HarvSFC

Wolves at odds of 3.40 to beat Newcastle tonight. Have I missed something?

Interesting. I know him and Ashley Cole reportedly left a match separately, not on the team bus. Cole’s appointment felt like a real “job for the boys” appointment. No doubting he was a world class player, but he wasn’t the most professional, nor does he seem the most intelligent/a good communicator when he does his punditry. Duncan Ferguson is essentially their Kelvin Davis in the coaching staff, but they’re too scared to get rid of Ferguson.

A strong case for him being England's best player last summer and has certainly never put a foot wrong for country. However, like Maguire and Shaw, for whatever reason his club career hasn't been as successful with a relegation already on his record and going by the Everton forum, he's certainly not a fan favourite with many calling for Begovic to start ahead of him. If it was based purely on club career, we wouldn't bat an eyelid at him. Then you factor in that Everton paid £30m for him, as already mentioned and he's probably already on more wages than our highest earner, he's not going to take a wage drop to come here, it doesn't look as appealing a deal, as he could also bring his Everton form here, rather than his England form. I can't see him going to Newcastle, whether it's all pantomime, but he's given it back to their fans following his time at Sunderland.

It's a bit dodgy when Dean's from that area.

With the knowledge that the Pinnacle group/Michael Fialka managed to convince him to join their cause, he doesn't seem the most reliable source of information.

I recall Ben Foster saying this on one of his podcasts: "One thing I will say is, if you can get on top of Everton early doors, the Everton fans are horrible to Everton players. They get right on top of them. For sure they get into the players' heads. All we said before the game is, 'right lads, we need to start fast and get on top of them'. "We won the game 5-2 and we make a point of saying it, the Everton fans are horrible. If it looks like we're overrunning them, they get on the Everton players like crazy." So, Goodison Park won't be too much of a factor if they do unfortunately stay up. Opposition players know how to play there. We don't, but, yeah...

Unfortunately, Rickie Lambert's the same on Instagram. It's the old thing of footballers being genius' on the pitch, but for a lot of them it's all they know and for a lot of their lives they have been idolised and held in high regard, so come out with these outlandish opinions, believing they're oracles.

Not sure if my memory deceives, but Schneiderlin’s one of the first I think of when a Saints best 11 is said. I thought he was a star, and was going on to be world class when he made the move, that didn’t work out for him. He has the League 1 to the Europa League journey to add a bit of sentiment too, so surprised a few have left him out for Wanyama, who couldn’t pass over 2 yards, let alone the crossfields Schneiderlin was known for.

Boruc KWP - Alderweireld - Van Dijk - Bertrand Schneiderlin - Wanyama Mane - Tadic - Lallana Ings, although my heart says Lambert Manager: Koeman Worst: Gunn Danso - Caulker - Hoedt - Fox Clasie - Lemina Boufal - Ramirez - Mayuka Carillo Manager: Pellegrino Picked players who actually played, to avoid Hassen, Taider, Forren and some of the average youth like Jankewitz, who did play and cost us, but not enough to leave a lasting impression. Probably harsh on Boufal, Ramirez and Lemina who showed glimpses, but also had awful, nothing games. Fox got us up, but was out of his depth in the Premier League and we were fortunate Shaw developed as and when he did. Goalkeeper was a toss up between Gunn, Gazzaniga and Davis, but the 9-0 sways it.

Remember when drinks breaks were the most outrageous thing football had seen?

Peter Madsen, Jim Brennan, Mario Licka, Pele, Marcelo Sarmiento, Lucien Mettomo, Jan-Paul Saeijs, Zoltan Liptak, Romain Gasmi... We were very adventurous with our recruitment back then. Some signings more successful than others!

That's the Nigel Quashie curse. Suffered relegation with QPR, Forest, Southampton and West Brom. The latter two being consecutive seasons. We did, however, unfortunately sign him from Portsmouth, who were Premier League at the time.

Who, I found out the other day had resurrected and now goes by Alexander Mezan.

Although, KWP was a 22 year old who couldn't get games ahead of Walker, Trippier and their £23m signing Aurier. Winks is 26 and behind Hojbjerg and Skipp in their pecking order. Think it's another case of there has to be better available elsewhere.

