sadoldgit

Rich? Even the Tory mouthpiece on QT last night started off by saying they were spending their “life savings” on the crossing. These people are risking their lives and some lose them. Shouldn’t that put this into perspective.? And you know full well that the migrants coming here are a small percentage of the total. There are good reasons for people wanting to settle is specific countries from speaking the language to having a support network there of family and friends. Strangely enough, not all migrants want to settle in the UK ( and those wanting to go to Rwanda, wouldn’t they go there first rather than coming here to be sent there later?). So back to the Tory policy of distraction. They and the right wing press have managed to pull it off again. A football programme presenter through one small tweet has managed to displace the actual discussion about the bill has managed to become the story now. How ridiculous is that? When you actually look at what he said he was also spot on. The fact that virtually all of the far right organisations across Europe are lining up to praise the bill should be a major indicator of what is going on here.

I have just read Braverman’s full statement and it contains yet another crass and deliberate use of provocative language. She suggests that migrants are “rich” enough to pay gangs thousands of pounds for a passage across the channel. Rich? If they were “rich” why are they risking their lives in an overcrowded rubber dinghy on frozen seas? If they are so minted, why aren’t they employing the finest lawyers and being flown in by private jets or helicopters? Yet more rhetoric tailored to demonise those seeking safety and a better life. For those who don’t think it is a big electoral issue, it certainly is in my part of Kent where the Tory MPs milk it for all they are worth.

“Horrendous racism?” That’s a bit rich coming from the resident Farage enabler! So which is it Duckie? One minute you are labelling me a pinko liberal and the next you are lumping me in with your coterie of right wing reactionary knee jerkers. You can’t have it both ways buddy. If I am such a horrendous racist how come I spend my time calling out the abhorrent racist policies being pushed by the last two Home Secretaries, Patel and Braverman? Surely if I was such a racist I would be supporting them? If I was such a racist then why would I post in support of minority racial and religious groups? I know logic isn’t the strong point of people who voted for the likes of Johnson and Farage, but surely even you, in your skunk induced haze, can see you are talking “pony”. You are using the same tactic as the people you vote for and Trump use, stick a label on someone that isn’t remotely true but appeals to those of a far right mentality and keep pushing it so that it becomes “true”. It is currently being used to denigrate Keir Starmer with “Lefty Lawyer”. What is a lawyer but someone who applies and upholds the law. Not a bad thing surely? But stick “Lefty” in front of it and suddenly you have a pejorative term and some who becomes, to you lot, an “enemy of the people” (just like the judges who decided that packing asylum seekers off to Africa was not legal). By their own admission the current bill to treat migrants as criminals might fall foul of international law. The law is the law, but all of a sudden, when it doesn’t suit the far right (your) mentality, the “Left” is dragged into the picture and front pages of outrage on the Mail and Express follow like night follows day. I am no more a racist than you are woke as anyone reading this forum for any length of time knows, so carry on calling women “chicks” or “ten pinters”, Irish people “Micks” and anyone left of Genghis Khan “Pinkos” but please engage your brain a bit more before posting such “pony”.

Feel free to show us the post. You are no better than the people you help elect. Spout lies for distraction. If I were a rabid gammon like yourself Duckie, why do you spend so much time attacking me?

Sadly you can’t put the genie back in the bottle. Football has been more about business for some time, but once the big bucks flowed into the game, that was it. To quote The Apprentice, it is all about “numbers” now, everything else is a by-product. It is basic capitalism/Darwinism. Big fish eat little fish and get even bigger. If a super league does happen that won’t be the end of it. There will be plenty of clubs outside of it wanting to get their noses in the trough too and that then will become the Holy Grail for aspirational clubs. You see, there will be plenty of fans berating their Boards for lack of investment in making their club a candidate for the super league. I am just glad that I lived through a period when a club the size of Southampton could beat United in the FA Cup Final and push Liverpool closely for the old Division 1 title.

Biggest dog whistle of the year so far. Yesterday Suella Braverman told us that there are potentially up to 100 million refugees/asylum seekers/illegal immigrants out there…and they “are all coming here”. Gaslighting on an industrial scale. Typical Tory smoke and mirrors, when in trouble play the immigrant card. It got them Brexit and now they are hoping it will take people’s minds off of the mess the country is in. The trouble is some people still buy this crap.

I didn’t think that you were capable of irony Batman, but fair play here.

If only it were that simple but I think that relegation will be a combination of a number of factors - poor recruitment, poor team selections, poor tactics, numerous poor mistakes by a number of different players, injuries to key players. Just to dump most of the responsibility on a goalkeeper who doesn’t have the best defensive cover in front of him is way too simplistic. No club gets relegated because one player has a poor season.

As someone else has pointed out, if we go down this season it isn’t the fault of the goalkeeper. We are struggling because of our inability to score from open play. That is not Bazunu’s fault. I’d be interested to see how many games we have lost that are directly attributable to him rather than defensive errors or missed goal scoring opportunities.

I couldn’t agree more. I had a few nasty knee injuries when I used to play and it makes me cringe every time I see a player do this. Why risk buggering up your knee(s) celebrating a goal? The last thing we need is a self inflicted injury keeping a key player out right now. You get booked for taking off your shirt yet it is ok for multi million pound athletes to risk damaging ligaments with crazy knee slides.

Personally I would rather ditch 4222 and go back to the good old 442

Given how much grief the likes of Redmond and McCarthy got on here before it seems odd to see how they are now being redefined. All I can remember was Redmond getting slagged off constantly and McCarthy getting pelters for being beaten time and again at his near post.

