Lighthouse

Are you sure?

I don't have a problem with Clasie starting personally. Liverpool's midfielders aren't exactly giants and I think having him getting stuck in to them will help us. Right now, I'm calling it a brave but probably good decision.

Reminds me of when Villa won here a couple of seasons ago with their only 3 shots going in. Sunderland were sh*te and if it wasn't for a silly challenge by Coloccini they'd have lost.

Sunderland have been absolute dog sh*t, then this happens.

A bit like the Pompey myth about them sending us down at West Brom.

Cattermole or Mitrovic, who's going to stay on the pitch longer?

Better than crack and hookers I guess. Good luck Ryan.

So this was a year ago. What a mental game that was. The first couple of pages of this thread, "we're not really playing well."

He knows things about Clasie that would make your hair curl.

I envy you.

Harding was second only to Lambert in player of the season under Pardew, was an excellent free transfer at the time. If only we'd been able to pick a couple of players like that a year earlier we might not have gone down.

Sorry, I didn't really phrase it too clearly. I meant guys who'd excelled for their country without necessarily playing as well for Saints. I agree that Pelle isn't a good example of this as he has been as good for us as Italy, it just got me thinking about other internationals.

Just watching Pelle this evening got me thinking about which Saints players performed particularly well for their country, even if they were never the best players for us. Anders Svensson has to be the prime example. 148 caps for an outfield player is quite incredible (23 more than Shilton), not to mention his fantastic free kick to dump the Argies out of the 2002 World Cup. Agustin Delgado is another, having arrived with a big reputation following some excellent performances for Ecuador. Steven Davis has been the N. Ireland captain on and off for 9 years now and has topped it off with those 2 goals to send them to France next summer.

That wasn't bad.

Where red shirts are fine, navy and white stripes are fine but red and white stripes - absolutely not!

I can't even imagine how that video came to exist.

Meaning Butland needs some experience playing for England incase Hart picks up an injury and is unable to play next summer. I don't get how that's hard to understand

Has it ever been the board's stated ambition to raise the clubs profile in the US? As far as I can tell the US sports market is pretty much saturated. They've got NFL, NBA, NHL, Indy Car, NASCAR, MLB and MLS. Even massive global brands like Formula 1 and the Premier League generate limited interest, compared with the rest of the developed world. I can't see an irrelevant, medium sized, English 'soccer' club like Saints generating any kind of interest 5,000 miles away in Arkansas. I think our 'commercial' interests are closer to home and we need to give Ralph more than a year before we start judging it. You can't just flick a switch and generate support. Just look at the Skates, who pumped tens of millions into their 2 or 3 years of glory and people still didn't give a sh*t.

I've heard this sort of thing a lot about the artificial turf but it's not as if players legs are falling off in every game. Seems like every time there is an injury on one of these pitches, the astro-grass gets blamed. If it was that bad we wouldn't be playing on them, as it happens I doubt they are any more risky than pitches which are too cold/hard, too wet, too dry, too lumpy, grass too long etc. Glad Bert isn't playing anyway, grass or no grass. Would be sod's law for our only competent LB to get injured in a meaningless game.

I don't remember it being when he first joined so much as that run up to Christmas when we were losing games and TBH Mané was awful; in that period he really did look like a more expensive Mayuka. Against Burnley and Sheff Utd I think he was especially bad, getting dragged off having made no impact at all. Then on that Boxing day trip to Palace he suddenly turned it around and looked a decent player again.

Linked with Lewa in some media outlets. Any know it's just paper selling, column filling BS but come on, really?! Surely even the Scousers don't believe that one.

Got to wonder how good you actually have to be to get a game for Gibraltar. A country who's population is only 1.5 times that of Hedge End can't have a massive pool of talent. Still, they managed to score against Scotland and Poland so fair play.

Weird hearing a bit of atmosphere at the Etihad this evening.

I just hate that they still talk as if they are European greats, belong in the Champions League and should be competing for the title every year. They've not won the league for 25 years. One European Cup in the last 30 years, same as Partizan Belgrade, Marseille and Steaua. They talk about how they did the treble 15 years ago, without actually winning the League or CL. They've won 1 League cup in the last 10 years. They're a big club no doubt but as big as Spurs, not Barcelona.

Erm... no.