Saint-Armstrong

Middlesbrough promoted back to the top flight. Play-offs Brighton vs Sheffield Wednesday Derby County vs Hull City

Lawrie on Rupert Lowe...

Les Reed: “In his first year with the club, Virgil has quickly established himself as one of the top centre-backs in the Premier League, becoming an integral part of what has been another strong season for the team. “At 24, and with significant European experience already under his belt, we believe he can be a key pillar in our squad for years to come, and we are delighted to have agreed this new deal with him. “Although Virgil only joined us in September we felt it was important to strengthen our commitment and we believe this also provides further indication of how serious our ambitions are for the coming years.”

VIDEO:

http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/news/article/20160507-virgil-van-dijk-new-contract-announcement-southampton-3099615.aspx

Erm, yeah... Claudio Ranieri is the theme.

Footage of just outside Leicester's ground right now -

Leicester fans outside Vardy's house dancing on the street! What a brilliant, brilliant story.

Leicester City are the champions! Incredible.

Chelsea fans singing: ‘One Ranieri! There's only one Ranieri!'

Pellè watched the game today in one of the boxes. Seemed to enjoy the game and gave up time for fans before, during and after. Also, here's a photo of him with Mark Sanderson - who has written the Bobby Stokes book - from his Twitter.

This afternoon is the first time in our history we've scored four goals in back-to-back Premier League games, too.

As part of the night, Saints are putting on 'the ultimate penalty shootout'...

Ronald confirms that Graziano was just left out. Not injured or anything, just not selected in the 18.

Saints 4-2 Man City Saints 4-0 Arsenal Saints 3-2 Liverpool Chelsea 1-3 Saints United 0-1 Saints We've had some cracking wins this season.

Noticed that earlier. Checked what I sent them and what actually went in the paper, and it read: "qualifying for their second successive Europa League campaign" Not sure why it's ended up like that on the website. But thanks for the kind words!

Had an exclusive interview with Ryan Bertrand this week. Here's the double page spread. You can read it online, here: http://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/511816/Ryan-Bertrand-England-Euro-2016-glory-Southampton-Premier-League-European-double Top bloke and really positive about Saints and what the club is trying to achieve.

Full story: Fonte admits talking to Chamberlain, who is contemplating a return to St. Mary's - https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/premier-league-exclusive--talks-to-bring-oxlade-chamberlain-back-to-southampton--have-begun-085710510.html

Not particularly. Fonte gave the impression it was something that had been discussed recently and it seems to be something that's still very much alive.

Able to let the quotes from the one-on-one interview I had with Jose on Wednesday night filter out now... should be some more quotes from Fonte on Chamberlain flying around on Yahoo Sport at some point tomorrow. @ConnorArmstrong: Fonte also revealed that he HAS spoken to Alex Chamberlain about a St. Mary's return and he wants the academy graduate back at #SaintsFC. @ConnorArmstrong: "Have I been talking to Alex and has it been mentioned? Yeah, of course," Fonte told me on Wednesday evening. #saintsfc @ConnorArmstrong: Fonte: "We talk, we played together before and Chambo is one of the kids that I really am fond of and I like him a lot." - #SaintsFC @ConnorArmstrong: Fonte: "He’s a great kid and I wish him all the best. He’s at a great club, but I just want the best for him." - #SaintsFC @ConnorArmstrong: Fonte: "If he decides that a move to #SaintsFC would be good for his career, why not? I can’t deny that I would love to see him back."

Yep, pretty much. I asked Fonte about this last night when I spoke to him but the quotes are being held back for tomorrow's paper, I believe. He said a bit more than there is in those ClubCall quotes, but that's the general gist of it. If the paper don't use all the quotes, I can bung the full transcript up here.

Spaghetti with Wanyama

I actually spoke to José about this rumour in a one-on-one interview last night at the launch of a business venture with Ryan Bertrand. Understandably, a fair bit of stuff (and the actual quotes...) are being held back for newspapers and websites. But, I can post about this now. He totally rubbished this 'Fonte back to Portugal' rumour that originated in Portugal when I brought it up. I'll give a bit more detail here - (although I can't provide the actual direct quotes just yet) - as José actually went to some length to explain the situation that led to that article. When I asked him about these reports in Portugal he was very keen to answer and asked that the record got set straight. So here you go... He was asked, by a Portuguese journalist, whether he would come back to Portugal and which club would he most like to play for out of 'the big three' of Benfica, Porto and Sporting. He remarked that he would never shut the door on returning home (would be daft to...) and said he couldn't pick one of the three as they're all great clubs and he already has connections with Benfica and Sporting due to his past. The journalist then went away and wrote a story of 'Fonte eyeing move back to Portugal' and linked him with 'the big three'. I could tell from the way he was speaking about it that he was quite annoyed and wanted to clear it up. He said he's very, very happy here. He loves the club, he is really happy with the manager (they have a strong working relationship), he's settled here and his young family are happy where they are living too. He said he feels at home and called this 'my club'. Says he feels a special bond with the fans and has a lot of appreciation for everything Southampton have done for him. Said he would 'love' to finish his career in Southampton but he'd be foolish to shut too many doors because there's always a chance he falls out of favour here. But he said, as long as he was wanted and happy here, he doesn't envisage leaving before he retires. As above, he's doing his coaching badges with Kelvin right now. He's very passionate about coaching and developing youth players and that ties in nicely with Saints. He'd like to follow Radhi's route and said he 'would really love to, definitely' manage Saints if the chance ever arose.