NewYorkSaint

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.

Great half by Saints. Really sweet football. Lighting up the TV here in US. meanwhile radio solent commentators were cool on Clasie as just doing his job. They must have missed that incredible ball to Pelle that set up the first goal. Clasie's starting to look really exciting to me. Beautiful, incisive passing and relentless energy. And how good is Davis becoming, as his confidence grows?! Our accented attack of Pellè, Mané and Tadïc just get better every game.

Impressive fight-back. Koeman with some truly positive subs. GREAT to see Gaston assist for the equalizer. Plus, he had a fantastic run just after that that Pele could have made us all v happy on. For a fraction of the money we fought hard and got the point.

I enjoyed that. We've been playing much more exciting football than Liverpool. Some really beautiful one-touch build-up play. Clasie starting to look good... a couple of great tackles and a sweet switch of play to the right. Victor is incredible. Hope his ankle OK. We can do this!

Red v green. An early Xmas present please, Santa!

The game is to run live on NBC's main channel. will be glued...

Like this line-up! Clasie, it's time to rise and shine!! 0-1 saints, with Mane scoring from a delightfully lofted through ball from Clasie.

Really proud of the team. The game's on NBC's main channel here in the US. The whole country saw how unjust the refereeing is. Commentators here certain there was a penalty. Hopefully the ref sees that at half time and adjusts. JWP for Romeu for dead balls and to avoid a sending off.

Would just like to put in a word for JWP. He gets a lot of stick here, but I thought he played a key part today. Some great touches and passes, and made the first goal with an inch-perfect near-post corner. But most important is how often he plays a role in winning the ball back for us. He's always in there challenging, and even when he doesn't win the ball personally, he often forces loose passes from the other side. The NBC commentators were oohing over him this side of the pond. VvD is exciting signing. Single best thing about today's game? the football itself was quality. Some of our recent games have been bland and predictable. Win or lose, I want Saints game to be fun to watch. We got that today.

Love the pace of our play. We're pressing well, and fast in possession. Fantastic JWP/VvD corner/goal. Bertrand/Tadic combo looks wonderful, as does Mane/Cedric. Wanyama mostly incredible play, couple of oopsies. On a knife-edge though. Here's to a great 2nd half and 3 pts.

He was terrific first half hour against Man U.... made the first goal.

I predict the anti-Davis+JWP-together meme may get spiked today. Seems to me JWP has been getting sharper, more creative, more physical last few games. And Davis adds extraordinary energy. If we want a successful high-press strategy, those two are key to it imho. Or maybe I'm just reacting to the pre-game cynicism. Personally prefer to go in excited, optimistic and as a supporter. 2-1 Saints.

Frustrating day. Football needs video reviews, it really does. It's ridiculous that they're allowed a goal that's clearly offside in 5 seconds of video review. Absent that and Yoshida's moment, we're all celebrating here. At our best, we're amazing. But we need to find a way to win the ball back. No intensity in much of the second half today. silver linings: Pelle looking really strong. JWP great first half.

We've played by far the more attractive football. Wonderful to see JWP playing so well. Wanyama owning the midfield. Pelle killing it. their goal clearly offside, though admittedly our defense looking dodgy. Hope Targett's OK. Yoshida looked really strong. I'm predicting 2-2, but would love to see us take this. 4-1 for 6th place!

'Prone to injury' has always struck me as an unfair label. It *might* be true, but if you're talking about, say, five different instances of getting injured, that could also easily just be bad luck. Also, any super-fast, tricksy player tends to get hacked down a lot. At his best, Gaston is beautiful to watch. Personally I hope he gets a chance this year to prove the naysayers wrong.