Lighthouse

Well, fairly obviously we could have lost by more than three goals. How would four new young players have felt about being on the wrong end of a 6-0 on debut? Without Salisu’s howler, 3-1 is basically a par score for a team like ours at a CL away game. Valery knows the squad, he knows the players, clearly it’s not a long term plan as ABK started in his place today. It’s not a nonsense argument. Look at our games from Pardew’s season. We had talent like Lambert, Lallana, Hammond, Morgan and Kelvin in the team and still didn’t win a league game until October. It took time for them to gel as a team. https://www.soccerbase.com/teams/team.sd?team_id=2471&teamTabs=results

I don't know how many times it needs repeating but throwing four young debutants into the same team, for a fixture like Spurs away, is just asking for trouble. Valery is nothing special at this level but at the very least he knows the rest of the players well and has appeared competent in a back three in the past. There's clearly something going on with Adams and potential transfers behind the scenes, for him to not even get on the pitch last week. Mo started because we're always going to have to make changes mid game with the new sub rule. I'd rather it was this way round than having to bring on Moi to try and change the game. His decisions today made sense. We've still got two first choice fullbacks with long term injuries and are missing anything resembling a decent striker or options in AM.

Whilst I agree with the sentiment, truth be told we have little choice in the matter. With the 5 subs rule, changes will become a necessity, rather than an option. If your opponents are bringing on three or four fresh faces, you will need to counter than in attack and defence. That's why I wasn't particularly shocked or surprised to see him start ahead of Aribo and it worked to an extent. It's the football equivalent of using the right bowlers at the right time in a cricket T20, not just using all your best players at the start. I think there's going to be a lot more of this kind of thing from everyone, not just Saints.

It was Pahars’ last goal for us, I remember that much.

I see what you did there.

Perhaps some of the wags have been for a boob job and they had a 2-4-1 offer.

Don’t all players? They have GPS trackers in for analysis, do they not?

No Aribo clearly isn’t true, he’s on the bench on a very hot day and we have five subs. The starting XI has never been less relevant as the one which plays the last 20 minutes could look completely different. As for Djenepo and a back five; as opposed to what? Who should be playing LB in your preferred back four?

If nothing else we can at least put the, “clueless Ralph will probably start the season with McCarthy,” posts to bed.

TBF with him it was more of a weigh-in.

Cutting yourself in a place that you don’t see or feel. The first you know about it is when you see blood smeared all over your clothes or furniture.

Last season was the first and only time they finished above 15th in the table and they immediately sold their two best players. In what aspect are they ‘thriving’?

Weird supporting Brave against Hampshire’s T20 bowling attack.

36-4 and then that. Amazing.

TBH he's a body up front who may, if he improves, chip in with five or six goals. Some people would have been content to see Shane Long given a new deal on the back of scoring one goal a season, so that can only be seen as a step forward of sorts.

When you're trying to sell a golf club but it's just too damn hot for clothes.

I genuinely can't wait to see how he's going to spin tens of thousands of Russians fleeing from "Russian territory".

I bet our successive owners couldn’t believe their luck having Ralph. Here we are with a perennially tight budget and all of his dream signings have been c£15m or less. There’s not one striker he fancies for £40m or £50m plus, no; Sekou Mara, he’s THE man for Ralph.

Hmmmm, looks a bit close to a civilian area to me, I’m sure Amnesty will post a statement soon about how unwise it is to station their planes there. On another note, Russians have had their holidays ruined and are now fleeing in their thousands across the bridge towards Rostov. Boo-f**king-hoo Edit: wish they’d HIMARS that Kerch bridge next, make all the c**ts drive back up through the Ukrainian mainland and what’s left of Mariupol. Then they could tell everyone what it’s really like when they get back to Russia.

They’ve won the exact same as us in the last 72 years; one FA Cup and one Football League Trophy. The difference being we didn’t go bankrupt winning the FA Cup, followed by insolvency and three relegations in five years. Fair play for getting another dig at Adkins into a thread about the League Cup though.

How to get the best price when selling, lesson 1 - “He’s not for sale.”

People said that last time, when we spanked them 4-0 in their own back yard. I think the difference in class between the PL and L1 is sometimes underestimated; I remember one video taken from the stands of our fourth goal and you could hear some Skate mush behind describing Redmond as, “different class.”

It’ll have the affect of constantly disinfecting your child’s toys and hands. When they eventually do get exposed to something properly nasty, they’ll be I’ll equipped to cope. There was a story from Canada a few years ago about a teacher who was suspended for showing a debate on gender featuring Jordan Peterson. Whatever you think of that issue, the fact that they didn’t want students to be exposed to a debate is really quite alarming.

Awesome day out that, never saw a win coming when they needed 20 from the last 4 wickets. This lot don’t know they’re beat, in any format.