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The academy of football. The club that single handedly won England their only world cup. A team that plays football the right way. Historically there have been many reasons to like this east end outfit.
Unfortunately these have all evaporated with their new owners. Sure, the fans might prefer Gold and Sullivan to the bankrupt Icelandic biscuitmen that came before. But this working class club is now run by porn merchants that donate club funds to the Conservative party.
On a completely unrelated matter the Conservative mayor of London gave them a stupid good deal on the Olympic stadium. A stadium we all paid for. A stadium our saints visit today.
All eyes will be on the terribly named "London stadium" as the club try to curb the fighting in the stands that has tarnished their opening matches.
Another man with reason to dislike the eastenders is red and white Charlie Austin. Last year one of the comedy Bond villain West Ham owners tried to allay their fans fear of missing out on Austin by claiming he had no knees and demanded crazy wages. Obviously our goal scoring hero wasn't too happy about being a pawn in Gold's fan relations exercise and hopefully we see him bag a brace before mock hobbling towards the directors box in celebration.
There is atleast one good guy at the club, Slaven Bilic. He was the undoubted star of the euro 2016 TV coverage here in the UK and it seems massively short sighted that his position is being called into question.
Last year they finished just below the mighty saints thanks to an unlucky away draw at Stoke on the final day. It was a season that saw them challenging for Europe despite poor shot numbers and many in the analytics part of the football webosphere predicted a mid table battle when their conversion rates normalised. A mid summer struggle to find a top name striker that ended with the sentence "f**k it, lets just sign that Italian that took a crap penalty in the euros." has done little to suggest this isn't a mid table squad.
Having said that, we are sure if our beloved saints will be a mid table side either.
Table
Paul rockets up the league with a correct 1-0 score. God knows how that game against Swansea finished just one to nil though.
WRITER | POINTS |
Lawro | 8 |
Paul | 7 |
Allen | 5 |
Merse | 5 |
George | 4 |
Jake | 5 |
Dan V | 3 |
Will | 3 |
Tommy | 3 |
Blaise | 2 |
Dan N | 1 |
Predictions
Merse: 1-1 "Southampton were unlucky against Arsenal and since then they have done very well, winning three on the bounce. They have turned the corner."
Lawro: 2-1 "Southampton have the lowest shot conversion rate in the Premier League, just 6.45%. Shane Long is probably most to blame for that"
Jake: 1-1 "Saints get an unlucky 1-1 draw away at West Ham. Much the better team but Michail Antonio pops up with yet another header to equalise late on."
Tommy: 1-3 "We are gonna win the league."
Paul: 0-1 "People will still be whinging about the formation."
Allen: 1-2 "The Saints are starting to resemble a team playing with confidence going forward."
Will: 2-4 "We're playing well, creating loads of chances. One of these days we are going to smash someone."
George: 1-1 "I'd take a cagey 1-0 win, but think 1-1. They'll want to put right the 4-2 defeat they had last week, but I've got a feeling we'll get something."
Dan V: 0-2 "They have issues and we have a mini lift going on."
Dan N: 0-1 "I think we'll sneak a 1-0 win. West Ham look dodgy defensively but I think we'll score one of the many chances that we'll create."