And now the talking can stop and the football can actually start and then we can talk about that, rather than the narratives that the media have been peddling for the last week or so. That narrative as of course been Saints Spygate hangover with virtually every man and his dog positively foaming at the mouth in the hope that it will adversely affect us. They all seem to forget that we haven’t lost since January and instead focus on the “fact” that every professional footballer in the Championship won’t want to lose the Southampton. It’s like they’re going to be possessed by some sort of otherworldly power and they will “strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger”. as that quote from Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction goes.

Only of course, it won’t be like that. Most players won’t give a shit anymore than they ever did, and won’t buy into the narrative that this was the crime of the century. Maybe Middlesbrough players might have a little bit more edge in that particular game, but no one else will. Will Portsmouth want to beat us any more because of Spygate? No, they’ll want to beat us because we’re Dirty Scummers of course, and because it’s a local derby. Will West Ham, Burnley or Wolves want to beat us any more because of Spygate? No, they won’t give a shit. They will want to beat us because we are one of the better teams in the league. The media will continue to peddle the narrative, however.

I have been enjoying looking at everyone’s list from 1 to 24 of where teams are going to finish in the championship. We are usually in about fifth place and most peoples predictions. There is of course the odd engagement farming rage bait shit that puts us ninth, from people who pretend to know better. I don’t know, you might think my predictions are complete shit and if you want to check them out then they are here. https://league1minus10.co.uk/2026/08/11/championship-preview-2026-27/

In that article, if you go down to Watford then you will see what I think of them which is not a lot. I can never be bothered to learn too much about them because of the basket case approach they’ve got to managing the club. Three managers a season with regularity and players sourced almost exclusively from other clubs under the umbrella ownership of the Pozzo family. Udinese have provided five new players for Watford this season. They may be brilliant, they may be crap, they could be anywhere in between. The Pozzo’s seem to have lost interest in Watford a little bit and as a result over the last few seasons they’ve been lower mid table pretty exclusively.

It is an away game though and the opening game of the Championship season so you never know, they may hit the ground running with a blaze of enthusiasm provided by another new manager, Alessio Dionisi, who wins some sort of award for me because I have actually learnt his name. I would however lay money on him not being in charge when we play them in the second half of the season.

Watford have struggled to score goals over the past few seasons and actually seems like they’ve never adequately replaced Troy Deeney, who has been a regular shit opinion for media outlets for quite some time now. He has taken one particular team of the week job on the BBC from Garth Crooks and has managed to be no better, which is some achievement.

Watford’s current centre forward is Luca Kjerrumgaard, who of course came in from Udinese a year ago on loan and struggled with the physicality of the Championship last season. He has potential though and it will be interesting to see if he’s any better this year. Last year‘s thorn in our side was Nestory Irankunda, who has left the club so we don’t have to worry about him spanking a free kick into the top corner from 35 yards.

Back at base, Shea Charles completed his predicted move to Fulham and you have to say it sounds like a good move all round. He’s gone to a stable Premier League club where he will have a chance to grow in to being a Premier League footballer and we have got £30 million for him and he leaves with the best wishes of everyone with Tonda Eckert praising his attitude. Also, interestingly, he talked about the need to replace him with an incoming player.

That’s not going to happen in time for today however and with Casper Jander still recovering recovering from his injury picked up preseason at Eastleigh, it is widely expected that Cameron Bragg will start alongside Flynn Downes in the centre of midfield.

We have made a signing however, and that is of course the one year loan of Divin Mubama from Manchester City, a big physical centre forward who is the current starting number nine for the England under 21s. He will take the place in the squad vacated by Ross Stewart and we can certainly expect to see him on the picture sometimes this afternoon as it’s unlikely that Cyle Larin will last 90 minutes.

Tonda Eckert is going to get his first taste of Championship fan banter for the season and is no doubt geared up to ignore it. The press conference is after the game and questions from local journalists will be interesting however. Tonda for his part, has seemed quite relaxed and has seemed much more approachable and friendly and less, you know, weird. Hopefully he can continue this when the pressure starts ramp up because it is about to.