For a brief period the hierarchy of best players in the world was the obvious Ronaldo and Messi category and then Bale was the player beneath them. The injuries and desire stopped him from having a prolonged period up there, so it depends whether a spell as one of the best players in the world is considered better than someone who has been consistently at the top of the game for the majority of their career.

With their last World Cup being the one in 2014. You would probably trade one World Cup qualification for a Euros win, but missing out on two qualifications is pretty miserable for what is still football’s biggest competition.

I still stand by Austria would have taken Italy to penalties in Euro 2020(1) had Italy not had five subs, which allowed them to bring on Locatelli, Belotti, Chiesa and the goalscorer Pessina, while Austria were very much lowering the on pitch quality with their subs. And then, who knows what may have happened from the lottery of the penalties. 🙁 As for Bale, as much as I enjoyed watching him a few years ago, he's not that player anymore and despite his good scoring record for Spurs when he returned, I don't think he was a huge success there and certainly not what they were expecting/hoping for. 20 league matches with only 10 of them being starts. His pace is completely gone and he was invisible in some games as much as he was scoring important goals in others. His heart hasn't been in club football for a number of years now, he did reach the top and win it all to be fair to him. But, his main focus is Wales and golf now. There were even rumours of him retiring last year, he doesn't have the hunger for it and after the success of Walcott's return, I'd hope that if it ever does become a possibility that we'd give it a hard pass.

Picked up Darren Powell, Dennis Wise, Tomasz Hajto, Marcelo Tejera, Kamil Kosowski and Djamel Belmadi that summer. Cracking transfer window and one that we can only dream of these days. I think Fuller was the only one we paid a fee for.

He gets very defensive if you call him a wheeler dealer.

Uh oh, he's being noticed! Our best and most consistent player this season and he hasn't even playing in his natural position, or side for the majority of it. At least he knows he doesn't need to leave Southampton to get into the England squad.

Had good spells here in the past, but like the rest of our defenders, lacks consistency and has other weaknesses both technically and physically. The very least us fans ask for is commitment to the club and to be available and play when needed. He now doesn't even have that. Today was our biggest match of the season and he's pretty much stuck two fingers up to the club and the fans and shown that he doesn't care. We've had far better players here in recent years pull this move and survived after their inevitable departure, get rid of him at the next available opportunity. Imagine if we were in a relegation battle and we had him picking and choosing when he wants to be in the squad, while picking up his wages happily.

A few weeks a go I thought we should keep him, he looked back to his 2016 best, making top quality saves and it was only because of a shoddy defence in front of him that he was conceding goals. He was certainly keeping us in some matches. However, it's becoming clear, that he just isn't consistently good enough, or able to maintain that form if we want to push up the league further. He's a good goalkeeper, will help keep teams in the Premier League, but he won't help them push beyond that. I can see him going the Dan Burn route and getting a nice final pay day and signing on fee by returning to Newcastle, becoming their number two, to be honest. We need a goalkeeper where we can come away from a match and say I don't know how we won that, our goalkeeper got us those three points. Like with Davis in the lower leagues and Boruc and Niemi up here. We've not been able to say that for a few years now. Our outfield 10 have poor games, we lose. It's that simple. Whereas, we've outplayed plenty of teams this season and often blame poor finishing, but it's also a good opposition keeper that we have to beat.

Both their subs score, their strength in depth is too much and why they want five subs in the league. Equally, if there wasn’t five subs we possibly don’t start both Broja and Adams on the bench, as using 2/3 to bring them on poses a bit more of a risk than 2/5. Shit rule. Doesn’t deserve a 4-1 score line. But, we all know the defence needs bolstering.

I said after the West Ham match that it should be Caballero’s last match here. End on a high, a win and his final bit of action was a good save. Rather than, being remembered as the what if Forster had started against City player. Indeed, Forster could also make a mistake tomorrow, but Caballero is far more liable. He cost us a goal against West Ham and indeed, his final good save was also a result of another cock up from himself. Fortunately, it didn’t cost us then, but it will against City. No room for sentimentality at this stage.

That’s really disappointing. I suppose I don’t like Burnley that much, but a small consolation.