Saint86

His potential is ridiculous at this level. We need attackers to get on his wavelength and start tapping in the fifa crosses. But the guy is so fast and has so much control that he's basically dribbling around players in our box and then carries the ball up the field as opposed to clearing it. He wins his own knock ons countless times per match basically. Ridiculous pace and ability.

He's probably been advised to leave saints for the sake of his England career then...

Are you trolling whitey or being serous?

We didn't get relegated because of JWP - that feels quite an odd take tbh. As for this season, he's 3rd in the league for assists, 4th in the league for expected assists, and 6th in the league for expected assisted goals. He ensures a team will always carry a threat and it means teams can't afford to challenge around their box or concede corners - which has a huge impact on how they play and territory. And he's going all of that despite playing in a fairly average and quite defensive West Ham side. If anything, their fans have been moaning that he's being asked to play to deep which is stifling his creativity... To not pick him for england over players like Gallagher, Henderson, and Philips is frankly mental. I can only assume he's tapped up Southgate's daughter or something...

The top two weren't 9points ahead of 4th... Nor was either of the top 2 as well equipped as Leicester are this season. Limited comparisons can be made this season i'm afraid.

We'd be top of the league had he stayed imo. But he moved for that England spot and its fair enough. I hope gets it, because if he doesn't, he'll have lost both his saints legacy and his England dreams, and he doesn't deserve that. Watching the MoTD highlights, he should have had a goal (pass never came but great run), plus at least one other assist today. Almost scored from a cheeky free kick... Clearly Forest rated him as much as Southgate did pre match the amount of dead balls they let him take.

What happened to that forum poll we did where like 95% of forum users wanted rid of him? Interested to see who were the ones that backed him.

They're far and away the worst fans in the Premier league.

Was too young for his teams, but my old man took me and my brother along to the last game at the dell where we bumped into him in the car park and started chatting to him; we ended up with him signing the FA Cup page in the commemorative dell programme - so a great little memory to have all in all. Wish i could have seen some of his teams in the early 80s though!

They have the 2nd best defence in the league and have scored as many as us. They're 12th for average possession (51.5%), and they're second for goals scored vs expected goals scored (+6 basically), for context we're +0.2.... Pray for bazunu as he is also the worst keeper in the league for post shot expect goals minus goals allowed.... West brom also appear to be statistically tight - and have the 3rd lowest post shot expected goals in the league (13.4) against them (vs our 18.9)... so in short a very good test / measure for where we are now. (https://fbref.com/en/comps/10/Championship-Stats#all_stats_squads_possession). Note, over such a limited period of games, a lot of our stats are badly weighted by our run of form where we repeatedly passed the ball to the opposition strikers to have free shots at goal... But on recent performances (vs say the Sunderland, Ipswich, Leicester games) I would say we are now a lot better than our stats suggest defensibly, and equally have improved our general possession game.

When is stephens due back from injury?

Ah yes, you're right on that front. I remember Ballard had knee injuries in pre season and equated the two (he missed the turkey trip for example because of this). I think the point i was making stays the same. He was out injured over the summer, and the club have preferred to send him out on loan rather than taking a chance on him being fit and settling into the first team - which given Che and Mara's performances is disappointing.

Are you trolling - and why this post right now? In all seriousness, firstly get your stats right, he is their 3rd highest scorer this year (https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/fc-reading/leistungsdaten/verein/1032) and a 10second google would have revealed that. He's done that from circa 400minutes and scored 1 less than Harvey Knibbs who basically has 3 times as many minutes. I think people also forget that Ballard suffered an ACL injury a year ago.... There is absolutely no reason why he couldn't have done a job for saints as an impact sub this year. Especially compared to the complete lack of impact Mara has had! We dominate possession and create lots of chances - what we've needed is someone with good movement in the box and decent finishing ability - which is 100% dom's skillset. Plus, lets not forget that he's playing in an awful reading side struggling under financial debts, points deductions(?) and recent transfer embargoes. I don't have an issue loaning him out if its good for him and he develops (maybe the club decided it was a safe bet as well post ACL). But lets not for one second ignore the fact that we've got an interest in recouping some money on the likes of Mara and Adams (amongst others), and that combined bloat is 100% blocking pathways for our academy players. Dom should have been featuring for saints this season (I suspect he would have had without the ACL hanging over him) - He was the top scorer and one of the best players in one of the best u18s sides in the country and had plenty of suitors. And people can say what they want, but the club has lost its identity on the academy front - all this, "we've got a great crop of players" PR guff is exactly that if we don't give them their chance at this level.

Love it! Great to see!

Good performance / result that!

The absolute farce that you cannot follow your team anymore unless you live local enough to get fm radio coverage.

The state of you, its a football forum 🤣

Anyone who would rather stay in the championship than be in the prem is being pretty stupid imo. Sorry if that offends. The only reason to drop down to this league is if it can be done as a means to resetting the club and building for a brighter future in the top division - ditto our league 1 minus 10points campaign. By all means enjoy it whilst we're here, but any right minded fan should only want to be in the championship for as short a time as possible - they should want to see saints succeeding at the highest level they can! If anyone is harbouring a hope of us staying at the top of the championship indefinitely then they're living in absolute fairy land - you either get promoted out of this league, or you fall further behind all the clubs richer than you and endure more and more disappointing seasons and eventual relegation. The 2nd and 3rd divisions are littered with examples. If all fans care about is winning and being successful, probably should go and pick a man city to support, and then change to whichever club usurps them in a few years time.

I would imagine any legal case we take out should be against the league itself. Total failure to enforce the ffp spending caps over multiple leagues, which therefore allowed Everton to deliberately and continuously overspend vs direct rivals to survive against relegation, and in so doing, increase the costs for all other clubs trying to compete/survive.

The punishment for everton should be guaranteed demotion and a multi year transfer embargo.

Adam Armstrong scoring? 🤣😅

Got it over the line, great first half but second half performance wasn't that brilliant lets be honest. We still don't look to be as convincing as we should be and as we need to be if we're going to get promoted. Only the 2nd game we've won by 2 goals since our return to the football league? Still, there are good signs of progression now, we're not as bad at the back as we have been, our possession play is coming on a lot, and we're extending our unbeaten run which will only breed confidence. Flynn Downes is an absolute rolls Royce of a central midfielder at this level, some very good performances from him in recent matches. If we can sign him at the end of the year it will be a very good bit of business.

Could hear a pin drop for much of this half, does have to be said.

Martin needs to earn his money here...

It didn't impact the ball, which was already gone. Which is why it wasn't given 🤷‍♀️ What was a clear pen was the foul on smallbone at 0-0