Today would be a great day for Saints to show that they are not going to be affected by all the bullshit that is going follow them around this season. I know we are starting on -4 but hopefully at the end of the day, we can turn round to all the other clubs in the Championship and say mind the gap, it’s getting smaller.

Team news and it’s as expected, with the possible exception of Azaz being on the bench with Dobbin starting. The warm up tops are discarded and the full horror of this years blue pink swirly petrol-in-a-puddle kit is revealed. It looks shit – really shit. The back panel is a solid blue. It’s fucking awful, rivalling the last blue swirly one we had a few years ago. Come on You Blues – said no one. Championship Minus 4.

Away we go and Saints start quite well with Scienza bursting through midfield and finding Dobbin on the left but his low ball across to Larin sees the flag correctly go up because Dobbin has gone too early, taking away any issue about a possible foul on Larin.

Scienza is playing centrally and we seem to be in a 4-4-2-ish formation. He skips across the pitch leaving a couple of defenders in his wake until an absolute fucking cowards challenge from Kyprianou, who comes flying in with the ball nowhere in his mind and just hacks him down. Brutal. Referee Matt Donohue decides that’s just a yellow. Leo takes ages to get up and is holding his shoulder. Not great.

Watford haven’t done much so far and then a big launch down our left wing. THB doesn’t win the header and it drops to Stephens who four reasons completely unknown, smashes it across the pitch in the vague direction of no one in a blue shirt and picks out Watford striker Bravo who bursts in between Bree, Bragg and THB before slotting it past Peretz. Bravo Jack for fucks sake.

Any composure we had on the ball has now immediately gone to shit as Bree produces a dozy bit of defending out on the right and Watford recycle the ball to Maanaa, who forces Peretz into a save at the near post. After the initial ok opening to the game, it’s turned into another shit start.

Saints try and build back into the game by knocking the ball around and Manning picks up the ball in the centre of the park and plays a horrible ball out to the left into the area that he has himself vacated. This pass is never going to reach Scienza and Navizada picks it up and takes off. 30, 40,50 yards unchallenged. He gets into the penalty area with no one getting anywhere near him and when he gets to the corner of the box, he decides to cut in and still no one goes towards him. Eventually, Captain Jack closes him down but it’s a real half arsed effort when he should have been busting a gut and Navizada fizzes it across Peretz and in off the far post. Fucking useless.

The Watford game plan will now be to make it as difficult as they can for us and goal scorer Navizada illustrates this straight away by hacking down Dobbin in full flight with once again, no attempt to get anywhere near the ball. The freekick comes across from Manning and Captain Jack doesn’t make up for any of his calamities at the other end by heading over the bar.

That’s more or less it for the rest of the first half. In a word, crap.

Surely this formation is in the bin at half time but Tonda is going for the definition of madness thing and expecting things to change. So, are happy with what we’re doing, not testing the keeper and the midfield and defence being all over the place? What do you know, nothing much changes with Watford having the first chance of the second half with Peretz standing up well to a near post blast from Traore.

Bragg really struggled in the first half, but he comes to life further up the pitch by running at the Watford defence and feeding a ball into Larin. It somewhat fortuitously bounces back to Bragg who again finds Larin and this time a very sure touch and an early shot rips into the net. Fucking get in. Half an hour to go and this is there for us now.

It’s all changed now with Watford looking rattled and Downes and Matsuki somewhat fortuitously get involved in the penalty area and the ball pops up off a Watford defender and Larin swings at it on the volley and it’s right in the bottom corner but the keeper gets down well to shovel it round the post.

After 10 minutes of attacking urgency, we fall off again though with Bragg giving away a horrible ball on the edge of their box and Watford breaking up the pitch and Manning at least makes up for his part in the second goal by appearing from nowhere with a superb sliding tackle to knock it away for a corner.

