Carabao Cup Second Round and West Ham at St Mary’s, which is a game that is absolutely impossible to predict, given that both clubs have agendas considerably more important than this one. Tonda Eckert will want to win to give his fringe players more chances of minutes on the pitch in later rounds, whilst Nuno Espirito Santo will want to win because he is not used to winning games since he rocked up at the Dildo Dome last season. Actually, I can’t call at the Dildo Dome anymore, given that Gold and Sullivan are no longer in the boardroom for differing reasons. David Gold passed away a few years ago and David Sullivan found himself on Panorama with various accusations of dodginess aimed at him, which means that for now at least he has stepped away.

Though Sullivan, Gold and Brady have gone, West Ham still have the cloud of Nuno and I’m amazed he kept his job, probably based on being successful in this division many years ago for Wolves. Personally I think he’s a busted flush and his dreadful and very short spells at Tottenham and Nottingham Forest, do nothing to change that view. He had more than enough time to save the Hammers from the drop last season and failed. The style of football is so slow and risk-averse – it’s fine being pragmatic when you are a team in the bottom six of the Prem, but you can’t play that way in the Championship when you have to go out and win 25-ish games.

With a draw and a defeat (at home to Nathan Jones) in their first two games, the toxicity levels in the fanbase will be rising before long. The transfer window closing should help as those players who laughably think they are a higher level will have to just get on with it instead of staring at teh exit door and waiting for it to open.

Anyway, West Ham and their fans get to put all that aside for an evening to come down to St Mary’s in the Carabao and we could well be seeing some reunions on the pitch with Saints squad containing both Divin Mubama and Flynn Downes and West Ham’s containing Kyle Walker-Peters and of course James Ward-Prowse. KWP is a first choice player in their league starting XI at the moment, so he may well not be playing, but it’s almost certain that JWP will be playing, having seemingly made up with Nuno after the “Baldygate“ fallout. It’s hard to imagine JWP calling his manager Baldy, but it’s also hard to imagine how petty and insecure you have to be as a manager to use that as an excuse to cast out a player who is earning £100 grand a week.

Neither of these players should get any shit from the home fans tonight as both were pretty exemplary in both their service to Saints.. JWP was of course with us for years and it was perfectly understandable that he left when we got relegated for the first time as he was on the fringes of the England squad at the time. It hasn’t really worked out for him anywhere since though. Baldygate hasn’t helped, especially when Nuno followed him from Forest back West Ham, when Prowsey’s loan ended and Nuno was sacked and got the Hammers job. Out on loan at Burnley last year, he played a few games but didn’t pull up any trees. KWP stayed with us after that relegation and played in the Russell / Ivan / Rusk 12-point season in the Prem, but left at the end of his contract, rather than sign up for another tour of the Championship. Though leaving on a free is never great for the club, he was here for a number of years and the fact that he got relegated with us and gave us a season in the Championship carries a lot of weight with me. I expect Prowsey now wishes he had done the same thing.

I anticipate West Ham being mainly fringe players tonight and I think the same can be said of Saints, where I think you can expect to see the likes of Roerslev, Welington, Quarshie, Bragg, Edozie, Dobbin and Mubama. There will probably be minutes for Romeo Akachukwu as well. West Ham have some talented youngsters and have many from their 2023 win in the FA Youth Cup, which Divin Mubama was part of – hopefully Mubama will score against his second former club in a few days. The youngsters will bring a freshness to the West Ham side tonight but I think that in general, Saints is a happy ship at the moment and is steering in a better, more positive direction.

Of the West Ham fans that I’ve spoken to about tonight’s game, there is almost a universal feeling that they would happily get binned tonight in this game, if it meant that Nuno was one step closer to the exit door.

Nothing concrete has happened since the Stoke game regarding incomings and outgoings. There are rumours of Cam Archer being a target for Preston and also of a second bid from Aston Villa for THB being knocked back. Brighton probably did us a favour on Saturday by thrashing Villa 4-0 – maybe it will make them think that they can’t carry on pissing about with tyre-kicker offers.