Vancouver Saint

Oh man, that was exhausting even watching a small streaming screen with no sound (thanks for the link and big fat fail for SaintsPlayer which was paid for and didn't work - admin, please note and send message to club). Plenty to be encouraged about. Thank goodness we equalised at the end - thoroughly deserved something out of that and should probably have edged it. Defensive frailties need to be resolved. Terrible defending from the corner for their third...and did we only have 10 men on the field for their fourth against the run of play. I like our possession football and we had twice as many shots as they did. We will winn plenty of games this season if we play like this BUT must be more solid in defence. Bednarek and Stephens will always have a mistake in them every game.

Any live streams for this? Paid for SaintsPlay to watch the game and it doesn't work - very frustrating!

Many thanks CanadaSaint. Have used my three responses up now. I was travelling back from the UK last night so missed the game but saw the highlights on YouTube - we looked pretty good. I guess what I'm looking for doesn't exist, which is a channel that covers all Saints games live, either because they cover all EFL Championship games or are a dedicated Southampton FC channel. You'd think somebody would have sussed out that football fans are tribal and want to watch their team's games, not a random variety pack - jeez! If you find out more, do share...

Thanks for this CanadaSaint. I'm in Vancouver in the same boat trying to figure out the best way to be able to watch all Saints games live this season. I didn't realise ESPN+ was DAZN for us in Canada - is that the case? There's me trying to figure out how to set up a VPN and which one to use (ExpressVPN?) to be able to access ESPN+. Is it better to sign up for DAZN? (The live EFL Championship games it covers seem few and far between...Plymouth (4.00am PT!) and Sunderland the only two Saints games showing so far. It doesn't show how many Saints games they'll cover live but doesn't look many. SaintsPlay not a great option if we have to pay £10 for 20 or more matches Any guidance gratefully accepted.

Thanks for this post - I'm in Canada and looking for the way to watch Saints games live. Thought the answer was going to be DAZN, but it looks like they only select a handful of games to cover live each week - what a pain! Anyone else tried the Saintsplay route above or have any other suggestions for watching live Saints games in Canada? Saintsplay is £170 for live audio coverage of all matches and live video of 'select' matches - doesn't say how many or what they are - so a crap deal from my POV.

I would love to believe we'll be up there, but way too much uncertainty about who will actually be playing for us to have confidence we'll end up above teams with settled squads and playing form - where is Coventry in the mix?

Interesting read thanks. At least it's clear that he is trying to play a style, even if it is predictable. For me, the style and structure is only as good as the players you have. Playing out of the back means having defenders who are really comfortable and confident on the ball with great control...we've not had that for since I can remember. I'd be interested to see what the plus-minus tally is for goals conceded trying to play out of the back vs goals scored having played out from the back. It also makes the point about the ball-winning midfielder. Lavia that was...Ommmm. The other thing is the need for a striker that scores 20+ goals a season. We've not had one of those for a long time now. I'm not a great fan of relying on one or two individuals to score all your goals - you should have at least five or six regular goal sources in the team.

Measures I care about are: 1. Team effort and commitment to the shirt* 2. Style of play (first, let's have one and second, please can it be exciting and attacking) 3. Results (wins are best - doh! - just in case we forgot what they look like) 4. Likeability quotient...manager, management and players...no prats please (certain management folk need a makeover) 5. The kit* - we've blown this one already, I'm on the 2 out of 10 uuugghh side - ''COYP&RS'...Come on you Pink and Reds just doesn't have the same ring to it...so when I say commitment to the shirt I mean it metaphorically not to this horrendous monstrosity.

Horrible horrible horrible. Guaranteed a second successive relegation to league one with a kit like that. Since when was red and pink part of our brand design language?