Azaz is on now for Dobbin, to try and reignite us and we do immediately look like a better side and Finn’s clever play finds Larin on the edge of the box and he tries to roll the ball right to James Bree who is completely free but the pass is woefully short and woefully shit and is easily cleared.

Flynn Downes has taken over the midfield now and he’s driving us forward and there’s another half chance as as as fires over across and THB rises at the back post but can only direct his header wide. With that and with twenty to go, Larin and Bragg are taken off for Edozie and Mubama and it’s getting to the stage where there is more hope than expectation about our attacking. It dozy looks lively and finds Azaz on the edge of the box, but his low effort is always drifting a couple of feet wide.

You know things are fucked beyond reason when you get to the 90th minute and we bring on Ben Brereton Diaz but here we are. Manning launches a cross into the mixer towards him and he predictably misses it, but it drops to THB who takes a good touch and with the ball on his left foot and just the keeper to beat, he shanks it wide, horribly. Kyprianou gets in his face and instead of pulling him away, I would actually have much more time for Brereton Diaz if he’d taken a red card for the team and punched him in the fucking face.

There’s a penalty area scramble and a few corners as we reach 95 minutes but nothing dangerous. Our set peace delivery has been fucking crap today and again it’s more hope than expectation as Bree fires in a corner and the goalkeepers nearly collide as Peretz, who is probably more likely to score than Brereton Diaz, goes flying in to try and get his head on it.

Well, what a load of shit that was and what a slap in the face. I have to admit I was genuinely expecting us to hit the ground running given that we have a fairly settled squad and we are not trying to integrate 15 new players at the start of this Championship season but no, we played like fucking strangers for the first half and left ourselves with too much to do. Starting the season badly is not exactly a new concept for Saints but it just shouldn’t have happened in the manner it did today.

Oddly, we started okay and looked like we were comfortably the better team in the game and then we coughed up a ridiculous goal from what was more or less Watford’s first visit to our first half of the pitch. Captain Jack’s lazy legged brain fart aimlessly picked out the Watford centre forward who had a bit to do to but fair dos, he took the goal really well.

Watford are a team built for the transition and Saints were set up in a slightly bizarre 424 formation which meant we were outnumbered in midfield and both Bragg and Downes didn’t seem to know positionally where they were supposed to be on the pitch and consequently ended up too far forward. Watford kept breaking on us whenever we turned the ball over but weren’t good enough in the main to create a clear chance but all that changed just before halftime when Ryan Manning tried a bit of total football by coming into the centre of the pitch and leaving his left back birth only to turn around and pass the ball across the pitch straight to the Watford right winger who of course, Manning wasn’t marking. I feel that we could have defended this better after the giveaway of possession but no, with no challenge coming in for our retreating players or put on under any pressure by anyone coming across and he just kept going going going until he fired across Peretz into the far post. Shit goal to concede. Good finish but how easy did we make it for him? Sadly, Captain Jack didn’t cover himself in glory again.

At half time to be honest, we were quite lucky to only be only 2-0 down and despite the formation issues that had persisted all half, we came out with the same formation the same players at the start of the second half and wasted about ten minutes of the time we eventually ran out of. There was a higher tempo and more energy but nothing happened and Finn Azaz was getting ready to come on as a substitute when Larin poked home. That should’ve been the signal for us to take over the rest of the game and some respects we did, but after Larin’s volley a couple of minutes later was saved, we did very very little for the rest of the game until the one golden chance that always presents itself, presented itself to THB and he made a complete fuck of it with just the goalkeeper to beat.

