulemana For me. Manning back in, as would prefer a left footed player in the position. Alcaraz in midfield with Stuart Armstrong, rather than safety first Smallbone. Praying that Harwood-Bellis is back fit. Then the front three should ensure the majority of our attacks don’t go down Sulemana’s side. A bit of flexibility, if you have Edozie and KWP causing chaos on the other side. A. Armstrong in the middle, also provides a bit more movement than Adams, who has been static since September 1st. Could even become an interchangeable front three, causing no ends of problems to the opposition defence. I expect it will be Smallbone, A. Armstrong out wide and we’ll go back to the Alcaraz false 9 experiment tomorrow, though.

https://x.com/justsaints_/status/1708532250344833183?s=46&t=DnjqB_BjPeOe3XF6SOVEuQ Alcaraz was important during our best performance of the season, the first half of the match against Leeds. What was he doing? Dropping deep into areas that Leeds weren’t picking him up and helping us to move up the pitch quickly. What’s he been doing in his appearances since then? Being played as a false 9 and the furthest man forward, a position he has struggled to make an impact in. Now, similarly to KWP, we know that Alcaraz is a good player, albeit the latter is still young and inconsistency is expected. But, like KWP earlier in the season, I feel like Alcaraz has been majorly misused in Martin’s tactics and is thus making him look crap, rather than Alcaraz having a big drop in form. I reckon Alcaraz would be best suited to the position Stuart Armstrong is playing, who also isn’t playing that well, barring a good goal against Stoke. He could also play the Smallbone role. However, the latter two seem to be more trusted. I’d also say that Shea Charles was misused last night. Looked good earlier in the season in the holding role. But, that’s Downes’ position, so Charles was a bit further up, which he’s less suited to and he pretty much got hung out to dry last night. I’d also agree that systems don’t win matches, especially once the system has been worked out, as Martin’s has due to his years of being in this league and his inflexibility to move away from his system. The best managers are the flexible, adaptive managers. Klopp’s and Guardiola’s Liverpool and City sides are nothing like the two sides they put together when they first joined. The worst managers are the stubborn ones…

We've had more fans forums than clean sheets this season.

Always helps having a Premier League player to just do something.

A lot of changes. Hopefully not to our detriment.

Can’t sell KWP in January. Not many teams in world football sell a star and probably their best player in the January window. We know how awful it is for buying good players from recent years.

Are you Phil Ifil or Jermaine Wright?

In an ideal world Meghoma, who looked alright in pre-season and has looked good for the Under-21s this season is ready to step up, keeping KWP on the right. Although, could go the same way as Jankewitz.

Given that Martin said we were going to replace Tella after Fraser had already joined and we missed out on Roberts and Paintsil at the end, possibly a wide man incoming? Roberts will be in the final six months of his contract in January. Although, Jack Clarke’s the wide player I’d go for at Sunderland, would cost a fair bit more though. I was desperate for us to keep Adams in the summer, but he has been hopeless since the window ended. I’d say sell him, but I doubt anyone’s going to offer much for him in January given his recent performances. The only concrete links in the summer were Everton haggling over pennies and a Wolves loan deal.

Never said a bad word about him.

KWP has no business playing in this league. Fortunately it’s for us and he’s no longer being asked to play an inverted role.

Should probably make these decisions at the start of an international break. We've got Millwall in a couple of weeks, follows Birmingham, so a couple of new manager bounces.

Same as at club level, we have two strikers, soon to be three who have scored for fun in the Championship, some pacey, tricky wingers, one cost £22m, an Argentina international who was one of our best attackers in the Premier League last season after joining in January and KWP, who shouldn't be playing at this level. I think that's where the anger came from against Rotherham, because we weren't going full throttle at them, or their goal when the clock was ticking down and there was a clear gap between the levels of the teams.

Especially when he started shouting that the red card for Mozambique was detrimental for Nigeria. Gave Mozambique a real advantage.