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Saints vs Stoke - Saturday 3pm

Lighthouse

By Lighthouse
in The Saints

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SNSUN

SNSUN

Posted
Posted

Ah Stoke, famous for, erm, Pot. And being close to Alton Towers, where incidentally I shall be spending the next few days with my daughter for my sins, so I'll probably be able to smell them. Or they'll be able to smell me, one or the other. 

Stoke City were formed a long amount of years ago, and previously played at the Victoria Ground, a ground that was so old the fans had to hold pieces of it together during games. Nick Hancock, Stoke's most famous son, once presented a footballing nightmares video outside the ground, which I had on VHS and watched incessantly, mainly because he had a funny voice. Seriously, watch Mr Bean and you'll understand. Or They Think It's All Over.

They now play at the bet365, which is similar in size to St Mary's but not as good, and which was formerly named the Brittannia, which is ironic because Stoke rarely Ruled it. Other famous sons of Stoke include Tony Pulis (local sales of caps plummeted when he was in charge), Bruno Brookes and some local bloke called Stanley Matthew, who, in 1848 was known to move from side to side a lot in the local public house. The road their ground is on is named after this chap, Stanley Matthew Sway. Incidentally the sunny, Saturday afternoon in Southampton counter balances their cold rainy Tuesday night in Stoke mantra, as they'll discover this weekend. Hopefully.

My mate Jonno went to Stoke on a rainy Tuesday night and said the girls were all high as kites and scary, but that didn't deter him from getting stink finger in the bogs with one of them. He gets about does Jonno and he loves the stink finger.

TLDR summery: Potheads, Alton Towers, Nick Hancock, Local swaying bloke and  scary/high lasses.

Thats my completely unresearched, unverified and probably fake Stoke facts done for the week.

On to the never reliable prediction wheel. One right prediction so far, and two wrong. 

 

So there you are, Stoke two goal victory and much work to be done in the transfer market. 

 

  • Haha 5
Saint Fan CaM

Saint Fan CaM

Posted
Posted

Think this could be our first home defeat of the season. Stoke may well have only played lesser teams but they’ve still got to do the business…be well drilled etc. Their GD after 2 games shows they know where the net is.

Going with 0-1 or possibly 1-3 if the wheels really come off.

If we end up with 3 points I’ll start to believe Still is the real deal because this match would previously have been a big banana skin.

andrew7610

andrew7610

Posted
Posted

We certainly give plenty of chances up - Wrexham could have been 4 up by half time with more clinical finishing - but I'm not sure Stoke are the team to expose our defensive frailty/naivety, and Bazunu is in fine form right now.

We'll huff and puff as usual up top, its got 0-0 all over it for me, Clive.

saintant

saintant

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, andrew7610 said:

We certainly give plenty of chances up - Wrexham could have been 4 up by half time with more clinical finishing - but I'm not sure Stoke are the team to expose our defensive frailty/naivety, and Bazunu is in fine form right now.

We'll huff and puff as usual up top, its got 0-0 all over it for me, Clive.

I'm assuming you think we had zero chances of scoring in the first half. That's not what I saw.

  • Like 2
S-Clarke

S-Clarke

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, andrew7610 said:

We certainly give plenty of chances up - Wrexham could have been 4 up by half time with more clinical finishing - but I'm not sure Stoke are the team to expose our defensive frailty/naivety, and Bazunu is in fine form right now.

We'll huff and puff as usual up top, its got 0-0 all over it for me, Clive.

It's probably more fair to say 4-4 at HT. I think we both had chances, we had a couple cleared off the line ourselves if my memory serves. 

It wasn't a perfect game by any means, lots to improve on after that, but I don't think it's fair to say we could have been thumped as we also gave our fair share.

2 pen shouts too, at least 1 was a certain.

  • Like 2
suewhistle

suewhistle

Posted
Posted
18 hours ago, Willo of Whiteley said:

I said we’d pop to West Quay beforehand, knowing full will it’ll be mega busy and she doesn’t like crowds shopping 🤣

Take her to The Standing Order pub, that'll be empty too..

Dr Who?

Dr Who?

