Lighthouse

They’re both on my list, although the people I know are in Kharkiv and Dnipro/Zaporizhzhya. I get your point, what I’m saying is that, regardless of the last century, Russia really doesn’t have much of a historic/ethnic claim to that part of the country, unlike parts of the South and East.

I know a couple of Ukrainians and I’d love to visit there one day. Probably going to wait a bit though. I do wonder how far west Russia would go if they did invade. I can see them laying claim to anything East/South of Kyiv but the western oblasts towards Lviv have historically been tied closer to Poland and Lithuania. That’d be a hard sell, even back home in mother Russia.

I don't see that at all and I think it's a bit of a slap in the face to our coaches. Walcott, when he left in 2006, is the perfect example of that kind of thinking going wrong. He went to Arsenal, Champions League finalists and a season or two after their 'invincibles' so he could train with Theirry Henry. He went from developing well, playing regular football at a competitive level, to sitting on the bench for the best part of a year. The net result being he just never quite got there and even as a 32 year old, he looks like large chunks of his game are lacking. Even taking my Saints fan hat off, I think a club like ours is the best place from him to play for the next couple of years. Somewhere he can miss the chances he missed at OT and not get immediately slated by the fans for being sh*t and dropped by a manager whose job hinges on achieving Champions league football. Sadly I doubt he and his agent will see it that way and money invariably talks.

Vest on the pitch for all of 14 seconds when that went in. 🤣🤣

Waking up bursting for a p*ss but you can’t go because you’ve got a massive horn.

Horses for courses, if there was one magic formation which wins every game, everyone would be playing it.

He seems to have helped address our lacquer goals.

It would be pretty Saintly to go a season unbeaten against United, Spurs and City but lose home and away to Wolves, Everton and Norwich.

I was looking through their team sheet earlier and basically thinking the exact same thing. Other than two academy players, every single one of them would have been comfortably our record signing.

I wouldn't argue that he's better than McC but that's not much of an endorsement in itself. FF has played 7 league games this season, following several years of performances which have been dubious to say the least (no clean sheets in that 7 either). For the massive wages we're reportedly paying him, I'd be disappointed if our scouts couldn't find someone better in summer. This thread is emotive after a match saving save in injury time at OT, I get it. This is the kind of superficial, short term thinking Ankersen was brought in to prevent.

We'll make it sticky for a bit so that everyone knows. A real shame the old boy couldn't hang around for another four days, my condolences to his family. For the record, I think 1-1 is an improvement on last season's fixture but I can't remember how that one went.

No we don't. He may be better than McC and enjoying a period of good form but we shouldn't be handing out multi-year contracts on the back of temporary spikes in form. I'd like to think we've been scouting better, more consistent players for several months, if not longer.

Has nobody told them that in 2 years time Ralph will be sitting on a beach earning 20%.

He looks like he's telling a bouncer, "Alright, I've had a couple, fair play."

TBH my only hope is that someone buys him cheap in summer, possibly one of the promoted clubs. We should never have bought him back, he seems to have brought little other than sentimentality.

I generally can’t stand most punditry these days, so I’m watching the IPL auction.

Didn’t we finish off at The Dell by beating United and Arsenal consecutively in our last two games? Everyone remembers Arsenal but I think United was the game where Pahars looked about 20 yards off but wasn’t.

Just off the M80 I think.

But they did ‘still have enough time to win this’, that’s not an unreasonable thing to say.

You’d think if everyone else started seizing the assets of Russian billionaires and blocking travel, one of them would have little Vlad assassinated eventually.

Liverpool at home in 2016 also springs to mind. Goals from Pelle and Mane.

So he's so good that you'd prefer to NOT play him, have worse results and leave him feeling frustrated and unappreciated? Should drop our chances of keeping him next season from 1% to 0%. FWIW he'll probably p*ss off to Spurs when they sell Kane to City.

TBF he will be raking it in for the next three years of his part time job. Fair play to his agent.

We haven't looked anything like 'relegation fodder' since the end of September and even then we'd picked up a few points from a tough start against United, City and West Ham. We're a far, far better team than Burnley, Watford and Norwich and have been for several months.