There were some real mediocre performances out there today. None of the back four had good games in the first half especially, and the lack of midfield structure certainly contributed. Jack Stephens was better in the second half, but he had very little to do defensively and he had sadly already contributed massively to us being two behind. Jack makes it very hard to make a case for him at times and this was not the performance of a man who is in the team because he is the experienced head and does the right thing in a tight situations. If a young player aimlessly hits a pass like that then you treat it as something he’ll learn from but Jack is 32 and won’t learn now. He is what he is. He will have decent games but a game where he plays like a park player is never too far away. Why is Nathan Wood not in the team? The partnership with THB was great at the end of last season in all those high pressure games and he has the physicality you need. Better in the air on defensive headers up against strikers as well. His one weakness is his passing but we have THB for that and it’s about partnerships.

Both the full-backs were ropey as you like. Manning played a major part in giving the second goal away of course and James Bree had the worst game that he’s had since he moved back to the club in January. He was just very tentative and never seem to sense much of the danger that was coming down his side.

Flynn Downes really stepped up in the second half but was absolutely missing in the first half and as the senior man in that combination in midfield, he really has to do better over the 90 minutes. In general. Cam Bragg clearly struggled with the amount of space he had to cover. He is not the quickest about the park so will very much struggle in a midfield two. He was notably better once Azaz had come onto the pitch and given us a three in there but then had to come off, just after he had set up Larin’s goal.

We really have to move the ball forward quicker and for that to happen, Finn Azaz has to play. He is the one who will get ont he ball and find a pass forward. He showed in his cameo against Colchester (not to mention last season) that he is the one to unlock the defences and he is the one to get us playing. It seems that Tonda wants to get Lewis Dobbin in the team somewhere but it clearly can’t be instead of Azaz.

Talking of Tonda, he is not to blame for the defensive fuck ups but the changing of the formation to something we haven’t really played the entire pre-season and deviating from what served us so well last season, was somewhat weird. We saw a version of this at the tail end of last season but it clearly wasn’t right from the start today. By playing Dobbin on the left and Scienza in the middle, he basically killed two players with one stone. Dobbin has been playing as a number 10 in pre-season and didn’t have the combination with Manning out on the left and Scienza was in the middle of the traffic which enabled Watford to line him up and kick him to bits.

That brings me onto the piss week referee Matt Donohue. I know he booked six of Watford‘s team in the end, but the challenged by Kyprianou on Scienza is one that really should get a red card. When you steam into a challenge at that speed and have no intent of playing the ball and just wipe a player out who is in full flight, that to me is the very definition of endangering an opponent. If the Championship is going down the route of the World Cup and suddenly being lenient on fouls, then we are going to get kicked to shit this season and we will need to stand up to it. Leo didn’t stand up to it today and it was a real old school quietening down after he had been smashed a couple of times.

Of the new players, Lewis Dobbin had a couple of nice moments but mainly flattered to deceive and I think we will have a situation where he needs to be fed into the team gradually and not expected to start straight away. Divin Mubama put in an uninspiring cameo. I don’t really know what I was expecting and the mitigation is that he is a young player getting used to a new team and he has only been here five minutes. However, his role is going to be as a substitute in the main and he has to add more than he added today when he comes on. There has to be more energy and there has to be more making a nuisance of himself and putting himself about.

It all leaves a massive feeling of disappointment as we were hoping for a fast start given the relatively unchanged squad. It also of course feeds the Spygate hangover narrative that mainstream media will love pushing. The facts are that it wasn’t a great performance and we lost because of two dreadful mistakes by individuals who should know better and a brain fart on the formation from from the manager.

One thing we do have to do is stop this habit we are getting into, of starting games poorly. Leicester style comebacks from last season are not gonna happen the majority of the time if you are shit in the first half and the opposition fly into a two or three goal lead. If we had kept the attacking intensity going for the last half an hour then we probably would’ve got away with it, but we didn’t do enough to be able to say that we were unlucky. Watford deserved the win because they made less mistakes than us, pure and simple.

We need the Southampton back from the tail end of last season and we need it back next Saturday at home to Stoke.

A bad day at the Vicarage Road Office. Up the fucking Saints.

And that kit is shite. 20 games unbeaten, one game in blue, lost.