Lighthouse

Remember Boxing Day (26th December, as it is every year) in 2015 when we were absolute sh*te for a month and pulled a 4-0 win out of nowhere? I’d take that.

I couldn't make it through the first six words of the title of that video, let alone watch it.

And with all those 'good guys with a gun' I keep hearing about every time there's a shooting.

Not to mention the US and their allies had to fly all personnel, armament and logistics in from the other side of the world and set up operational bases in foreign countries. Russia can't adequately supply operations an hour's drive from their own border.

Or, as whelk said, a bunch of drunken rapists in s**t tanks. They’ve been found badly lacking against Ukraine, the militaries of NATO are far, far superior, with or without Uncle Sam involved.

You were wrong then and you’re wrong now.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61066503 They're approaching flat-earther levels of delusion at times. He's basically saying, "you know all those atrocities in Ukraine, it would be very unwise of you to try and protect yourself from that in some way." What astonishes me is the number of other people who still think NATO are the aggressors. Russia has given us the most perfect excuse to start a fight we could ever dream of and we still haven't fired a single shot.

Okay, I’ll get my coat.

I’m expecting a 0-0 borefest neither team wants to lose.

121,000 is basically EVERY child in a city the size of Leeds. That's some Pied Piper s**t going on right there, I think it'd be pretty substantial front page news.

We need better players in pretty much every position except fullback. So long as Forster, Bednarek, Moi and Long/Armstrong are regular starters we’re never going to improve.

You might want to give the Lionesses a follow, or just women's football in general.

We're one of the worst funded teams in the league, fighting over 9th-13th. You're getting nostalgic over one of the worst funded teams in the league finishing 16th-18th. People remember times like that with rose tinted glasses. Mention the great escape season and people get all whimsical over Le Tiss, Pahars and the trip to Wimbledon. They tend to forget losing 7-1 to Liverpool, 1-4 at home to Villa and 5-0 at Charlton.

Aside from the score, as has been pointed out, I'm almost certain that was at Highbury. We won the home game when Delgado got Campbell sent off, then scored with his todger. Shocking game though. Think it was 5-0 after about 20 minutes, at which point Fernandes was subbed off.

Nobody is a good fit for United until they sort their squad full of egos out. Ronaldo, Pogba, Lingard and Martial (permanently) need to go and be replaced by leaders and workers. Same for anyone else who’s more interested in their Instagram than putting in a shift.

I hope Spurs fans had a flutter on the National this afternoon. United and Arsenal losing to teams who've both lost 6 our of their last 7.

What that effectively translates to is us having three passengers in our team (namely Bednarek, Moi and whichever 'keeper we put out) and little to change things on the bench others that mixing it up with the fullbacks. Ralph has clearly been getting the latter bit wrong lately but it's not like we have obviously better players to bring in. Let me put it this way; I would look to replace Ralph but only after we've replaced Forster, McCarthy, Bednarek, Stephens, Moi, AArm, Long, Walcott, Redmond and Djenepo.

That was a different game, although I can't recall when. The game I'm thinking of was apparently on new year's day in 2008 https://www.11v11.com/matches/southampton-v-watford-01-january-2008-279893/

There’s a 3-0 defeat by Watford under George Burley which always sticks in my mind. A non-sensical farce of a team selection, people out of position all over the place, an absolutely abject performance and the clown sat there gormlessly watching until the 88th minute, before sending on Adam Hammill for no particular reason.

JWP, KWP, Livramento, Salisu, Perraud, Romeu, S. Armstrong, Adams and Broja are decent midtable players. That’s 9 out of the whole squad. The rest are substandard. The squad is better than it has been but we are still reliant on a large number of poor players.

That’s because they have a stagnant economy and people just don’t want to have families there, not because they are all infertile. I can’t imagine there are 121,000 Russian families out there who want to adopt kidnapped Ukrainian children.

As bad as Ralph can be, and on his worst days he puts out the worst teams in Saints history, I do think overall he gets more out of this squad than most people would expect. He has us consistently mid table on an absolute shoestring budget. That’s no attempt to defend today’s game, or even the last five games but the fact that Long and Elyounoussi are regulars for us shows how far away we are from squads like West Ham, Leicester and Villa, who all have players worth more than our record signing on the bench.

I can’t believe that, if 121,000 children had been abducted we’d have heard a lot more about it.

Let’s just enjoy United dropping hopelessly away from the Champions League and watch all those big name egos sulk.

Both Armstrong’s start. Probably as good a team as we can put out.