melmacian_saint

Well that was late. I think Mane has been found out at this level. 10 million for him is eye-watering.

If Long had come on, we would've forced them to be more careful defensively. Instead, we encouraged them forward, and our club policy of criminalizing long balls has cost us against footballing primates. Koeman could do more than just look angrily at the pitch.

We've reacted well to the miss to be fair.

Do one Tadic

Long time.

The weather looks dreadful. Such a sunny, nice winter day down here.

Burnley are a disgrace. Dirty and headless. And people wonder why British football has looked abroad. We're the healthy exception and I'm very proud of it.

I also see that we're back to using the CBs as our creative force like in the Pochettino era of "thy keeper shall not go long"

Looks polar up there.

On evidence I can't see the hype about Burnley. Maybe it's the "British and proud" thing.

We weren't getting that many good deliveries from JWP previous to his injury.

Brand is an idiot who profits on a lost youth that doesn't care or understand about the corporate politics of parties. No better than Farage who for all his British pride would happily join forces with good-old pal Putin and his cronies. Saying that, Penny is the true, modern-day example of how you can have a political career thanks to PC.

United, Chelsea and Arsenal (City strangely not quite at the same level as the others) are basically teams for tourists, and so they drag tourists along to wherever they go. Completely out of any true character. Chelsea probably the worse case in terms of visibility as they were no better than that nice backyard team of poshist, richest, most central London with a fairly small West London support. United's transformation probably the most depressing for the footballing world. The decadence of the atmosphere at Old Trafford ought to be a case study. The true example of how wrong you can get things when going global (add financial aspects in there too!). Arsenal just happened to move to a stadium that was as big as they needed, but bigger than their core support. Nothing much has changed there to be fair.

I look back at the Hull/Swansea games and hope for a similar type of game. Deserved, hard-fought 1-0 away win in a freezing afternoon to end an unlucky run!

Given 95% of goals come from mistakes of some sort, one can only assume that they cost teams dearly, as conceding a goal is never a good thing.

I think Koeman has taken this one a bit too personally in the presser. I thought Fonte had a good game but a solid performance it always looks a bit worse after such a bad mistake. Rest of the team good, but I see the Pochettino syndrome of sideways and backwards passing in the final third is still around, and Pelle, Tadic, Mane (starting to doubt him) seem to have caught it way too easily!

Just replace Whelan with some other extravagant, self-entitled gun trafficker who's wealth arrived yesterday and could easily be gone tomorrow.

Only a page away of the only positive outcome of years of tax-dodging, overpaying, bill avoiding and poor infrastructural progress for a female dog's individual wealth benefit.

The only reason for that being Yoshida can't anticipate the attacker's movement for his own life's sake. Something Jose himself is usually fairly good at. If he trusted Yoshida to deal with Giroud he would've stayed in position. Saying that, there were like another 4 Saints players in the box so someone should've closed down the CBs...

Yet another post full of opportunism by someone who has dreamt about CL football at St.Mary's way beyond acceptable standards.

This is last season all over again. Crucial midfield and defensive injuries affecting us badly and cutting individual momentum's through a very tough run of games where things just don't seem to go our way. Including a poor performance on a cold night against Villa (just like last year's 3-2 defeat at SMS). If we reach 19 games and are close enough to 40 points then I may still believe in our european challenge. I will point out that although we don't look like doing much better than last year (which was excellent) we certainly look like we're a good bet to equal that performance.

I think David Connolly still lives in Southampton doesn't he? I don't think I remember a League Two team chartering a plane to fly to games. Not even teams from the SW heading to the NE.

Steven Davis is NOT our number ten. Nor has he ever been in his career. We don't really play with a number ten as such anyway, rather with a DM (Wanyama) and two box-to-box midfielders. What games have you been watching? Are you sure you don't want to write this in the Arsenal or Man U forum?? And I've already suggested we sign Rasiak, he a TRUE example of the idolizing of mediocrity that you criticize so much. I find it funny that you complain about the typical English fan mentality without mentioning the unrealistic expectations regarding success arising from a deluded perception of total and compete knowledge of the "tried and tested" formula of winning games and trophies. Such attitude has made us judge the state of our national team and player base with such terrifying inaccuracy that we're now lagging most of the other big nations by at least 10 years (our club perhaps the exception that confirms the rule). Plus I find it extremely rich that you come out with all that rant after our first really bad game of the season, and after the player in question came back from injury straight to the starting eleven and had no more than a couple of normal training sessions before he got back in the team to face the CHAMPIONS. Yes, because that's what you need to be in the Top 4: have a team capable of challenging title contenders. We don't, and it's no tall-poppy syndrome, Jute law etc... to admit it! No one is saying those clubs will chase him, mainly because those players still have potential to improve while Steven is at his peak. He is, in case you haven't noticed, older than them too. Might I add, he also has more national titles in his bag than we do as a club. If you believe that sort of player is already too big for us, then I'm afraid you need to change seat, ensure you're watching the right channel, tune in to Radio Solent for some audio help etc... to be more aware that you are watching SFC, a team possibly at the peak of its modern history and with a positive outlook, but that is very far from the world of money-****ting, fickle owners and absurd transfers that crowd more ambitious teams. It is also a team that has been through a rebuilding process likely sped up by such a great start to the season. Does that mean we've become CL challengers? No, of course not. That takes much longer than one transfer window and a season finishing in 8th. Are we more likely to ever become? I don't think so either, maybe but we are still too far away to suggest that an established professional with a very good record for us, his country and at the time an important club in the British football scene is holding us back. Of course on recent evidence we don't really seem to appreciate players that have improved BOTH themselves and the club in a VERY CLEAR way and seem grateful for it, as we did also think that Ramirez, Osvaldo or Lovren were the key to the future. And that is also the cold, hard , flesh and bone reality.

Are you no longer English if you've played for Celtic?

A part of our fans will now behave and not think we are title contenders.