Southampton

Southampton vs Sunderland Who are You?: ‘cheat, cheat, cheat. It’s OK’

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Jake looks for a big result (for us)
Jake looks for a big result (for us)

This feels like a first. A few other ‘Who are You?’ interviewees have said too much is made of diving. Some of our own readers think I should stop rattling on about it. But I am not sure anyone has ever previously said it’s just part of the game and, more or less, OK. But then our Southampton fan in this week’s hot heat, Alistair Iveson*, a journalism student, doesn’t care much about his club’s stripes or colours, thinks people from the North East have silly accents and believes a Saints hero, Matt Le Tissier, has become an ‘egotistical wash-up’, Against that he’s hardly a fair weather fan – ‘I’ve always enjoyed going to watch Southampton, even when we were flailing at the bottom of the Championship’ – and Salut! Sunderland is happy to reproduce his strident views on most matters in football …

Jake has ways of making them talk
Jake has ways of making them talk

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Dodgy-ng relegation

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John McCormick:
John McCormick: History. Is it all bunk?

This post is about relegation, something never far from our minds, and who this season’s three might be. Over the summer I looked over a little bit of history and generated some numbers in order to bring you more of my dodgy predictions. Enjoy them or argue with them as you will. Just don’t nick the family allowance and run off to the bookies.

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Brazil 2014: Anita Lovren’s show of love for Southampton-playing Croatian husband

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Anita Lovran's Instagram verdict
Anita Lovran’s Instagram verdict

Now let us be honest. If Dejan Lovren had gone feet-high into Fred’s throat, leaving stud marks and threatening life itself, we can safely assume a devoted wife might have protested when the referee had the audacity to give a penalty. And a yellow card.

But it wasn’t quite like that, as we know. Fred, untouched by Lovren except when falling dramatically into him, simply cheated to gain his penalty. Since I am not prepared to suggest anything criminal, let me just repeat that this was a wretched decision, as bad as any to be imagined for the opening game of the world’s grandest sporting tournament.

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Poyetry in Motion: The boss is thinking as we stop Southampton marching

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John McCormick writes With M Salut away it has been left to Malcolm and myself to look after things over the weekend. This was one of the games I was thinking of coming up for but events down here a few days ago meant the trip was a non-starter, and that was before the weather. Nevertheless, I thought this was an attractive fixture so I was surprised at the low crowd. Low by our standards, that is. I get the impression it won’t be bad overall in comparison with some other games this weekend, especially when things like storms, the cost of travel to Manchester for a no-show, our impending Wembley visit etc. are factored in.
Enough of that, the team did enough to keep the 16,000 happy. But what of Gus? how does he feel? Here, in his own words to M Salut, he tells us:

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‘Sunderland v Southampton Who are You?: 1,000km round trips ‘like scaling Everest’

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Jake demands answers
Jake demands answers

Pete Sixsmith’s phone and mine have compatibility issues. He sends goal texts and his Sixer’s Sevens match verdicts and nothing appears. I try to make sure he’s not stranded on on the Pennines by road closures and howling gales on the futile trip towards Man City and he sees nothing on his phone. Then a seven-worder arrived all the same: ‘No football but lots of Hydes bitter’. Since it’s a Manchester-brewed ale, we can safely assume the Durham branch coach made it before the match was postponed and that its occupants then celebrated avoidance of the defeat every pundit confidently predicted.

And so to Southampton in the FA Cup 5th round. Nick Gregory* runs Southampton away travel and transports Saints fans on their journeys around the country (though the long hauls to Wearside or Tyneside – likened by Nick to climbing Everest – are offset by several annual sprints to London0. He had to fit these answers into a hectic week that involved the game at Hull, which explains the terse answers. It’s more of a quickfire Q+A than the customary long read …

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Sixer’s Sevens: Sunderland 2 Southampton 2 – back from the dead

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Pete Sixsmith - or *supersub - does it in seven words
Pete Sixsmith – or *supersub – does it in seven words

Pete Sixsmith no doubt put his winter woolies on today as a cold wind whistled round the SoL. Did anything warm him up? Here’s his instant verdict, in seven words, on a game I thought was lost but might in the end have been won, albeit with plenty more scares at our end ..:

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