Roll Up, Roll Up, it's time to swing open the doors once again. Come join us, as we dazzle for forty five minutes, collecting shiny gold pieces from all our paying punters, before letting everyone in for free at the near post for the second half. The Ralphacoaster, the Hasenhuttl of Horrors, the Viennese Whirl continue this Wednesday evening, as we host the mighty Crystal Palace at St Mary's Fairground (EDIT - we're actually away, but hey, details), for another night of perpetual disappointment, spine-tingling horror and a special round of Pin The Tail On The Armstrong. With the prospect of a Walcott and Long front line, the trepidatious travellers from not-really-London will be quaking in their white, green and orange boots, as we blind them to our perpetual deficiencies by running really hard and fast for a maximum of twenty minutes. They'll be stunned as we fire shots from all angles nowhere near their goal, and be flummoxed by our zipping the ball around sideways and backwards. Then they'll come out for the second half, and realise we're actually ****. I'm sure there'll be some referees and all that. Maybe it'll be Micheal Masi, and we can call upon a safety car, having been shafted all afternoon, allowing us to take a lucky win. In team news, well hopefully Salisu and Romeu will be back. Possibly poor young Tino might get a rest, and KWP be restored to right back. Maybe The Gorilla will make an appearance, vaulting ahead of the Pole. Who knows with our fearless leader. The big question of course is, who makes it in goal? It would seem to be between one of these two mighty choices: Fraser Forster Willy Caballero (If you were here hoping instead for Crystal Phallus content, may I please direct you here - https://shopcosmichealing.com/products/amethyst-crystal-phallus). Thanks for your time. COYR!
Benteke likes scoring against us, and on current form I don’t know if JWP will be able to put Zaha in his pocket. He’ll have to wind him up some other way. Gallagher will be a threat.
We will start really well, miss a couple of decent-ish chances. They will then have a really good chance they will score and then the game will fizzle out to not much going on with the final score being 1-0 to them. In here there will be constructive debate about whether Ralph should stay or go with lots of references to injuries, 2021 form, being skint, how **** the players are and how great Ralph is.
We’ll have Romeu and Salisu back, the latter and Lyanco ought to cope with Benteke and the former with Gallagher. JWP always saves up his best games for his chum little Wilfy. We won’t need strikers, Redmond and Tella will play as false 9’s. Anything can happen, and probably will.
Brilliant thread Laces! To carry on the fairground metaphor, Saints to me are like a broken bumper car, going round in circles while everyone else takes it in turns to smash into us at will and laugh their bollocks off. Ralph has to try new tactics for this one. The running around chasing everything like dogs in the park, lasted all of 20 minutes against Arse, and that was with a week's rest in advance. Will probably last for 10 minutes here. I'm actually scared of the idea of Zaha and Gallagher running rings around our knackered lot. Will be another embarrassment. The excitement and pride in this team has completely gone for me. At the stage where I'd be ecstatic to come away with a draw against Palace for ****'s sake.
Speaking as an optimist, I’ll be watching this one on the telly, so my journey to and from the game will be carbon neutral
Also speaking as an optimist, I will arrange a meeting for 7:30-10pm and then have the joy of reading this thread back in it's entirety after the event...knowing the result but not seeing the game
Somebody ought to contact the club and tell them they have to at least avoid defeat in this, so we get another Laces thread.
SOUTHAMPTON @ CRYSTAL PALACE Wednesday 15th December 2021 19:30 KO please log in to view this image Referee: Simon Hooper. Assistants: Dan Robathan, Derek Eaton. Fourth official: Robert Jones. VAR: John Brooks. Assistant VAR: Adrian Holmes.
This is a massive game for us and one where we have to stop the rot, it's not enough to say well they are in good form so a loss is not unexpected. We traditionally do well at Palace and I don't believe that their squad is better than ours, we really need to get some sort of result here to move forward.
