NewYorkSaint

US commentators gushing over Mane. He's looked superb, esp early in the half. Clasie terrific. Forster stunning save. V happy to see Maya score. Worried that Long got hurt there. I think his achilles/ankle rather than knee. I'd consider taking off both him and Pelle for Austin and Romeu or JWP. Koeman seems to have surprised them by going for 3-4-3...

The game is on the main NBC channel, channel 4 here in NY. C'mon saints... please get it done today!

Four thoughts: 1) 4-0 was achieved with back four 2) They will have been expecting a back five. This may be in part an attempt to surprise 3) Romeo/Wanyama/JWP is powerful midfield. Clasie will add energy last 20 mins. 4) Bummed re Austin. But pretty cool to have Pelle avail on bench

1-1 thriller. Outrageous officials decision denies us early goal. Charlie Austin with late equalizer.

Under Armor are a great American company. I think we'll end up excited where this partnership takes us. I've seen the designs. The red and white striped shirts look awesome. Not quite quite sure yet about the blue shorts with the white stars.

i see what you did there. and I liked it.

Make no mistake. That was a brilliantly earned, completely deserved result. We out-thought them and out-fought them. The midfield battle was decisive. We wanted it more. And we were set up better. Koeman must be SO happy about winning the tactics battle of the Dutchmen. Our midfield armory of Big Vic, CLASIE, Romeu was simply superb. VvD and Fonte had fantastic games. And as for Charlie. What can you say? Even before that goal he was exciting. Every touch. Strength, determination and huge skill. Really, really exciting to have him in the mix. Friends, we're heading back to Europe.

Check my spot in the prediction league... ;-)

Not a v entertaining half, but one thing clear on that evidence. We're the better team. We're closing more aggressively and edging the midfield battle. Basically, Clasie better than Schneiderlin. Think about that! Clasie's been a joy to watch. Mane has had a frustrating half. I wouldn't say he's played poorly. More that it's been desperately frustrating. That chance where he burst through had what seemed to be a brilliant first touch, but the ball landed on his thigh and threw him off. He's tried a bunch of ambitious passes which haven't come off. I think he's trying too hard. He has shown some courageous tackles including an esp tasty one against Fellaini. I think we're going to nick this 1-0. Austin's moment beckons.

Whelk, if that Lallana goal just cost you a grand, I'm guessing you love him even a bit less. wow. what a finish.

Shame about Davo, but still a really exciting team. Mane... Long... Tadic... plenty of attacking threat, with Austin to come. Will be a wildly thrilling game. If we nick this, it'll be best moment of the season.

SO good. Shane Long stunning, both in speed and deceptive touches. Davis wow. Two glorious through passes. JWP... at last! Will be so interesting to see what this does for his confidence. Wanyama... proved a point. VvD superb. But here's the biggest thing. It was just 100% crystal clear that we are a much much better team than West Brom. Which means that our current points total does not reflect our quality. We'll be ahead of Palace, Stoke and Liverpool before you know it. Add in Charlie Austin + growing confidence and you can see another run for Europe v possible.

Apart from a couple of misplaced passes in first 15 mins, Victor had a fine game today. He's formidable. A couple of delicious long passes and lots of possession capture. Personally, I hope we can hang on to him.

Personally love that team. Fast, aggressive. designed for high-press winning of the ball, then speedy attack. Give Vic a break. Over past couple years he's been bedrock. Wouldn't be surprised to see him as MoM today.

The angst against Victor largely unjustified in my opinion. If I were playing against Saints I would dread his presence. He's part responsible for as many regains of possession as anyone in the side. Opinion of him has been shifted by his wobble pre-season. And I bet he won't be making 2 reckless challenges in a game again any time soon. Given only 3 days break I might start Clasie but bring on Victor second half. I'd also be happy to see him start. Last year the main moan was about our lack of squad depth. This year we have it. Why not use it?

It really isn't. I'm talking about any game between premier league teams, prob excluding the top 4. Mathematically you can exactly model a typical season that way, assuming 70% chance. Humans look for patterns all the time... even when they're not there.