Posted
Posted

When I got my tickets for this, I thought it would be pretty much as much of a home banker you could wish for. Stoke City in on a downward spiral and us being one of the favourites for the title. Now I’m not so sure. We seem a bit disjointed and Stoke are top of the league and their confidence will be sky high. 

TheAlehouseBrawlers

TheAlehouseBrawlers

Posted
Posted
16 minutes ago, Dr Who? said:

When I got my tickets for this, I thought it would be pretty much as much of a home banker you could wish for. Stoke City in on a downward spiral and us being one of the favourites for the title. Now I’m not so sure. We seem a bit disjointed and Stoke are top of the league and their confidence will be sky high. 

Their fans certainly are looking on the link someone stuck up earlier. They're top of the table and a popular feeling on there is the 3 teams that come down are pretty much shite and there for the taking. Still struggling to sell their tickets though, looks like they've sold around 1800,

sfc4prem

sfc4prem

Posted
Posted
25 minutes ago, TheAlehouseBrawlers said:

Their fans certainly are looking on the link someone stuck up earlier. They're top of the table and a popular feeling on there is the 3 teams that come down are pretty much shite and there for the taking. Still struggling to sell their tickets though, looks like they've sold around 1800,

Top of the table? Stop the count! 

 

But in all seriousness, their confidence is misplaced. They've not come up against a decent team yet and will be quaking in their boots when eye-to-eye with our lads.

3-1 to Saints 

Football Special

Football Special

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Ken Tone said:

Anyone know if either Stewart or Downs are fit/well? 

Stewart was so shocked being named in the starting line up at Northampton he ran straight to the bogs to throw up 

  • Haha 2
S-Clarke

S-Clarke

Posted
Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, sfc4prem said:

Top of the table? Stop the count! 

 

But in all seriousness, their confidence is misplaced. They've not come up against a decent team yet and will be quaking in their boots when eye-to-eye with our lads.

3-1 to Saints 

Weren't they beaten 4-0 away at a L1 Club in the cup or something?

Edited by S-Clarke
ErwinK1961

ErwinK1961

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Dr Who? said:

When I got my tickets for this, I thought it would be pretty much as much of a home banker you could wish for. Stoke City in on a downward spiral and us being one of the favourites for the title. Now I’m not so sure. We seem a bit disjointed and Stoke are top of the league and their confidence will be sky high. 

I had this ear marked as one of the easier early fixtures… but hadn’t realised Mark Robins was in charge until recently. Very good manager.

  • Like 2
saintant

saintant

Posted
Posted
12 minutes ago, ErwinK1961 said:

I had this ear marked as one of the easier early fixtures… but hadn’t realised Mark Robins was in charge until recently. Very good manager.

This will be far from easy unless we suddenly click into gear which seems unlikely. I'm expecting us to play 5 at the back meaning another tight game. Take some of the chances that come our way and we should earn a narrow win.

Appy

Appy

Posted
Posted

We never beat Stoke at home do we? 
 

Can only really remember the game where Mane scored in 2014. 
 

Mario Licka scoring the winner rings a bell too. 

Wade Garrett

Wade Garrett

Posted
Posted

The only time anyone liked Stoke City was over 50 years ago when they had Geoff Hurst and Gordon Banks playing for them.  Fucking load of cloggers since then.

Fucking horrible people.  Probably lots of mum and dads that are closely related judging by the total fuckwits that support them.  
As Ian Botham once said about Pakistan, I wouldn’t even send my mother-in-law there.

2-1 win.  Will Still starting to get his methods over to the team.  Their Stone Island wannabes will be foaming all over their velour tracksuits.  Wankers.

  • Haha 4
St. Ciervo

St. Ciervo

Posted
Posted (edited)

3-1 Saints. Dibling and Fernandes score in their final game for the saints (profit of 100+ after incentives).

Edited by St. Ciervo
Smirking_Saint

Smirking_Saint

Posted
Posted

I think some bits will begin to click this weekend and we’ll run out 3-1 winners

Dibling with a goal that will sign him off as far as his ‘career’ here is concerned 

We’ll concede a sloppy goal as 3 atb causes too many issues

Midfield_General

Midfield_General

Posted
Posted (edited)
12 hours ago, Appy said:

We never beat Stoke at home do we? 
 