Larios started but only lasted 12 mins. Bree and Edozie the other two playing. Currently 1-0 down.

It was more of a petulant shove/slap than an attempted punch but if that had happened anywhere else on the pitch he would have given a foul and a yellow too. Yes the guy made a meal of it (don’t agree with the commentary team that he was entitled to go down to draw the officials attention to it - he made a meal of it) but what on earth did DCC think he was doing? Having watched it again several times this morning though I would argue that the ref should have blown up for a foul for Grimsby outside the box as DCC had hold of his shirt collar for some time whilst running back towards the goal. I would have given the free kick and booked DCC for the slap. Once again though we have lost a game through the initial team selection. I get the argument that the team, on paper, should be enough to beat Grimsby but we all know about cup banana skins. Making 9 changes was never going to help a cohesive team performance. Make a couple of changes but keep the main balance and then give some of the fringe players some game time if you must once the game is secure. Now we have even more players with low morale and go into the Leicester game with even less confidence when a win last night would have least have given the squad a lift and maybe would have provided a goal or two for our two new main strikers. Selles seems like a nice bloke and it is good to hear that the players like him, but I would prefer a manager that the players feared and respected and was prepared to do what was needed to win the game rather than to give people a game in order to keep them happy. They are professional footballers. If they want to start matches they should put the effort in training and then take their chance when selected. Last night KWP, Lavia, Djenepo, JWP and Walcott all looked the part. The rest were poor, but then how often has this line up taken to the pitch?

Not very good to be honest. But then he was amongst good company.

The first one gets given now. I don’t think it was deliberate but it hit his arm and that it is. The second was stupid. First he held his shirt collar and then he hit him. An international player, a Premiership player, should never, ever do something so stupid. But we didn’t lose because of these penalties. We lost because we have virtually no goal threat. Note to Selles - if you are serious about getting into the quarter finals of the FA Cup, start with your best XI and bring on fringe players later.

You have to enjoy the irony of our latest Tory PM selling the virtues of the Windsor Framework to his party, Parliament, the UK and the Republic of Ireland based on the access to the single market. Three major positives here. It makes the argument for leaving the EU weaker, it makes it less likely for Johnson to make a come back as PM and it will increase the blood pressure of Farage and his fellow gammons. Perhaps England, Scotland and Wales could sign up to the same deal too?

It’s been happening for years. Go check out the fuss over Enid Blyton books which even goes back to the time they were published. Certain things will always trigger certain people. Surely, as one of the most often triggered people on this forum, you of all people should know that!

I don’t think that Ely is a poor player but he just isn’t suited to the pace and the physicality of the EPL. The last 3 successive managers have picked him and whilst it is not entirely down to him that we are rooted to the bottom of the table, surely it is time now to try something different? We have nothing to lose and need to find a way of creating more. That isn’t going to happen if Ely is used as an attacking option.

Looking forward to the point where all Delldays/Batman/AlexLaw76 posts on SaintsWeb are rewritten in order to “protect readers”.

I read plenty of posts saying that they trusted Selles’ team selection before the game. Just because we beat a below par Chelsea side with a particular set of players doesn’t mean a different selection wouldn’t have. He said himself not to read too much in his first team selection. I assumed that he was being conservative in his selection because it was Chelsea and he was using experienced players. I had expected a bolder line up against Leeds who are a very poor side, irrespective of what happened in the Chelsea game. The love-in over Selles this week has been bizarre to say the least, but we are back to reality again. I hope that he is successful with us but he won’t be if he doesn’t grow a pair. I’m sure, if we are going to get relegated, that we would all prefer to go down in a blaze of glory - out with a bang rather than a whimper. His team selection against Leeds said whimper. Ralph used to talk a lot about being brave. Today’s team selection was anything but.

Jones picks Ely and Bednarek and he is a clown who doesn’t know what he is doing. Selles picks them two matches running and that is ok. Go figure. I guess wearing a smart suit with a turtle neck and not being Nathan Jones makes a whole load of difference. Just as he wasn’t the worst manager in the world after the Sheffield Wednesday match he isn’t the best after the Chelsea game. Fair play to him though, he has stepped up to the plate and here’s wishing him all the best in his career as manager of Southampton FC. May it be a long and successful one!

Anyone that can name Janny B and Moi in the starting line up and bring on Walcott with a significant period of the match still to be played and not get strung up by a baying mob after the game deserves the job full time!

When I say that he has not been tarred so far that assumption has been made on the basis that he is still in the job. No idea what input he has had on both managers so far and I don’t think it is fair to judge him on the Sheffield Wednesday game. He says he wants the job full time. Time for him to step up to the plate and deliver. He will need more than one game against Chelsea to prove he is the man though, and we really do not have time to mess around anymore if the intention is to give avoiding relegation 100% effort.

Around the time Ralph had talked about retiring at the end of his contract, Semmens made a comment about looking to bring someone in to the coaching team to be groomed to eventually take over. I have always assumed that Selles was that person. The fact that Ralph departed earlier than expected must have thrown a spanner in the works if that was the case. The fact that Jones was appointed instead of Selles would indicate that they didn’t think he was ready to step up just yet. Would another year/year and a half tutelage under a more senior manager much a huge difference in his ability to lead us? Who knows. Given the lack or poor quality of choices at the moment, perhaps they will give him his chance earlier than planned. Pure conjecture on my part of course but given that he has, so far, not been tarred with the same brush as two failed regimes, perhaps there is something in it? It could also explain why the Board wasn’t over keen on offering JM a 3.5 year contract if they were looking to promote Selles in a year or two.