Jos Hooiveld Tuesday Goals Appreciation Society

Appreciated

@KieranMaguire Thanks for sharing. Feels roughly in line with expectations. Think most fans understand no promotion will see the likes of Scienza, THB etc move on. I am just going to enjoy last night tbh😊

Wembley bound Southampton submit 24/25 accounts, when the Club finished 20th in the Premier League. 🔑 figures ⚽️Revenue £158m ⬆️ 86% ⚽️Wages £116m ⬆️ 43% ⚽️Wages 73% of revenue ⚽️Underlying loss £62m ⬇️29% ⚽️Player sale profits £29m ⚽️Pre tax loss £54m (profit £17m) ⚽️Total accumulated losses £197m ⚽️Player signings £90m ⚽️Player sales £45m ⚽️Borrowings £108m ⚽️Transfer fees owed to other clubs £99m

Never easy watching Saints! But we've deserved 6th place for a while. Momentum is with us. Would be one hell of a turnaround if we can get promoted, what a rollercoaster #saintsfc

Southampton Football Club, you should come with a health warning!😂😂 What a win #SaintsFC

Really hope Scienza's groin injury is not serious, would be disastrous if it finishes his season. We are always a better team with him in it #SaintsFC

@AlfieHouseEcho I think it's made worse coming from £99. In the grand scheme, £295 for 23 games is pretty good tbh. The club itself has come a very long way, I remember watching Eastleigh v Saints pre season in 2006 and the facilities now are first class. Just hope they can stay up!

A price increase from £99 to £295 for the cheapest early bird season tickets at Eastleigh next season. This is due to rising operational costs, the Spitfires say. “The club has always worked hard to offer affordable football; however, this is unfortunately no longer sustainable.”

@Peston Tories got 1.9% of the vote. But they don't even get mentioned any more. Which is arguably even worse.

It is not unusual for governing parties to be humiliated in by-elections and to subsequently recover. But the trouncing of Labour in Gorton and Denton is something special. And it is especially damaging to the career prospects of the prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer.  The electoral facts are astonishing, Despite all the talk of it being a close three way race, the Greens won with a comfortable margin of 4,402 and secured 41% of the vote, compared with Reform on 29% and Labour on 26%. Remember that Labour secured 50.8% of the vote in the 2024 general election and had a margin over its rivals of 36.7%, on a voter turnout almost identical to yesterday's. Gorton and Denton was, on that arithmetic, one of the 10% of the seats that it took that should have been easiest to retain.  Or to put it in the jargon, it has lost one of its safest seats. And having lost Gorton, Labour could lose almost anywhere. There are three reasons why this is deeply problematic for Starmer personally. First, and perhaps of least importance, the campaign it fought in the constituency now looks ridiculous. It constantly made the claim that the Greens were an irrelevance in the contest and that the only way to beat Reform was to vote Labour.  Well it got one part of the analysis right: a majority in Gorton and Denton did not want a Reform MP. But they chose Zack Polanski's Greens as the vehicle to achieve that, so disillusioned are they with Starmer's government. Second, Starmer himself - through a committee of Labour's ruling National Executive Committee - vetoed the strongest potential candidate, Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester. We'll never know whether Burnham's personal local popularity would have reversed the anti-Labour tide, and would have secured the seat. That's at Starmer's door. Finally the victory of the Greens is devastating to Starmer's positioning of the party, under the powerful influence of his former chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney. He allowed the Greens to flourish and grow, in fact he encouraged it, by positioning Labour to the right, on everything from immigration, to the EU to the economy, because he and McSweeney saw the main challenge as from Farage and Reform.  From election night onward, this always seemed eccentric at best, since one of the conspicuous trends in that election was how well parties of the left performed. If Starmer wanted to be in power for the ten years he said was necessary to change the country, he always needed to position Labour as part of a loose informal grouping that would include the LibDems and the Greens.  Instead he set those parties up in many voters' minds as the principled alternatives to both Reform and Labour. He could have taken the oxygen away from the Greens and the LibDems. Instead he fed them. Starmer's Labour will also have been hurt in Gorton and Denton, with its significant muslim and student communities, by his cautious approach to criticising the Israeli government's strikes on Gaza and by taking his pragmatic, friendly approach to Trump. Some Labour MPs will give him the benefit of the doubt in those respects. But most will just be frantically worried about their career prospects. So what follows from Labour's Gorton catastrophe? First, the pressure for a massive overhaul of Labour's political positioning and policies will become irresistible. Second, Starmer's own credibility is now so damaged that he will struggle to recover.  If he has another roll of the dice before the local and national elections on 7 May, it's only because no credible alternative candidate to be leader is ready to launch a campaign yet. But even members of his cabinet say that the consensus among Labour MPs is he won't lead them into the next election. And when they say that so casually, it's difficult to see how even Starmer - who prides himself on never giving up - will keep on keeping on.

