Match Day Thread Middlesbrough v Southampton, Saturday, 09th May 2026, 12:30 KO - Live on Sky TV

  • Please bear with us on the new site integration and fixing any known bugs over the coming days. If you can not log in please try resetting your password and check your spam box. If you have tried these steps and are still struggling email [email protected] with your username/registered email address
  • Log in now to remove adverts - no adverts at all to registered members!
Saintmagic said:
Yeah but you’re weird
Click to expand...
Maybe. Championship does have a hell of a lot going for it though even ignoring team performance:

No VAR
Better away days / more old school stadia
More notice for TV fixture changes
Much more Saturday games
More games in general
The hectic Saturday/Tuesday schedule
Less hype/tourists/plastics
Better atmospheres at most grounds
 
  • Like
Reactions: BackFromBeyond, saint horatio, timatoketchup and 10 others
Libby said:
I'd much prefer we stay down as everyone knows, it's just a much more enjoyable league for so many reasons.

Really can't be arsed with the PL circus and want to do Lincoln away. It's why I didn't really wanna do the play off games but can't help feel it'd be daft not to complete the set.
Click to expand...

You've had plenty of chances to do @LincolnSaint away this season though...

Oh...
 
  • Like
  • Haha
Reactions: BackFromBeyond, Libby, LincolnSaint and 2 others
Libby said:
Maybe. Championship does have a hell of a lot going for it though even ignoring team performance:

No VAR
Better away days / more old school stadia
More notice for TV fixture changes
Much more Saturday games
More games in general
The hectic Saturday/Tuesday schedule
Less hype/tourists/plastics
Better atmospheres at most grounds
Click to expand...

Yeah I can definitely see the appeal in being in the champ if you go to games regularly, but the novelty would wear off if we were sat mid table for a few seasons consecutively. Also think it’s just a matter of time before VAR comes in
 
  • Like
Reactions: BackFromBeyond
LincolnSaint said:
Yeah as much as I hate SR, January was pound for pound their best window. Peretz and Larin have been outstanding. If they can replicate that magic in the loan market next season I'll be very happy
Click to expand...
Probably followed by the summer before. Yes mistakes were made, but we also signed Scienza, Azaz, Jander and Fellows. No chance would we be where we are without them.

The fact we got over £100m for Fernandes, Dibling & Sulemana is also incredible business looking back.

Transfers certainly seem to have improved since Spors took control of them.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BackFromBeyond, saint horatio, Brizzletiss and 4 others
When he came in didn't he ask for a season or so before we judged him as he stated that it would take time to fix the squad. can't really grumble at the current squad so far though.
 
st_brendy said:
I'm sure fans of Stoke and Watford and WBA and Blackburn and Swansea, and so many other Championship teams, are delighted that their teams didn't return to the PL.

And that's before turning to fans of Bolton and Huddersfield and Reading etc.
Click to expand...
This. I don’t want another season of getting spanked but we can’t stay competitive unless we push for promotion. Staying stagnant in the championship will diminish our club long term.

It would be interesting to see what Tonda can do, although I don’t expect SR to back him in the summer.
 
  • Like
Reactions: tiggermaster
Spors did also give it the big one about ‘the art of squad building’ following signing Damion Downs and then hid and refused interviews when it all went to ****.

This season the autos were there for the taking, and a big part of the reason we haven’t taken advantage of that is because despite all the evidence telling us not to, we went into another season with Bazunu as no.1, we signed a duff striker to lead the line, and we made the wrong management signing once again. There have obviously been good things too, but still a long way off proclaiming Spors as our hero, he got too much badly wrong going into the season despite having a really long time to get it right. Not really the place for this chat though so I’ll leave it there.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BackFromBeyond, AshbySaint, Dell Boy and 4 others
RSS said:
Spors did also give it the big one about ‘the art of squad building’ following signing Damion Downs and then hid and refused interviews when it all went to ****.

This season the autos were there for the taking, and a big part of the reason we haven’t taken advantage of that is because despite all the evidence telling us not to, we went into another season with Bazunu as no.1, we signed a duff striker to lead the line, and we made the wrong management signing once again. There have obviously been good things too, but still a long way off proclaiming Spors as our hero, he got too much badly wrong going into the season despite having a really long time to get it right. Not really the place for this chat though so I’ll leave it there.
Click to expand...
On players, I think you have to take into account just how much business needed to be done last summer. We sold 7 players, loaned out another 8 or 9 and signed/loaned in 9. You're pretty much always going to get a couple of dud signings when you're doing that much business. Only having Downs as a real stinker of a player signing is actually a very good hit rate.

And assessing the existing squad is a grey area isn't it? None of us know how much assessing our current players is down to Spors and how much is down to the manager. Personally I would have thought the manager would have the largest say on which areas of the squad need to be improved. If Will Still said last summer that he thought Bazunu was good enough then is Spors likely to overrule him? I assume Tonda said he wanted an upgrade in January and he definitely got one. Something must also have changed between the summer and in relation to Armstrong. So that's not just on Spors.

Of course, appointing Still as manager IS on Spors, was clearly the wrong call and that was the biggest decision of them all. I'd say Spors's record on players is good to very good and his record on managers is about as mixed as it gets.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ronnie Hotdog (MLsfc)
RSS said:
Spors did also give it the big one about ‘the art of squad building’ following signing Damion Downs and then hid and refused interviews when it all went to ****.