Can only really remember the game where Mane scored in 2014. 
 

Mario Licka scoring the winner rings a bell too. 

We beat them 3-2 at home in the league cup last year. THB, A Armstrong and Bree scored. We went 2-0 up then somehow let them get back to 2-2, before we won it in the 89th minute. 

Looking back at the stats, we had 78% possession and had over 800 passes to their 230. They had 22% possession and only 2 shots on goal, and scored from both of them. 

Edited by Midfield_General
S-Clarke

S-Clarke

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Midfield_General said:

We beat them 3-2 at home in the league cup last year. THB, A Armstrong and Bree scored. We went 2-0 up then somehow let them get back to 2-2, before we won it in the 89th minute. 

Looking back at the stats, we had 78% possession and had over 800 passes to their 230. They had 22% possession and only 2 shots on goal, and scored from both of them. 

If a game ever demonstrated Russ-Ball, that was it.

- Keep the ball and have more possession - Tick

- Have in excess of 500 passes - Tick

- Concede rubbish goals and scrape through - Tick

- Be brave - Tick

  • Like 2
CSA96

CSA96

Posted
Posted

Adam Blackmore's section of the press conference below (newspaper section gets published at 10.30pm)

on the pace of progress in the transfer window...
I feel as if we've had the same conversation since the start of pre-season. It is what it is, the market is what it is. There's stuff being worked on and there is stuff moving but it's just taking longer than most of us hoped and longer than Johannes hoped as well. The situation is what it is, we're waiting and hoping to unlock things and make things happen but it is a bit of a fight at times, yes.

on the frustration of waiting for new arrivals and players to leave...
I'm ignoring it, to be totally honest. As difficult as that is, I'm only focusing on the players that are here, the players that want to play and want to win games for us and parking that side of things to one side of my head and letting the people upstairs crack on with that. I can't control it anyway.

on trying to get players out of the club almost being more frustrating than incomings...
Yes, that is moving. There will be stuff that happens before the end of the week but there's just a load of things that you have to face and a load of situations that come up and you think 'okay...' like national team coaches telling people that they need to be in first division clubs or top five leagues to be in contention and thought about for World Cups and stuff. The transfer window is what it is, it creates a load of situations. But we're working on it. There is activity within the club, it's just a complicated market at the moment, I think.

on the Championship being equal to some of the top five European leagues...
Yeah, that's what I don't get. But that's for other people to debate about.

on Issa Kabore...
Yeah, we have spoken to him. I've had quite a few players from City over the past couple of years, I've always worked well with them. He is an option, but again, we're just negotiating and trying to find a way for it to work for all parties. Issa is a good player. He's got a few qualities. It's ongoing.

on Finn Azaz...
We've got a new name every week, don't we? The list is long and we want good players and we're looking at good players. But we want good players in the right conditions and that are going to fit what we're trying to do, not just on a footballing level but also on those human skills. Finn's scored goals, he's a good player and he knows he is. Yeah...

on whether that has been any progress on Eduard Spertsyan...
Slow. It's just that people have got agendas and negotiating skills that can be difficult. We're being open and very honest with things but people tend to struggle with all of that.

on whether Eberechi Eze's move opens up the market for Tyler Dibling...
I don't know, I've no idea. You'd have to ask Crystal Palace, Arsenal or Tottenham. I read all of this stuff at the same moment you guys do and I saw on Sky Sports News at 8am this morning with breaking news, but yes, it is what it is. Tyler's fine by the way. He's trained really well, he's totally fine and he's relaxed. Same thing goes for Mateus. If something does happen, you'll probably know before I do!

on whether MF and TD continue to be available for selection...
Yes, 100 per cent. We've got a squad of 24 players that are fit and are ready to play. We know that we can only take 18 on our team sheet, so we're going to make choices about the football side of it and ignore the rest of it. Players need to be ready, they need to be fit and they need to be wanting to win football games. We'll base our decisions on training and football and not all the speculation.

