Nathan Jones has had a fun few weeks. It started off against Stoke, one of his former clubs of course and one whose fanbase thinks he is a complete and utter prick. The Jones boy had the last laugh though with a 1-0 win. Following that he had a home game against Portsmouth, whose fans think he’s a complete an utter prick because he used to manage Saints above any other reason. This time Nathan didn’t have such a good day and they got beat, conceding three goals at home to quite possibly the worst attack in the Championship outside of Sheffield Wednesday. Today, he travels to the scene of possibly his greatest debacle, St Mary’s to play Southampton.

In their win against Stoke, it was refreshing to see the Jones is still, as he ever was, a prick, giving it fucking over exaggerated loads, after the game. It should be one of the main motivating factors for Saints today, to not let their fans be subjected to that level of shit. There was the possibility of that happening earlier on in the season of course as our very green manager, in charge of his fourth game took his side to The Valley and absolutely blew Jones’ Charlton away by five goals to one. Whilst the repeat of that would be unexpected, it would certainly be most welcome.

Saints have improved massively of late of course, since signing a proper goalkeeper and playing with a proper back four but unfortunately, that back four is going to be disrupted today with Welington being injured. His replacement will no doubt be Ryan Manning who will not be able to shirk his defensive responsibilities as he does when he plays as at wing back, tackles and headers are going to have to be made and crosses are going to have to be blocked. Jumping out of everything and relying on being a shithouse is really not gonna cut it as he stands in for one of our stand-out performers over the last few weeks.

There are other interesting questions in a couple of areas with Shea Charles surely having done enough to start the game with his heroics against Leicester. Kuryu Matsuki doesn’t have as strong a case to start, but has certainly put his hand up over the last couple of weeks. I would anticipate Ross Stewart starting with Canada Cyle making an appearance for the last half an hour off the bench.

If you want to achieve anything in this division, then home games against the likes of Charlton, absolutely have to be three points and Nathan Jones can have another fucking miserable day at St Mary’s and hopefully be giving an interview after the game talking about underlying stats and metrics as some sort of justification as to why his team got smashed.

Other news this week saw the 50th anniversary of our FA Cup win roll on and as we were drawn against Fulham at Craven Cottage. As draws against Premier League clubs go in the last 16, this is not too bad and we should be just under 6000 strong at Fulham when that game rolls around. I do feel that we have done justice to the FA Cup this season already by getting through to the last 16, so we can go at this one as almost a free hit in the ludicrously expensive yellow kit.