This season the autos were there for the taking, and a big part of the reason we haven’t taken advantage of that is because despite all the evidence telling us not to, we went into another season with Bazunu as no.1, we signed a duff striker to lead the line, and we made the wrong management signing once again. There have obviously been good things too, but still a long way off proclaiming Spors as our hero, he got too much badly wrong going into the season despite having a really long time to get it right. Not really the place for this chat though so I’ll leave it there.
Click to expand...
In Spors' defence, he has only improved. He made some dreadful decisions in the summer - but - it's his first job in English football, and the Championship. Perhaps he underestimated the task at hand. Regrdless, it would seem that he is a fast learner. The Peretz and Larin loan signings are perhaps the two best loan signings in my 30+ years supporting Saints, in terms of the impact they've made.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dell Boy, Brizzletiss, Ronnie Hotdog (MLsfc) and 5 others
Libby said:
Maybe. Championship does have a hell of a lot going for it though even ignoring team performance:

No VAR
Better away days / more old school stadia
More notice for TV fixture changes
Much more Saturday games
More games in general
The hectic Saturday/Tuesday schedule
Less hype/tourists/plastics
Better atmospheres at most grounds
Click to expand...
You forgot more games in the North!
 
Just listened to one of the Boro Podcast, lots of debate about ditching the 5 at the back against us as would invite us on to them to much. Also they feel that they could man mark Azaz.
Also said that a lot of their fans feel a bit flat after blowing the lead they had but 11 points from the last 10 games.
Apart from that they’re pretty confident, and said that if they get an early goal against us then the memories of the 4-0 spanking could play a big part?
Also feel that if they take a lead back to St Mary’s it will play into their hands as they are a great counter attack team, and they are better against teams that want to play football.
I have a feeling that this is going to be really close.
 
The pros of being in the PL for me are...

A chance of European football (if the Mini-Skates and Seaweed can do it) Remember those great days of a decade ago?
A better chance of having a squad capable of winning a trophy.
Beating the elite however rare is such a brilliant feeling.
Trying to regain our rightful place of South Coast top dogs (being a league above the Skates)
There is no reason why we can't do a Sunderland and Leeds and grow season by season, its all cyclical.
I don't travel away but a team that shows effort and commitment to compete will always have good backing at SMS.
Pride in the club being at the top level.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Le Tissier's Laces
Puck said:
On players, I think you have to take into account just how much business needed to be done last summer. We sold 7 players, loaned out another 8 or 9 and signed/loaned in 9. You're pretty much always going to get a couple of dud signings when you're doing that much business. Only having Downs as a real stinker of a player signing is actually a very good hit rate.

And assessing the existing squad is a grey area isn't it? None of us know how much assessing our current players is down to Spors and how much is down to the manager. Personally I would have thought the manager would have the largest say on which areas of the squad need to be improved. If Will Still said last summer that he thought Bazunu was good enough then is Spors likely to overrule him? I assume Tonda said he wanted an upgrade in January and he definitely got one. Something must also have changed between the summer and in relation to Armstrong. So that's not just on Spors.

Of course, appointing Still as manager IS on Spors, was clearly the wrong call and that was the biggest decision of them all. I'd say Spors's record on players is good to very good and his record on managers is about as mixed as it gets.
Click to expand...

Che’s Godlike Thighs said:
In Spors' defence, he has only improved. He made some dreadful decisions in the summer - but - it's his first job in English football, and the Championship. Perhaps he underestimated the task at hand. Regrdless, it would seem that he is a fast learner. The Peretz and Larin loan signings are perhaps the two best loan signings in my 30+ years supporting Saints, in terms of the impact they've made.
Click to expand...

Absolutely, you're never going to get everything right. However he did identify striker as being 1 of 3 absolutely key positions to fill, and then ****ed it up big style. We spent a lot of money for Downs at this level! And we once again gambled on Stewarts fitness which in the first half of this season was still a massive problem. Even now he can't play as much as you need your leading striker to play.

I also find it hard to forgive the Bazunu thing. From what I've heard, managers don't have much of a say on transfers anymore, which given the rate we've gone through managers is a good thing imo. But even if a manager did say he wanted Baz as no.1, that's a big red flag on the manager and you just overrule him. We'd seen more than enough to know he just can't be no.1 for a club wanting to do anything at this level. This isn't revisionist. I was screaming for a new no.1 all summer as we had several years of evidence that Baz and McCarthy weren't good enough.

I'm not slating Spors as being useless as he did have a massive job on his hands, and he has got a lot right too, particularly this January which in hindsight was about as good as it gets. But I'm also not going to herald him as a genius either because he came in with plenty of time to identify what needed to be done and got too many big decisions badly wrong that have ultimately cost us automatic promotion. If we get away with it, and manage to win the play offs then it'll be much easier to forgive his big mistakes, and you hope he's learnt a lot from them going into the next transfer window, but the play offs are a bit of coin flip and if we are still in this league next season then a big part of the reason for that is the costly mistakes Spors made.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Puck, garysfc, LincolnSaint and 2 others
We've only given them 2k for the home game which I'm pleasantly surprised by.

Shame we couldn't reciprocate the price though.
 
MIDDLESBROUGH (First Team) v Southampton FC (First Team)
Football League Championship
Referee: Hallam, Farai
Assistant Referee: Nelson, Alistair
Assistant Referee: Dallison, Andrew
Fourth Official: Kitchen, Andrew
Reserve Assistant Referee: Harrison, David
 
  • Like
Reactions: SAINTOSPREY
Southampton FC (First Team) v MIDDLESBROUGH (First Team)
Football League Championship
Referee: Madley, Andrew
Assistant Referee: Hopton, Nick
Assistant Referee: Taylor, Craig
Fourth Official: Nield, Tom
Reserve Assistant Referee: Gilroy, Hugh
 
  • Like
Reactions: SAINTOSPREY
Just realised I am.out to a family dinner organised 6 months ago. Bugger. Sit at the end and have the game on the phone I guess and try not to say oh **** out loud
 
  • Like
Reactions: StJabbo1
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back