Match Day Thread The (Everlasting) South Coast Derby Tuesday 24/09/19 KO 7:45pm

Tonight will likely be about desire.

 

Yeh loads of issues on the Waterloo line. Got stuck trying to get around SW London, made all the worse when I was joined by Pompey louts in shirts, already on the beers.

 

Oriol Romeu gets it.

His quotes ahead of tonight's game... (courtesy of southamptonfc.com)

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“If one day I left and I’d never played in this match… I’d be sad. I’m very pleased to play this game.

“I’m really looking forward to it – it’s going to be a good one and I want to make sure we are on the winning side, and the team that is going to the next round.

“We have to take it as a normal game. I know the fans won’t do that, but we have to face it with the same ambition and the same character.

“In the end it’s one game, in the end it’s football – we don’t want people to go mad and do stupid things.

“For us as players, we know what we can do and we will do our best to win this game.

“I think they’ve realised by now how much the fans are appreciating this match,” the midfielder said of his teammates.

“It’s the matter of a reaction. Sometimes you don’t need to tell them – they just see it from the fans.

“Since the cup draw was out, everyone has been saying, ‘you can win now, but you have to make sure you win that game against Portsmouth’.

“Everything else was put aside, like it doesn’t matter anymore. That’s the game now, that’s the moment.

“I go for a coffee and everyone says, ‘make sure you win that game’, or you are in a lift with a Southampton fan and he says, ‘you’re doing well now, but you have to win that game’.

“They make you feel how important it is, and we all know it.

“That’s why I’m looking forward to this game,” he added. “As I said before, it’s only one game, but sometimes there is more feeling and emotion, and the crowd will be so excited and so noisy that it brings you to another part of your game.

“It will be nice as a player to experience that and to have that. If I’m there in the middle, everybody knows that every duel and every ball will be very competitive.

“Although they are playing in League One now, they won’t give anything away and they will fight even more for those duels and for those balls.

“For myself as a player, I really enjoy that. It’s so nice to see someone who really wants to outdo you and really wants to go for it – it makes it better.

“I think sometimes if you have a weak opponent, or a guy who doesn’t want to defend or run, it’s not the same.

“If they really want it, it makes you think ‘you’re not having this one’. It makes it nicer for a player.

“In that moment, in that situation… sometimes you can be there and history wants to remember you because of that, especially because we haven’t played against each other for a long time,” he reflects.

“I’ll take a win, a good performance and a good feeling from the team.

“Now it’s a moment where those feelings come back again. Everyone is saying, ‘we have the chance to beat them, we are in a higher situation, we are the favourites in this game, we should beat them and we should be much better than them’.

“But these derbies and these matches make football more interesting. They give us, as players, an extra joy to play in. As a player, you love these ones. These are the ones you enjoy the most.

“I know for the fans also, but for you as a player, you can go out there, do your job and have the greatest feeling you can have.”

 

Nice words Oriol. Assuming everyone playing & on the bench has the same realistic passion, we should be ok. Won’t be easy but we can do this. COUS.

 

Getting nervous now.

In this match form, status and class goes out of the window. I still think we'll do it, but it is what makes football such a great sport

 

I fully trust Oriol. But there's a few other I'm just hoping are up for this. If we give them an incentive, we're in trouble.

 

its david versus david tonight thats for sure
but Goliath supports Saints and hates pompey

 

Just realised I haven't seen us win away under Ralph yet, what a place for the first!

Really hope we start Cedric over Valery.

 

Start with cool heads - Yoshida, Armstrong, Cedric, McCarthy. Don`t get intimidated, and let them draw us into a scrap. We have better players in every position - Romeu and PEH will earn the right for us to play as the game progresses.

 

What the hell has happened to Yan, for us all to want Cedric in front of him? That kid was immense last season, I just don't understand how he has fallen so far so quick.

 

He's looked a bit rash at times and is prone to diving in, not something we can really risk for this match tbh, espescially as he plays a position to get a **** load of abuse.

Too big a gamble for me personally, Cedric's experience will be vital.

 

Yan will start tonight, and have a blinder. Calling it now.

 

Cedric has that face

 

Cedric has been really professional since coming back, & I appreciate that, but he has his shortcomings. No doubt.

 

Any of you lot getting the train over tonight?

The walk from Fratton to Fratton Park will be an interesting one.

 

Guard of honor?

 

Yep, decided it would be less 'interesting' than trying to find my car on my own at 11pm.

 

You got a ticket @Sharpe* ?

 

I really really want to sleep with Gwyneth Paltrow, but however much I want it, it’s not going to happen.

Cos you don’t always get what you want, and Pompey will find that out. Ralph’s got this.

 

My uncle did that once, the night before he appeared in the British Army Boxing Championships. It did not end well for him.

True story