Saint86

Very good timing 😅

Slight point of concern, I'd be surprised if Diallo is happy with his current involvement tbh. He's had very few minutes this season and you wouldn't blame him if is considering his options. Say he waits for JWP to be sold/injured etc, his contract will be running down by then and we'll be nearing the time when we should be selling him to maximise his value. Awkward one really.

We scored the own goal in the second half did we 🤣

No shame in this, the team have given it everything, a bit of luck and no mistakes and we'd be in it or winning. But how often do you really manage that? Saints fans in the ground though have been a real dissapointment based on the BBC coverage. Maybe the mics are in a bad spot, but it's sounded like a city homegame most of the match. Chants of "your support is f'ing shit" and fans leaving with 15min to go. Players deserve better backing than this. Ditto people raging at the players here when they run their socks off vs one of the best teams in the world.

Saints fans in the ground need to step it up here!

Ominous typo 😆

Clear pen wtf. His arms up over his head and he's blocked a goal bound header.

The important thing is not to go 1-0 down to a Hodgson team - for no other reason that this place will be unbearable afterwards if the game has followed that kind of pattern 😅

Yeah agreed, KWP has been better than Livramento the entire season for me. Bar maybe a couple of stand out performances by Livramento I don't think its ever really been in doubt. Livramento is good, but he shouldn't be a starting choice over Perraud or KWP on current form. I think at the start of the season he was played for 2 reasons - one because perraud had to bed in to english footy, and two because Livramento was (and is) a great marketting ploy for our shop window business model - there is no better way to sell yourself to young players than to be able to point to players like Livramento and Broja coming in and making an impact in the premier league. I personally think the club will be delighted to have all 3 of them here, all signed for a good price, all young (ish), all on reasonable wages, and all with potential resale value / profit. The chelsea situation is interesting. On the one hand, it suddenly looks quite unlikely that they will be able to take up that first option on Livramento now (transfer ban / financial situation) - so we can potentially sell him for a lot more. But equally, they'll probably be forced to sell a lot of first team players (like Lukaku) to balance the books - which means they'll either see Broja as a critical player for the intermediate future - or a cash cow to be milked. Eitherway, i think its probably more unlikely than ever that we'll sign him now

Lol right, you're the one "squealing" that our owners didn't invest significant money over January 🙄

Its almost like you think we're also owned by the richest sovereign wealth fund in the world... or in fact anyone with significant money to waste on a football club 🤣

Fixture congestion showing for us at the moment i think - i.e. we're lacking time to prepare between matches. Typical that in this instance it was caused by Newcastle skiving off a match so they could make new singings, and then two of their main signings score their first goals against us. I'm sure Ralph's pre match chat did nothing to motivate the Newcastle players mind...

I have always felt with Howe that he is alright provided he can keep spending money. At Bournemouth he spent big (relative to their level) and got an immediate bounce from new signings, and that carried them along quite well. But i don't think he was anything special at developing players, and i don't think his teams are particularly great at defence or controlling games. Newcastle is a great job for him. He plays attacking football (which they have been crying out for), has come into a club which can have vociferous support where the fans are right behind the team, and he's got to play fantasy football. But i don't think he's a great manager who is going to be with Newcastle long term - also they are a shocking fanbase and probably the most toxic one in England when it starts to go wrong or not meet their expectations. That day will eventually arrive for Howe and i can't seem him managing it successfully. But bottom line, Howe was never the right manager for saints because fundamentally we have no money ^_^.

Repeat after me - build it and they will come.

Nothing special about Newcastle other than they are very athletic. Expect a lot of direct passing and bruising tackles/headers. We'll need Salisu, Romeu, Adams, and Broja to stand up to them and cause them problems.

Watched the motd highlights only. But every single attack on there involved an unmarked coutinho receiving no pressing and doing whatever he wanted. Bizarre tactically from us of all teams. We were due and off day however, and you would hope his was a fluke for both us and villa.

Are there actually people that think sacking Puel was a mistake? 😨

Right now we play to his strengths as a team. He's an absolute engine, a great wind up merchant, he gets to sit deep (pick passes and arrive late to the box), and we're creating space for him to whip in crosses out wide. He wouldn't look this good in another side. Given his quotes last season (and Romeu's recently), i don't necessarily think he'll move. But i certainly wouldn't begrudge him a move to a top 3 team, the chance to win trophies, and a guaranteed england spot.

That Sheldon article really hasn't done us many favours

How would that be our likely run? We will play Man City and West Ham sure, but we can't play Liverpool and Chelsea before the final? And we have just as much chance of getting Everton as we do Liverpool, or indeed Chelsea. Also, lets not kid ourselves. We've had quite easy games prior to west ham - and at some point you do have to play the best teams - thats how cups work. Suspect the team will fancy themselves vs Man City at home. They'll know they were robbed at the Ethiad, they know they beat them in project restart, and they know we earned a good draw last time out. Plus the fa cup semi defeat and home crowd will give them a lot of motivation. Has the makings of a proper cup tie. A better way of saying it, is that we'll likely have to best 2 of the best teams in world football to lift the cup.

Been trying to think how to describe our football, at least when it goes well. In my mind we try to play a very aggressive/attacking form of anti football (i.e we stop opponents playing - as in, we play high up the pitch, will absolutely flood the central lines of the pitch/midfield and/or squeeze the other side to the bylines). When it works, we suffocate teams. And as soon as we win the ball we are on the front foot running at teams, probing around the box, recycling possession. Absolute joy to watch us at the moment. The team have really matured into not just the pressing game, but also defensive discipline, and using our possession of the ball. So much of it is about the wing backs / full backs (sod it lets just call them wingers and be done with it) - and their pace / recover speed. Equally the CB's we have now are significantly faster - when you compare all of that to Vestergard and Bertrand it really highlights the significant improvement this season. The tactics, the players, and the drilling/discipline/familiarity we have now are all really paying off. We don't need great players to kill teams with these tactics, every player knows their role in a set position and they function as a well drilled team - but the players that really fit the system are shining none the less - all over the pitch! And its not just the above, but the fitness of the players is immense, we've been playing extra time in the cups, then going to tottenham and united and running them off the pitch by the end of the game. Playing games with 10 men and still running teams ragged by the end etc. Its impressive. Its hard to see us struggling currently, at least until someone works out how to counter our play style effectively or we get bad injuries (hard hat prepped if this changes!!). The signs were there (just thinking about 2020 form) that it could click like that. But 2021 with the injuries and fatigue we really dropped off and obviously at that point the doubters/concerns grew in number and volume, but right i do think we really do have one of the best managers in the prem and i think more people are starting to seeing that. I just hope we can keep it up and keep him - I am sure united must be looking at him at the moment.

See no reason to change this appraisal, although Livramento has picked up again since he's been back. Still think our best two are perraud and kwp though. Perraud is class, great attacking and recovery stats from ligue 1 last season and you can see why now.

I thought we should keep Bertrand rather than let him go. I fully acknowledged we would improve with a fitter set of full backs but I didn't realise how much - and we haven't missed Bertrand for even one second this season!

Clearly Ralph is a miracle worker - what a team he is building / has built. Great performance from them tonight!

Squad was weaker than I knew. In fairness I just looked at the starting 11 and decided that Ralph was having one of his mentalist nights!