Marked for Oratile Rantasi
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match7 Feb 2032
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑0 against Jomo Cosmos, and it could have been more.
Player ratings9 Feb 2032
A brace, and Jayden Adams takes the afternoon — 8.27
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jayden Adams provided it, and the 8.27 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market9 Feb 2032
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Orlando Pirates have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Market9 Feb 2032
Ziyanda Mchunu has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Orlando Pirates they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Player ratings9 Feb 2032
Kermit Mothiba, 33, rolls back the years — 8.18
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.18 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Match7 Feb 2032
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Squad9 Feb 2032
15 goals and a season average of 7.36. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad9 Feb 2032
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” George Matlou commits to Orlando Pirates for another 2 years.
Squad9 Feb 2032
Jayden Adams was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad6 Jan 2031
Barnaby Williams damages knee ligaments — 107 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 107 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Boardroom6 Jan 2031
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Market6 Jan 2031
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Southampton can pretend not to have heard.
Squad6 Jan 2031
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Market6 Jan 2031
Luis Vázquez wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Southampton hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad6 Jan 2031
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Neco Williams and Southampton agree another 4 years.
Transfer targets6 Jan 2031
The deal with Slovan Bratislava is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad6 Jan 2031
Luis Vázquez was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Transfer targets6 Jan 2031
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Pisa have kept their man, and Southampton go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Dec 2030
Barnaby Williams damages knee ligaments — 135 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 135 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match7 Dec 2030
10 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Player ratings9 Dec 2030
Successful dribbles: 30. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Market9 Dec 2030
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Southampton can pretend not to have heard.
Market9 Dec 2030
Only the photograph left for Luke Hawe
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Luke Hawe will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Southampton the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad9 Dec 2030
Luis Vázquez was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad9 Dec 2030
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Neco Williams was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout9 Dec 2030
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
Match7 Dec 2030
Late, late show earns Southampton a point
Minute 87, against Shrewsbury Town, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings11 Nov 2030
Tom Fellows beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 28. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Match9 Nov 2030
6 matches without a win for Southampton
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Southampton are no longer polite ones.
Market11 Nov 2030
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market11 Nov 2030
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Southampton can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Match9 Nov 2030
Southampton are shipping goals every week
Two or more conceded in each of the last 6 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Market11 Nov 2030
Luke Hawe has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Southampton they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad11 Nov 2030
Neco Williams was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad11 Nov 2030
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yukinari Sugawara was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad11 Nov 2030
Tom Fellows is in the form of his life
A season average of 7.24 with 13 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Boardroom19 Aug 2030
The statement thanked him for his efforts and wished him well, in that order and in about that many words. The search begins immediately.
Squad19 Aug 2030
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 36 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Boardroom19 Aug 2030
A stranger takes charge at Southampton
The coaching staff has emptied out entirely and there was nobody internal to promote, so the club has appointed a name almost none of its supporters will recognise. Clubs recover from this; none of them enjoy explaining it.
Market19 Aug 2030
Brighton come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Southampton did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market19 Aug 2030
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Southampton people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Boardroom19 Aug 2030
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
Market19 Aug 2030
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Southampton, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets19 Aug 2030
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad19 Aug 2030
Luis Vázquez in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Southampton this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.