Well, I am surprised no announcement has been made. Especially after they primed us that it would come after the 'official' relegation to the EFL after the AGM on 14 June. If I say something doesn't sit quite right...the next post will be the official announcement! 😳

This Channon. You and me obviously the same generation of Saints fan. I fear how quickly our club has gone rotten. Even though we've been slicing a layer of quality off the onion every year for years, a sure recipe for disaster, I thought we had the potential to turn things around at the time of the Hasenhutl change. He was a good manager but had become stale. I don't blame Ankersen/SR for giving him a chance with a freshened-up coaching team. What I do blame them for is hiring Nathan Jones. Quite simply not fit for purpose and the data-driven, Excel spreadsheet hiring bias exposed the criminal lack of due-diligence in such a crucial hiring. Villa get Emery, Wolves get Lopitegu, we get mad Nate - comical, but really not. Monumental managerial mistake to take such an unnecessary risk with an untried manager (actually already red-flagged if management had bothered to speak with any Stoke fan).

Waste no time. Fire Selles tonight. Hire Potter. Hire best recruitment officer we can afford.

Where is Rasmus? The time is now to stand up and take responsibility for his monumental management f-ck ups this season. He's destroyed our long term belonger status in the PL that took 11 cumulative years to establish. Given it took us seven years to return last time, that's 18 years before we can regain that status, at best. Yes, we'd been in steady decline, but with the resources and opportunity at his disposal we should have been able to preserve our PL status. If he is to recover any respect, he needs to stand up, take responsibility and demonstrate SR's commitment to investing in our swift return. That starts with a new manager now. I'd hire Graham Potter now to take the last three games. Then with a new Head of recruitment. Astonishing how we can be so tight-fisted for a decade, then waste nearly £50M in panic-buying on Orsic, Ounachu and Suleman who haven't scored a goal (or even mustered an assist?) between them.

My sentiment exactly. I didn't think we could hire a more incompetent manager than mad Nate, but we did it with Selles. Honestly, he thinks the way to win a game at Newcastle 1-0 up at half-time is to sit back and defend...Adam Armstrong, Walcott, AMN and Elyounoussi on before Che Adams?! 30 touches for Newcastle in our box in the second half to 0 for Saints says it all. Tactical masterclass Selles. Honestly, any one of us on this forum could be a better manager than Selles. Just astonishing incompetence. I watched the Brighton game yesterday - they are everything we are not. Attack-minded, brilliant recruitment, a great manager, scoring goals for fun (60 and counting), entertaining football, new ground, full ground, loud supporters, great business (£50M profit on Cucherrella alone)...is there any doubt who the best South coast club is any more? Bournemouth managed to stay up with a weaker squad. We've gone from best to worst in a season. Ankersen, take a bow - these monumental managerial appointment mistakes are the root cause of our problems and yours to own.

Taking all the last dregs of my enthusiasm to post this. Kudos to anyone who goes to Newcastle to watch this rabble. Think Rasmuses' next book should be titled: 'How to destroy a football club' ...How to make horrendous managerial decisions, spend a fortune and send a classic club spiralling downward to oblivion in one season' Our issue is not being relegated from the Premier League - it's being not relegated from the Championship next season.

This. I blame this awful season - worst in my long long time following Saints - on this awful design. Can't believe someone got paid to produce this horror...also carried on to disgusting away kit. Fire the design agency!

Recorded it and watched after the event. OMG, I am so angry with myself. I have been relatively happy in my resigned state of apathy knowing that we will contrive to lose a game of football no matter how or whom we play. Had us slated for a drubbing tonight. Went 1-0 up, thought 'we'll lose 6-1', went 2-0 up thought 'we'll lose 6-2', pegged back to 2-1, thought 'we'll be behind before half time'. When we went 3-1 up, against the run of play and with 25 minutes to play, I made the error of thinking we might, just might now hold on to win. So totally predictable we'd concede twice in two minutes and hang on for dear life for a point that just isn't enough. Selles got ridiculously lucky with his crazy substitution of Alcaraz at half-time inviting pressure on us, but was determined to f_ck up the luck thrown our way by taking Lavia off. It's fine margins yes, but for me, the players bust a gut, the manager screwed it up. Great game for the neutral, worst result for both teams.

