Hello all and welcome back to another matchday thread by Saintsfcfan. I'm currently writing this from Cloud Nine and am joined by my many famous faces of the Saints world. How are we all doing? Saints last night send fans wild as Shane Long scored an emphatic winner to take the side to Wembley on the 26th February. It's the first time Saints have reached a major final since 2003 and it was nothing less than well and truely deserved. Will the team be exhausted from the match? Possibly, but every single one of them earned the right to march to the Arch. Onto the game. Saints are in cup action yet again as they face Arsenal at St Marys in the Saturday tea-time match. Live on BT Sport for anyone interested. Saints go into the game in, well, high spirits shall we say. Virgil Van Dijk is currently out for quite a while and Jay Rodriguez could possibly miss the next few games. With a big game just gone and Swansea away next week, Magic Man Claude will likely rotate, which may see the return on Gardos, McQueen and Sims to the starting 11. Boufal is apparently fit to play but Morocco are refusing to let him play until they are knocked out of the AFCON. Pretty petulant. Arsene Wenger has said that a team with "first-team experience" will be fielded on Saturday, with an inclusion of one or two young players but no more. I would expect the like of Sanchez and Ozil to maybe be on the bench, with players such as Giroud and Walcott starting. Xhaka will not be involved due to not knowing how to tackle. My line-up: Forster Martina Yoshida Gardos McQueen Hojbjerg Ward-Prowse Davis Sims Long Redmond Prediction: Keep the wins coming boys. 1-0 Saints.
Let's go absolutely bonkers and go win the FA Cup as well ! I want us to be some sort of Trophy hunting monster.
It may have just coincided with players trying to defend the goal lead, but when JWP went off we lost all shape and were floundering somewhat. Big game for him against a real footballing side, he seemed to be moving freely after the game
I'd kinda like to see Stephens at DM playing the Romeu role at some point, but then again that's not necessarily needed against Arsenal. Sims, McQueen and Hojbjerg should definitely play. Reed too if we have any belief in him progressing. Other than that just fitness so who knows. The frivolous part of me wants to see Forster - McQueen, Yoshida, Gardos, Stephens, Martina - Davis, Hojbjerg, JWP - Sims, Long. But that'd be daft, albeit interesting.
I think Pierre chased the ball a little (not much, but slightly less disciplined than JWP) and Jay shut down a player more than Shane, who seemed to drop and sit in the space. Just gave Pool an inch more space, but not much.
As with the last two games I'm not going to guess the result or watch it. You can all thank me later. Think I'll do some baking on Saturday rather than cleaning...
Be hard for the team to come down for this, though we have beaten Arsenal in 2 cup matches recently. Depends how seriously they are taking it....because the Mighty Saints will want it. When I was interested in Arsenal they qualified for both cup finals....so why not us? Though I hope no one drops Shane Long from a great height and breaks his arm as Tony Adams did.
If you're baking Helen - how about a chocolate victory bar! http://www.chowhound.com/recipes/chocolate-victory-bar-28750
I've got an idea so not to jinx it. Bake on Friday, make an almighty mess, clear up around 5pm Saturday. Job done, next round of the cup
My ex supported Arsenal and as I didn't have a team I supported them. Still like them more than the other top sides.
You do know that I hate cleaning with a passion - I'm only doing it for Southampton! My love knows no bounds...
Really unimportant game this one, cups are a waste of time and we should be concentrating all our efforts on the league. #whatsthepointincups
In the absence of any serious chance of finishing 18-20 or 1-6, cups are very important. They are a path to Europe....for the first time we have a manager willing to manage the team and treat all games with respect.
Hoping that your lads are on a come down from the excitement of reaching Wembley when we play you on Saturday, as our trips to St Mary's have been pretty torturous recently. That said we've got a good record in the FA cup, but this is going to be a really tricky tie for both teams.
Agreed. Was surprised by Shane's work off the ball, expected him to be on Henderson like glue once he came on but he just slowly dropped into space other than some points early in the half when he swapped with Redmond. Pierre still only knows how to be a terrier as opposed to a guard dog. But who knows where instruction vs instinct comes into it.