on Mark Robins...
He's good. I'd love to have his experience and have his results after the last few years because what he did at Coventry was very good and what he's doing with Stoke is pretty impressive as well. He's turned that team into a really good football team. They've got two wins, they've qualified in the cup and they're doing things in the right way. I might say this every week but it'll be another big test for us on Saturday. We've watched them, we know what to expect and we know we'll have to be on very high levels of focus, commitment and quality to be able to get anything out of the game.

on the conditions at Stoke and Mark Robins showing that at Coventry if you stick with a manager to see something through it helps in the end...
I'm not going to get started on that but yes, it does take time. It's weird doing something for the moment that wasn't the initial plan or what we wanted to do, but you need to win games of football and just get on with it. If we do have a bit of time and manage to get our squad where we want it and lay the foundations that we've already started to lay and then build on that, we will be very good. It's that famous expression of 'Rome wasn't built in a day' and you need a bit of time to get things right. Stoke have done that over the last few months and he's doing well. But that's football.

on the first few weeks and whether he could've asked for much more...
Maybe take out the mistakes that have led to goals. But that's me being hypercritical. There was a lot more emotional stuff and psychological stuff going on that we needed to deal with first. We're still progressing, we're still working but there are glimpses of interesting things. At least we are showing that there's a backbone to what we're trying to do, we're going to stand up and we're going to be accountable. We want to be a solid team that is going to have a right go and we've shown that over the last three games. That's definitely a good starting point. We want to keep winning, we want to keep picking up points where we can but we're going to be demanding of ourselves as well, which is why we have to eradicate those mistakes and take them out. But we're getting there.

on coming from behind twice to take four points...
100 per cent. The lads said it better than I did. We always chat about the game after full-time and we always debrief and go through it quickly. They said that we're getting there because three months ago we would have folded and lost three or four nil. You feel it and you see it in their body language and all the rest. Now we want to stop conceding goals because our defensive record needs to be one of the best. But at least there's a reaction there of 'we can do this' and we can be a very good football side. We're working towards it and like we just said, it takes a bit of time.

on not having a midweek game and how it helps with training the team...
It's vital. I think yesterday was a big session in terms of volume and intensity. We've hit really high numbers which again, the players aren't really used to in their training loads. We're getting them up to speed and we're getting them as fit as we can get them. But obviously, to work on the game and what we are trying to do is also vital. It's nice having a few days and not having to worry about too many games all at once. It's been a good week.

  • Like 4
CSA96

CSA96

Posted
Posted

Bree and Smallbone set to return to light training next week

Downs, Stewart and Fraser all available to play on Saturday

  • Like 4
trousers

trousers

Posted
Posted (edited)

Bazunu

Sugawara* - Skip - THB - Manning

Downes - Charles

Robinson - Fernandes - Fraser

Downs

Subs: McCarthy, Welington, Quarshie, Edwards, Woods, Matsuki, Dibling, Archer, Stewart

(* Yes, I know, but he's our only fit orthodox right back, if we were to play a traditional back four)

Edited by trousers
Sheaf Saint

Sheaf Saint

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, CSA96 said:

on Mark Robins...
He's good. I'd love to have his experience and have his results after the last few years because what he did at Coventry was very good and what he's doing with Stoke is pretty impressive as well. He's turned that team into a really good football team. They've got two wins, they've qualified in the cup and they're doing things in the right way. I might say this every week but it'll be another big test for us on Saturday. We've watched them, we know what to expect and we know we'll have to be on very high levels of focus, commitment and quality to be able to get anything out of the game.

Am I imagining this or did Russ once admit that he often didn't even bother watching and doing his homework on our upcoming opponents? 

  • Like 2
SWLondon Saint

SWLondon Saint

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, CSA96 said:

It's vital. I think yesterday was a big session in terms of volume and intensity. We've hit really high numbers which again, the players aren't really used to in their training loads. We're getting them up to speed and we're getting them as fit as we can get them. 

Anyone else wondering what the actual was going on last season?!? 😑

SWLondon Saint

SWLondon Saint

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Sheaf Saint said:

Am I imagining this or did Russ once admit that he often didn't even bother watching and doing his homework on our upcoming opponents? 

It certainly felt like it the way we played, particularly against pressing sides like Brentford...

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