Thank you StKnowles, I really needed that laugh! Sadly called this game exactly right with the exception of Palace not scoring a third (which Ayew should have had)...soooo predictable. Should be no doubting that a) we are down b) Selles is clueless (I mean what's the point of having six or seven corners in the first half with no target man to aim for and then bringing him on late and not giving him a single cross!) c) we, the supporters, have been victims of monumental mis-management by SR, read Ankersen, in appointing mad Nate - a huge, unnecessary risk and then making a no-decision appointment of Selles. We are so bad we are first down and so the easy target to rape what talent we have first. Agents no doubt have already presented their jump-ship plans for their players. Commentator made an interesting comment at the beginning of the game - Saints have the youngest team, if they could get out of the situation and preserve their PL status, they could really do things. Unfortunately we won't be given the chance. I really fear for us in the Championship.

This. Stop the pretence we can stay up and increasingly annoying blindingly obvious comments from Selles, who I'm beginning to dislike immensely. He had the opportunity to lift the shackles and give the players some real freedom to play to win. Unfortunately he plays not to lose...and we end up losing anyway. 'We have enough goals in the side" - err umm no, no we f...ing don't dickhead! Especially when the few people in the squad who actually do know what it's like to score a goal, or create a threat even, aren't put on the pitch. Hopefully early recognition that Selles is not the answer to bring us straight up from the Championship. It will accelerate the early picking over the bones of our squad with the 'best out first' rule being applied. Farewell Lavia, such a shame. Can't believe how disillusioned I am in the team I've followed for 55 years. Ankersen has made some dreadful decisions that we will likely pay with a very long stint in the wilderness.

Is anyone still interested? This terrible season has beaten it out of me. Started with the awful kit (seriously do people get paid for designing that crap? - shocking) progressed through mismanagement of the Ralph transition, incredulously bad hire of the mad Welshman, default cop-out to Selles (who is very far from the messiah and whose principal aim it seems to be to look cool in high-necked coats and manage boring defeats by the odd goal...something we were already masters of). Add to that millions wasted on ridiculous recruitment of unfit players like Orsic, or non-scorers like everybody else. West Ham last week was the final straw. Lost before kick-off when the predictably boring lineup was announced. Elyounoussi first name on the team sheet no doubt. Now no Adams, Salisu, ABK....does it matter? Nope. Is there any hope of us staying up? If Man City and Everton get sufficient points deductions to get relegated (ha ha ha ha, it'll never happen)...we'd only need one team to be worse than us. Unfortunately, there's nobody worse than us. Oh, the score, doesn't really matter - it'll be something for them (probably 4 or 5) and nil for us.

Came into this game with a resigned numbness bordering on disinterest after the terrible Brentford performance and result - a strange feeling. A good game to watch as a neutral (which I'm not but have been beaten into disconnecting and strangely felt like one) and given player for player how much worse we are than Spurs, I thought that was a performance with some courage. A draw is not enough but it felt like a win and we deserved something out of the game. Like others I just wish we'd start with our best team and throw a bit of caution to the wind to go all out for a win instead of not trying to lose.

Called it. This one entirely on Selles. Why on earth would we not play our best eleven to start with? We're a different team with Lavia in. Well, at least that's it for me now. We're down and deserve to go down.

Oh man, Diallo and Ely in the starting line-up and no Edozie on the bench even (our best bet against their man-mountain defenders is to run around them) for a must-win game - when will we learn? Was optimistic. Now think we'll lose 0-2. Hope I'm wrong and we play a blinder.

Why is Edozie suddenly the forgotten child. Although Walcott puts the effort in for sure, I'd put Edozie in before him...think about that breakaway chance against Utd...Edozie would have been 6 yards further ahead of the defender by the time he reached the box. Tall Paul for the last 20-30 minutes for the long ball and crosses into the box if we need a goal.

Thanks for the links Disco Stu and Juice...caught much of it between interruptions and pauses...like when we were getting shots cleared off the line and hitting the bar. A good point we'd all have taken at the beginning of the game, but can't help but feel three were there for the taking. Talk about a lack of a goalscoring cutting edge. Played quite well but some odd substitutions. Walcott stayed on way too long - Onuachu should have been given 30 mins. Che off before Walcott? The game was screaming for an Edozie to run at tired defenders.