Vancouver Saint

That was frustrating. Put it down to one of those games where just nothing goes in - incredible miss from Bree at the end summed it up. Thought we looked poor in the second half. Lacked ideas and finish. Very predictable Bazunu should look like a goalkeeper against us. Perez did well to prevent that from being a loss. Onwards

TQ - makes sense to me. Good incentive to play for 3rd or 4th if you're outside the automatics...

Good win - great that we can win with just one goal - I'm always thinking we'll concede a last minute goal...still don't have much confidence in us defending corners for example...so really happy we hung on. Was hoping with everybody else that we'd score a breakaway second goal and take the pressure off...that was the Jander chance. Thought Dobbin was really good playing an Azaz-like role in midfield. We looked controlled and composed at the back. I like it that we mixed things up with long-ball forward in the first half too - will make a few opposing managers think twice about high-pressing us or just working on stopping our passing through the middle. Shout-out for Edozie too whose trickery and forward play made the goal... Unrelated dumb question - must have missed it from the start of the season - but what's with the six teams up for play-off positions? How does that work for the knock-out phase with six teams?

Caught the last 15 minutes...nerve-wracking but worth it!

Bloomin' heck - a three week waste of time gap for internationals, then they put us down for a 12.00 kick-off - 4.00am Sunday morning for me...😡 If we win 4-0 put it down to me missing it...if it's another dull 0-0 draw I decided to watch it!

Too many players not at their best - Larin, Bree, Matsuki had stinkers...Scienza out of it after injury, Downes quiet...only Wood, JWP and Azaz played well. Phil Parkinson played his cards much better than Eckert. No bite or energy - after we scored we should have gone for the jugular. Instead looked slow and ponderous again. Larin has been great but was not at the races to day - needed to come off after an hour, same with Matsuki. With much better assets at his disposal we somehow managed to lose that game. Terrible result - perhaps it will give us a different mindset for away games after the return from the international break - we 100% need wins from away games now.

Please can we never play in the awful blue away strip again...

Great result - if the plan was to allow them twice as many shots as us - get extremely lucky they didn't take any of four or five really good chances in the first half and beat them on the breakaway with some really calm, clinical finishes - then brilliant! If that wasn't the plan then the game I watched was a much more even one, with Bristol City easily giving as good as they got and looking capable, even more likely to equalise and perhaps go on to win until Matsuki's goal. Which game did you see?

Didn't get to watch the game - 4.30am Vancouver time even if I could find a decent stream. Saw the 2 min highlights - made it look like more even than it was reading the reports - says a lot when the clip is less than 2 mins. Welington wonder-goal should have been enough - but will we never learn we are crap at defending narrow leads and inviting teams onto us is an invitation to score late goals against us. Listened to Flynn Downes interview on Youtube and he says it all - not good enough, can't sit back, need to win these games...seemed genuinely pissed off (at some of his team-mates lack of effort as well as tactics reading between the lines). I am not surprised at all. We seem to discount that many teams are strengthening their squads. How we missed out on Sebastian Bierhalter - Middlesborough got him for $2M - suggests to me our scouts are asleep at the wheel - I've been watching him at Vancouver Whitecaps and he's an outstanding full US international, creative, goal-scoring midfielder he was a major part of the Whitecaps success last season. Can't believe he wasn't on our radar - to lose him from the 'Caps was bad enough - for him to go to Boro added insult to injury for me. It's early days, a long season - looks like a competitive league where any team could beat another team on their day - but unless we realise we are not that good and need to fight for every goal and every point every game - we are headed for mid-table mediocrity. Does anyone really think we're going on another 21-game unbeaten run again this season...we'd all love it for sure...be let's get real, it ain't happening. And ffs Eckart - fortune favours the brave - let's beat teams by going forward and scoring a second goal, not falling back and inviting pressure.

Is it fair to call that an unconvincing 3-1 win? I missed the first 15 mins and thought Stoke were the better team for the rest of the first half I saw. Saints better in the second half - and a great goal from Muamba to win it. Am I the only one who thought Edozie was offside for the penalty? Glad it wasn't called but from the one angle I saw he looked well off. To be clear - very happy with the win and three points - much-needed, but if it had finished 1-1 we couldn't have had too many complaints I feel. Just trying to manage my own expectations here - we hardly dominated a team that finished 17th last season with a manager who is apparently disenfranchised.

Tuned in to see the Watford players celebrating their win, so missed the game but saw the goals. OMG we deserve to lose for playing in that terrible second kit alone! Both their goals were Stephens mistakes right? What control does he have over this club - it's crazy - we all know he's not the answer, nice guy or not. So reality bites. Next home game is a must win for us I feel. The unbeaten run is over first game. We're seven points behind the leaders. We know how fickle we are - the forgiveness runway for Tonda is going to be very short if we don't start winning fast and keep winning with style. Sounds like Watford were deserved winners. Did I get this wrong?

TQ!

Caught the second half on a small screen link with no commentary - looked like we were totally dominating. Any other Canadian Saints fans got a solution for watching this season? DAZN only airs selected matches live (what a stupid format - don't they realise we follow our team and want to watch all their games not just the six or seven they choose to televise?) - and Saints Player is also bloody useless because it just is and they don't have the rights to air the DAZN games in Canada...so if you want to watch all games you have to pay for both DAZN and Saints Player - more than to watch Premier League - ridiculous. Anyone at the club interested? I'm thinking not.

I'm astonished people think he should still stay on as manager. 100% he has to go. Not just because his position is untenable, but because ignorance of the law is no defence - and it's plain dumb stupidity that in this digital age when you can observe and analyse everything he thinks the advantage of getting an (incompetent) intern to take low quality video is going to help. He and everybody else should have known the risk-reward scenario. Yes, I think the punishment is totally out of proportion to the crime - but my business is brands and brand-building and I called this days before the final hearing that we'd be made an example of. It takes years to build a reputation and seconds to destroy it. Tonda, wittingly or not, has damaged our global reputation as a club for years to come. He has to go. Not just him, but everyone in the management team who was aware of it and did nothing about it. Them's the breaks. As my son and fellow Saints supporter says - I've used up my emotional bandwidth with Saints - they don't deserve my support. I've been supporting them for 57 years and this is lowest point of all. The fact we haven't sacked him already - cowards waiting for the FA to ban him and do it for us to save a few quid? - makes it even worse. No statements from the leadership, apart from what were obvious lies now: 'he was working alone as a lone wolf'. If we think we're going on some magical redemption arc with Tonda still at the helm next season and going on another long unbeaten run with the rags of whatever team we're left with - you're smoking stronger stuff than we get here in BC (and it's the best!) Naturally, if someone wants to re-post this next year after we've been promoted Champions under Eckert's leadership I will happily eat massive humble pie.🙃

Brilliant. It's discovered the Independent commission took a bung from Gibson/Middlesborough to screw Saints. Will Salt a double agent working for Boro. Eckert forced to confess or his kidnapped mother in Germany gets it in the neck. Boro win the playoff final but the EFL and FA disqualify them..quadruple relegation plus their ground is confiscated...made to play on their training pitch at Rocklife Park with all surrounding greenery cut down and observation posts for free access on every corner. Hull disqualified for...well, being Hull - Saints promoted to the Premier league with a 30 point headstart (to ensure we don't get relegated based on the 12 points we'll get if we're lucky).