HarvSFC

Since the turn of the year only City, Arsenal and Liverpool have won more points than Chelsea. They've played 18, won 10, drawn 5 and lost 3. Those losses came against Arsenal, Liverpool and Wolves, so other than Wovles they weren't totally unexpected. As mentioned, Pochettino was just getting this young Chelsea team who had Jackson upfront going. Boehly's got to be one of the worst owner's to have entered the game in terms of club stature, expenditure and results. He just seems to want everything with no clear plan. A stereotypical American.

How come Leeds didn't give Norwich a few chances by giving up possession in their own half? They didn't really give Norwich a sniff tonight which meant Norwich didn't get any confidence or momentum after a couple of Gunn howlers. Leeds dominated. Unfortunately, we'll give West Brom a few chances through our own faults tomorrow, but we've got to do the same as Leeds did tonight given we're the strong favourites also.

Not too bothered if we don't bring in a DoF. Would hopefully avoid another Shea Charles situation where we spend 50% of the transfer budget on a player the manager doesn't want to play/trust. Hasenhuttl also got lumbered with a number of misfits in that final summer and then the pointless Orsic signing last January. Get the manager with the recruitment team to work through a handful of identified players and then sign the one best fitted.

I saw they had wrote an entire article on it earlier: https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/football/portsmouth-fc/portsmouth-rivals-southampton-appeal-for-help-ahead-of-west-brom-semi-final-and-potential-return-of-south-coast-derby-4627595 So, I wanted to see if their claim "Pompey have never felt the need to do this" was true. Apparently, after a quick Google search it isn't. Here's Michael Appleton the last time they got relegated from the Championship: And here's their ex-captain Liam Lawrence: It's almost as if every club does something like this before a big game. Not sure why they've latched onto it, guess they've got to keep pushing their myths.

His son's in our academy, so they're possibly still based around this area.

Lallana being released by Brighton this summer, so get ready for all the links... Would anyone accept him back here given the way he left? Purely on footballing terms I don't think he's a 46 game player if we stayed down and that's what we would need and he isn't a Premier League player anymore if we went up. So, fitness issues too much of a concern and he isn't the same player now because of that. See Ramsey's return to Cardiff as a reference, which was also why I was against an Ox return. Walcott's return wasn't exactly successful either.

After these last handful of games it has become clear that during our dip in form Martin should have pulled Bazunu out of the firing line when it felt like every shot against us was going in and put McCarthy in. The latter wasn't good enough for a Premier League number one spot, but similar to Davis, he's perfectly capable in the Championship. Felt as though one of Sulemana/Edozie should have come on for the last ten minutes for Stephens also. Add a bit off chaos/unpredictability up the field for us because everything we did was very predictable and eaten up by the West Brom defence apart from the Downes and Stewart chances in either half. I don't really get what happened with Edozie, he was in good form, played most weeks, then got injured following a bad tackle, but he hasn't really played since. Got a start against Stoke, but everyone was bad that day. Can't have a handful of midfielders and attackers who can only make sideways passes on the pitch. Need the gamechangers also. Ah well, 0-0. Nothing to chase, nothing to defend. Psychologically, it's just another game we're going into with home advantage. Do need Adams, though. Up the Saints.

Hopefully Stewart has 45 minutes in him.

Ran the game against Sheffield Wednesday on the opening day, so it is a shame he didn't give us a few more to see if we had sorted ourselves out and were going back on the up. Similar to how Lallana, Schneiderlin and Kelvin Davis stuck with us in League One. But, in the same breath we went from having a midfield of Wanyama, Schneiderlin and Steven Davis to JWP being our best midfielder. He wasn't as good as any of those three, aside from his set pieces, so another example of the decline of the starting eleven. Similar to Clyne, Lallana, Lambert 🙁, Schneiderlin, Ings... And many others in that the grass isn't always greener away from Southampton apart from a bigger bank balance. Schneiderlin, Ings and Lambert pretty much finished their careers as a top level player with their moves.

Only team we haven't played off the park for at least 45 minutes of a match this season is Leicester and they were the champions... We've definitely got the team to get us through this and lets hope the recent poor form was due to playing a match every three or four days.

Our record against the others in the play offs this season is won four, drawn two, zero losses. Lets not ruin that now, up the Saints!

Elland Road is like every other ground in the country then. Good when they're winning, bad when they're not. Some myths were being spread a few weeks back.

Won't be the most recent club to win back to back promotions to the Premier League much longer. I said McKenna would be a good option for us last summer, shame we didn't try and pry him away.

