Right, time for a moderator match thread. Referee: Stuart Attwell. Assistants: Darren Cann, Harry Lennard. Fourth official: Simon Hooper. VAR: Mike Dean. Assistant VAR: Steven Meredith. Team news: Saints will welcome back Romeo Lavia into the matchday squad after his runout for the B team last weekend. ABK has an outside chance of making it. KWP and Tino remain out. Newcastle have some issues: Isak remains out with a thigh injury and Joelinton picked up his 5th yellow card at the weekend and is suspended (big miss for them). Schar is also a doubt after picking up a hamstring injury against Villa. Newcastle are on a great run of form but we can get a result here. Hopefully Lavia is fit enough to start. They will miss Joelinton's energy in the middle of the park. If we play like we did in the second halves against Arsenal and Palace from the start we can win this. UTFS!
Wonder what we will do about the RB situation. AMN looked great centrally when he came on but if Lavia is back maybe AMN will go to RB. Another big game for the future of Ralph this, assuming we don't get anything away at Liverpool (pretty safe assumption), this could be Ralphs last chance to save his job.
Tom, as a moderator, are you above mention of confectionery or dairy products, in an attempt to keep this thread focussed on purely football issues? If so, you will not be interested in knowing that the figure on the very tall column not too far from Newcastle's home ground is of Earl Grey, of tea fame. I sincerely hope that this has not opened the door for further mentions of various hot drinks, certainly not Bovril. As this is a home fixture, I'm sure that Saints will serve up a sumptuous spread of footballing delicacies, leading to an inevitable 2-0 victory.
3pm for me, time enough to digest the Sunday roast chicken Peking style and settle on the sofa with a cool Palm beer.
If anything goes to VAR can we replace Mike Dean with Coffee Annan. He has a decent record of mediation.
Match of the Day 2 Sunday Chelsea, Arsenal, Aston Villa, Manchester United, West Ham United, Crystal Palace, Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool, Newcastle United, will be on Match of the Day 2. Southampton will be on Pointless.
We always seem to do wel against Newcastle but I have a nasty suspicion the wheels will come off for Saints on Sunday. Probably Ralph's last home game. There needs to be a massive improvement and I cannot see how we can acheive that.
You just never know with Ralph or Saints, could be as bad as normal or put in a Chelsea/Arsenal type display