@PaulBlight6 Yes the S Devon coast return I can well imagine, rain in varying intensity since about 4pm yesterday. Only some minor breaks. Been thoroughly foul! And all on top of everything we've seen already this year...

Heavy rain again across parts of SE Devon and along the South Coast. 37mm since midnight at Whitebarrow, nearly an inch on the Isle of Wight and near 3/4 inch for the Bournemouth area. Just what we didn't need #StormPedro

@AlfieHouseEcho Classic crazy Championship campaign. 6th place is achievable for anyone 16th or higher. Even Charlton in 18th only 9 points off 6th place! It's unreal Millwall are 3rd with GD of +4. All very much to play for!

Really interesting run-in ahead. Sometimes you have to believe what your eyes tell you in football and Middlesbrough, Millwall, Hull and Derby all really impressive against Saints imo. All four now in the top six. It’s congested but who’s finishing where they want to? #SaintsFC

My issue with Arma's sale is the price. £7m plus add-ons with 18mth left on contract is way too cheap. Strand Larsen going for nearly £50m - surely we could've negotiated £12m upfront? It's an inflated market and goalscorers cost a lot! Good luck to him #SaintsFc

Scienza once again saves the day. That's 4pts this week instead of 1, thanks to his goals. If he's injured for any length of time, we're in big trouble. No exaggeration to say we'd be near the bottom three without him. He's not keeping anyone out of the team #SaintsFC

Hugely significant week in #SaintsFC recent history. I think maybe more so than the club realises. Still no real sense we are in danger of another relegation. If we lose to Sheff Utd, can't see how Tonda keeps his job for the derby. But really it is all down to the players.

@AlfieHouseEcho Tbh he had that awful injury and would have been 4th choice at best in the summer (behind Arma, Archer and Stewart). Downs doesn't really come into the equation IMO. Sometimes you need to drop down a league to kick on, and I really wish him all the best.

Sold him and bought Damion Downs for £7million quid 😂😂 absolutely shocking. #SaintsFC

Struggling to understand how everything has unravelled since Tonda got the job permanently. What has changed? Something has gone drastically wrong. A sports psychologist's dream #SaintsFc

@AdamBlackmore Thanks Adam. Please ask Tonda why he brought Stewart on for the last 5min? To me that was a huge risk for absolutely zero reward, especially coming off the back of a serious hamstring injury. Game was gone. Makes no sense when Leo is being given the opposite treatment.

That’s just an unacceptable 2nd half from #SaintsFc Tee, they did well up to halftime and could/should have been a goal up, but…. ….they fell apart after Boro’s first goal and that was embarrassing at times Winless in 6 now and heading back to mediocrity .. ..awful day

Utterly ridiculous decision to bring Stewart on. Game is completely lost, it's freezing cold and we are trying to rehabilitate him after a lengthy injury! Absolute madness #SaintsFC

Game too far today I felt. The obvious downside of sticking mostly with the same players - great for stability but a big ask. 5 more league games to come by 4th Jan, but a whole week to prepare for Cov. Squad players need to offer much more to help lift the load #SaintsFC

What a weird game. Home games can still be quite traumatic at St Mary's. Too many bad results over recent times, I guess. You just can't relax! 😂 #SaintsFC

@AlfieHouseEcho 30 league defeats won't be a record any more come May😂😂

Wolves are absolutely dreadful.

@sihawk89 I'm a Saints fan and your comment reminds me when we sold Bale to Spurs, we had to ditch the sell-on fee as finances were dire and we needed the cash urgently. Famously sold to Real Madrid of course for megabucks😂...so can understand your perspective here.

@OfficialECFC Does ‘banking transaction’ mean we’ve borrowed money from a lender against the future transfer income we’re due or have Fulham decided to pay up early as a gesture of goodwill? Whilst this is good news the statement is rather ambiguous. #ecfc

📝 Financial update from Exeter City Football Club Chairman Richard Pym: We are pleased to confirm that this week we completed a banking transaction that brings forward the receipt of some deferred transfer monies. This step provides an immediate financial injection while we realign expenditure and continue to explore the opportunities available to secure the Club’s long-term future.

@DougieCritchley He left Saints for Chelsea and struggled badly, then came back. Russell Martin to be fair got the best out of him, before he was sacked. Hasn't really done much the past 12 months. Time will tell. Bale needed a few years to establish himself at Spurs, look what he ended up doing.

Does anyone else think it's a little bit strange that Tyler Dibling has only played 73 League minutes this season? He's 19, clearly a signing for the long term, and Everton have Grealish and Ndiaye... But 73 minutes by December... that's a tad concerning for a £42m signing!