Our last two appointments finish the 2023-24 season in 16th and 17th position in League One. Ankersen sure does have an eye for talent.

We looked like a proper mid-table MK Dons/Swansea side today. A terrible insight of what could be next season if we keep the same manager and mess up another summer transfer window. No intensity and lots of playing in our own half today. While Stoke tested McCarthy a lot more than we tested their goalkeeper. Last time we were here we were on the pitch after thrashing Coventry. Now, we're going through the motions against Stoke on a miserable day and the players walking around an empty stadium with a game left.

Guardiola's tactics work because he handpicks the best teams in a country - Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City. He has admitted himself that he couldn't replicate Bielsa's achievements at Leeds. That would be because his tactics do not work with lesser players. But, Russell Martin disagrees.

61 goals conceded. Look at the league table, Leicester 39, Leeds 37, West Brom below us 44, Bristol City eight places below us 47, 13th Sunderland 51, 16th Millwall 55, go as far down to 22nd with Birmingham and they've only conceded 3 more goals than us this season. These tactics would get annihilated in the Premier League, as we saw tonight and as we saw against the young Liverpool team in the cup. All well and good keeping possession. But we play possession far too often in our own half and in our own danger areas. As soon as we lose the ball, which is now becoming inevitable, the opposition get the ball in a good attacking position spring to punish us with a lot of our players now out of position. We, however, will allow the opposition to set up their defence and attempt to play through them, rather than taking any advantages of any gaps when we do pick up the ball. It has been boring and dull for large parts of the season and we're 4th, which shouldn't be the case. Worrying thing is that Martin doesn't look like he wants to adapt given his history at MK Dons and Swansea and the goals against tally at those clubs. An ex-centre-back who doesn't know how to setup a defence. Go figure.

Walking football, creating nothing, but winning possession. The Russell Martin way.

Downes has missed 9 league matches, 1-0 defeat against Ipswich, 1-1 draw with Watford, 1-1 with Coventry, 2-1 win against Plymouth, 3-1 loss against Bristol City, 2-0 win against West Brom and then 2-1 defeats against Hull, Millwall and Cardiff today. So, of the 9, we've won 2, drawn 2 and lost 5 without him.

What ever happened to that myth that all our possession would eventually tire the opposition out? Seems to have the opposite effect, all the work on the ball knackers our players out.

They seem to be changing the FA Cup final dates every other year these days, one year it's played the week after the season, the next it isn't. The argument is lost a little, when as already mentioned Newcastle and Tottenham are playing a friendly in Australia three days after the Premier League season ends. Two years ago Manchester City played Barcelona in a friendly three matches into the season, which was also bizarre.

I was surprised McCarthy was picked ahead of Lumley given he has been non-existent this season, but you've got to pick the goalkeeper who has played for England and been a below average Premier League goalkeeper, which probably makes him serviceable in the Championship over the below average Championship goalkeeper. Remember Lumley's stats at Reading weren't much better than Bazunu's, if they were, from what I can remember. Fortunately, we've only had to see the Watford FA Cup howler from him and that wasn't too costly. Feel more confident with McCarthy in the sticks, we know his drawbacks and deficiencies, while I don't think we've seen enough of Lumley to get the full experience, but I remember that lowlights video of him when he signed. Now, knowing our luck with McCarthy, he'll have a good end to the season and we'll offer him a new contract and a wage increase.

It's the hope that kills you. Up the Saints!

Strangely, there are only three players I'd be disappointed to lose this summer, Harwood-Bellis, Downes and Walker-Peters and they feel like an inevitability if we don't get promoted anyway, so double misery potentially this summer. Think everyone else in the squad is replaceable with a good scouting team, even with A. Armstrong's strong numbers. The good scouting team, is of course as always the worrying thing.

Indeed, it's a token gesture from them to make them appear as though they care about the fans, when there isn't a single professional football club in 2024 that does. Hence they charge their own fans £47 to watch Championship football. They said £15, or £47. From one extreme to the other. Leeds would make up the shortfall from the £15 pricing because they have a bigger stadium and would grant us a bigger allocation than what we could offer Leeds. You'd imagine we made a counter offer and asked them to meet in the middle at £30, which they would have then declined, going to their £47 tickets, but announced how it was horrible Southampton who stopped the reciprocal pricing. They were too loud in pleading their innocence, when the only information from Southampton has come from Alfie House and it looks like it was only their terms, or no terms.