Match Day Thread Saints v Aston Villa, Saturday 22nd Feb 2020 3pm

I'm just praying that Jack and Bedders stay injury/suspension free for 11 games, if so I reckon we have a shot at 7th place.

Just to add that it is amazing what a run in the team can do to a player's confidence and Jack is certainly repaying Ralph's faith in him. Well done to both of them.

 

I think Grealish gets stick for the all reasons you mention. 1. He is petulant 2. He dives 3. He's very good 4. He doesn't play for us. He's also a bit of a showman with his hair and socks down, the sort of player that opposition fans love to hate.
He's a very good player, even when we tried to close him down he still managed to cause us problems. We did well to contain him, I think.
The only point I would argue is I don't think we did foul him everytime he got the ball. He runs at defences, if he gets closed down he falls over and gets a free kick. The ref yesterday seemed to go along with this everytime and it annoys the hell out of the fans.

I posted this yesterday before the match to show just how many free kicks he "wins". From what I saw I don't believe for a minute they are all genuine fouls, he's way out in front of Zaha

Fouls won
1 Grealish | Aston Villa 117
2 Wilfred Zaha | Crystal Palace 85
3 James Maddison | Leicester 75

Edit He "won" another 5 more yesterday.

 

I am somewhat looking forward to West Ham next weekend. Assuming they lose to Liverpool tomorrow, they will be under massive pressure to beat us. They will have to come at us. I've got these glorious mental images of us picking them off on the break.

 

We'll need to stop Antonio running the show like he did last time though. The big bully.

 

What a pity Redmond is unavailable, he would be ideal in that situation.

 

Djenepo will still cause Zabaleta problems.

 

I would love to see them hammered but I don’t want them to be beaten so badly that it triggers a similar response to the one we got from the Saints following the game that didn’t happen.
So I will settle for them being humiliatingly outplayed, but with a 3-0 score line.

 

I get where you’re coming from, but I think that perhaps David Moyes is somewhat less capable of inspiring the same sort of turnaround that Ralph managed. Not to mention that Brady, Gold, and Sullivan are less likely to have the patience that our board showed, so they would probably sack Moyes and appoint Big Sam yet again.

 

Hope so mate. Last time I went, we got thumped 3-0.

 

Some of our most recent defeats to them (the past two seasons), have been amongst the most painful of any recent defeats. And the pattern always seemed to be us desperately fighting for something, and them just pissing us off. Well my friends, its pay back time. Red hot Shane Wong with a brace. Lets get this protest started.

 

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In the last few years it has seemed like West Ham have been in average/poor form, and then have their one good game against us, then go back to being average to poor. It's quite annoying. I've got a feeling this time round we can stop the rot against them and put in a good performance and take away all 3 points. It probably suits us that this is an away game.

 

We've positively got this...No7 is taking us all the way to No7 place in the league!..

 

That's why there's only 1#7

 

In all seriousness though. All time great no. 7s...

1. Shane Long
2. Matt Le Tiss
3. Rickie Lambert

 

Where does Tomasz Hajto fit into all this?

 

Susan said: ↑
In all seriousness though. All time great no. 7s...

1. Rudi Skacel
2. Shane Long
3. Matt Le Tiss
4. Rickie Lambert
5. Terry Paine AKA Elvis

 

And Alan Ball..