Bournemouth 1 - 2 Saints

Today at the Fitness First stadium Saints continued their preparations for the new season with a solid, rather than spectacular performance. Goals from Kenwyne Jones and Bradley Wright-Phillips gave ten-man Saints victory. Saints were reduced to 10 men when Powell was involved in some "hand-bags" with one of the Bournemouth players. It seemed like a telling off would have sufficed, but the ref thought otherwise. It was good to see Claus complete 45 minutes and Jones looked in fine form. As I said before though, it was a solid rather than great performance.

A selection of photos are at:
http://s185.photobucket.com/albums/x69/ph11be/Saints%20v%20Cherries/
or here's the slideshow:

There was no sign of two triallist that had joined Saints for their first three pre-season games. Today, George Burley said that he was trying to arrange a season-long loan deal for Vignal from Lens. But he said that they would not be pursuing interest in Hungarian international centre-back Tamas Vasko. It still leaves a hole in the centre of our defence which urgently needs filling.

Still, pre-season has been encouraging thus far, with a Saints opening with a 4-2 win over Eastleigh and then 12-0 and 4-1 wins on the tour of Norway. So if Saints can strengthen the defence in the couple of weeks, a good season should ensue.

The whole potential takeover situation has become a bit tiring and after the club released a statement to the LSE announcing that there were three interested parties and talks were ongoing, I've decided to just wait and see and not get my hopes up. Takeover or not, this season looks like it is going to be fun!!

Looking back and to the future

Ok, so I've been lazy at updating, sorry. Now the apologies are out the way, the reflection and hoping can begin.

So Saints' excellent end to the season was so disappointingly ended by the worst footballing team in the championship!! A real pity that Derby made it to the premiership by beating the two most attractive footballing teams in the division, Saints and West Brom. Saints' problem this season was that we were too weak as a team. We didn't really have any tough players, haven't for years!

Despite the penalty shoot-out defeat to Derby I came away really proud of the team and the way they played. Now we have to take all the positives from this season and look to build on them. We have a young team and some great players. Bale has gone, which is a real shame (especially as its to Spurs), but good luck to him and we still produced some great performances without him last season (like the playoff 2nd leg). It doesn't look like we should lose too many more players (for non-financial reasons) in the summer. I hope Baird can be persuaded to stay and we can get young Best on a new contract.

I did say non-financial reasons though. The club obviously lose the parachute payments next season and will need some new financing or a major reduction in costs (bye-bye players). So if there is to be a takeover who might it be? Well, in the last few months there's been mention of a consortium fronted by Graeme Souness and a possible bid by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. No news has been coming out of the club recently, as it is in an offer period, and so cannot legally release information. I guess it is a case of wait and see, and HOPE!! New investment into the club would be fantastic. I don't want an Abramovich to come in and spend £300 million, but to secure the clubs future and develop the squad for a strong title push next year.

To succeed next year Saints need to bring in at least one big, strong centre back, a midfield bully and a creative spark. If we can keep Best, Rasiak, Jones and maybe even Saganowski (unlikely!) we have a pretty good strike force.

2007/08 'should' be a great year for Saints, new investment (hopefully), a real push for automatic promotion and watching Derby struggle miserably in the Premiership:)

Weekend Preview

Team news: Kenwyne Jones is still a doubt after picking up an injury on wednesday. If he doesn't make it, then it looks like new signing Marek Saganowski will make his debut, making it an all polish attack. Another injury doubt from midweek was Kelvin Davis, although it is thought he should be ok, and his injuries could have been much worse. Idiakez could be in line for a return to midfield after his strong showing from the bench midweek. This could be for Powell who is definitely out, with Pele dropping to centre back. Alternatively, Baird could slot inside, with Ostland or Makin stepping in at rightback. Whoever plays, it seems that Saints are starting to get some key players back, and it feels like the squad is looking quite strong now and will only get stronger with the future return of belmadi and surman.

Derby's lineup is harder to predict with Billy Davies rotating his squad successfully, with even Matty Oakley (now derby club captain) not guarenteed a starting place on his return to st mary's. There is a reasonable chance they will give debuts to some of their new signings from january, James McEveley, Tyrone Mears and Jon Macken.

Championship weekend predictions

Friday
Cardiff - Barnsley 3-0

Saturday
Colchester - Birmingham 2-2
Palace - Ipswich 3-1
Hull - West Brom 1-1
Leicester - Luton 2-0
Norwich - Leeds 4-1
QPR - Burnley 0-0
Sheff Wed - Preston 1-1
Southampton - Derby 3-1
Stoke - Southend 2-0
Sunderland - Coventry 1-0
Wolves - Plymouth 1-1

Saints best day in the last two years!!!!

Yesterday turned out to be the best day for the Saints in a long while. A 2-1 victory over sheffield wednesday moved saints to within one point of second place in the championship. But possibly more importantly, the transfer window came to a close with Gareth Bale still a Saints player:-)

Last nights match was a good one for saints in more than just the result. There were plus points all round. Baird was again brilliant putting in a man of the match performance. Rasiak's trickery with flicks and back-heels galore in the first half, idiakez looked good and hungry coming back and the pressure of more competition up front seemed to work as kenny put away a couple of beautifully taken goals, taking him to 11 for the season. The only apparent downside was that he later picked up a thigh injury which makes him doubtful for saturdays huge game at home to Derby. If you missed the match, check out the goals and reaction below, notice rasiak's backheel and kenny's dancing:-)

On the Bale front, it appears that he snubbed a £10 million + 18 month loan-back deal with spurs (despite saints allowing him talks) in favour of a possible move to man utd in the summer. I'd be sad to see him leave any time. But maybe when we're in the premiership we can tempt him to stay a little longer with a big money deal.

Bring on Derby!!!!