Here's a tip for how to feel better about the season. Just remember that 70% of the outcome of any game is CHANCE. Games are decided by 1 or 2 goals. These are scored from typically 6-12 decent chances. The bounce of the ball, the luck of the day is the prime determinant of who wins. From what I've seen we were pretty lucky against Arsenal... 2-1 might have been a fairer score. And really unlucky in several other games. In general we've played exciting football, moving forward well. It hasn't worked out for us, and confidence has become fragile, a fact not helped by supporters turning nasty. But listening to the Palace commentators, they're clear that Southampton are the better team. Hear that? We're the better team. We may well win. We probably will. Because ON BALANCE we're playing better Or we may get unlucky. And if that happens turning ugly on Koeman and the players really isn't that rational a response. Over multiple games, I'm pretty sure we'll do just fine and end up probably top half of table. ... somewhere a little better than our wages bill would justify. If so... that's good management. Not perfect. But not bad.

So great to see Long killing it. Tadic, Davis, Big Vic have also had a spectacular first half. Dazzling one-touch football. So much fun to watch. This is the Saints we can all be proud of.

I wonder about fitness and energy management. In the first 15 mins, against a team we know play high press, we were all over them. Couldn't maintain it. Brutal game. One strike that's 12 in too close to the keeper, one defensive howler from our best defender, and everything turns. Well, next month or two, we'll see what Koeman's made of.

Exciting half. We're playing a lot of great football. Unfortunately Palace are too. I'd sub Clasie or JWP for Yoshida to strengthen our midfield. Need Tadic at some point. Mane and Long both looking dangerous, esp Mane. Great second half in prospect.

Driving rain away from home at the start prob didn't help. They looked beleaguered. I love Maya, but that may be his last game at RB. We were exciting to watch second half. Just didn't quite run for us. If that VVD shot goes in, it's a whole different result.

V frustrating half. too many balls astray in final third. Still, Pelle clearly dragged back (though Solent didn't see it). US commentators clear it was a penalty. Hopefully Mane on before long and we can turn this around. Davis mostly good, but clearly shot-shy. Such a shame. That was golden opportunity. Stoke a good side. Give them some credit for breaking up our play. 2-1 is still on.

It always puzzles me when people refer to particular teams as a bogey team for us. I get that sometimes a team has a bad run against another team. But is there any evidence at all that that run has predictive power over a future result (beyond the actual relative strengths of the team)? I suspect it's overwhelmingly just statistical noise, and that the only thing you should focus on for an actual prediction is the current quality and form of the two teams. If being a bogey team is actually an actionable thing, could someone please explain their theory about what is the cause of it. Does one changing room somehow put strange chemicals into the blood of the opposition players? Is the journey to that ground somehow destructive to playing ability? That they always have incompatible weather? That one manager always outthinks the other? Or perhaps there's an actual bogey monster that decides to adopt certain teams and make sure we can't beat them or vice versa?! Random fluctuation makes it almost inevitable that when you have just say a dozen games to look at between two clubs (compared with hundreds played over several years) there will inevitably be pairs of clubs that have unbalanced results against each other. I'm pretty sure that's all that being a bogey club is. Don't rely on it for betting or predicting! And on that basis, given that most of these fixtures are against top half clubs about equally spread above and below us, I predict two wins, two draws, two losses for 8 points.

It's the kind of professional away win that other teams always seem to pull off and we rarely do. VvD, Clasie, Tadic, Pelle... all getting stronger each game. Davis had a great game too. Almost every time we gain possession Davis has something to do with it. He's constantly harrying, pressing. A beautiful ingredient of our secret sauce. Meanwhile NBC commentators agree that bertrand is best left back in premier league. Now we just need Spurs to lose 5-0 tomorrow, and we go 6th. More realistically, a gap is starting to open up above the mid-table teams......

Give credit to Bournemouth for a superb 2nd half response. They gambled on speed, out ran us and out-thought us. Without knowing all the facts, certainly looked like Koeman shd have subbed Wanyama at half-time. But more than that, he's got to find a way of getting the team fired up for when we come back out. It certainly happened at Chelsea, but on a lot of other games our early 2nd half performance has lacked energy. That seems very fixable. Tied for 6th place. Not too bad.