Nordic Saint

Please, not Ward-Prowse. We always play so much better when he's not on the pitch. If he does come on as sub, he'll turn the game in Palace's favour.

It would be interesting to know what percentage of his crosses go to opposition players. It appears that about 90% of them do.

I wonder what Pellegrino makes of Eric Black, who was recruited by Reed mainly because he spoke French and had met Puel before? The players' performances since Black came have generally deteriorated and since Dave Watson was recruited all of the goalkeepers at the club have got a lot worse. Now Watson also seems to be getting involved in coaching the outfield players as he was the one giving instructions to the subs during the Watford match. Does this indicate Pellegrino trusts him more than Black?

Yes, it did. Apparently, the club is not licensed to sell every seat so several hundred seats have to be left empty, which means our real capacity is less than the stadium's official capacity. Add to that the fact that some people who've bought seats can't make it for various reasons, like illness, and you're always going to see some empty seats.

That's not a positive. Our opening five home and away games selling out, in spite of the poor results, is. If we won a major trophy in this century, we'd have 40,000 fans hammering at the doors every home game and 2,000+ every away game. For its size, we are arguably the most underachieving team in the country yet the fans keep turning up. That is totally positive.

We need to replace some of the dead wood. If we're stuck with all of them for another year, we'll be very much a club in decline at every level. Replace them well and we'll be a club on the rise again. I'd start with Wilson, Black, Watson and Jaidi.

The Villa players are running unchallenged straight through the middle of our 2 centre backs and scoring with ease. To be fair, Bednarek and McCarthy look worse than van Dijk.

It looks like our U23s could well be relegated again. The U18s are just as bad. Our Academy teams are terrible nowadays. Poor coaching and poor recruitment.

If we want to solve our goal scoring problem, I really don't see the point of playing Long. We need a finisher, and especially one who can score from all the high crosses we lob in, which was our main tactic under Puel and continues to be so under Pellegrino.

Obvjously we can't get Mane back but maybe we could get Pellè? He's still only 32 and we miss his hold up play and heading ability badly. Since he left we win almost nothing in the air and of course goals have dried up.

Comparing him to Mark Noble is very unfair on Noble. Ward-Prowse is more of a 2-3/10 every week. As we saw in the Wolves and Watford games, he does more to help the opposition than he does for us, by stopping all of our counterattacks and wasting all of our goalscoring opportunities from free-kicks.

He probably hadn't noticed Ward-Prowse was on the pitch. He's only there to make sure we don't score from any free-kicks. We're missing Lemina badly.

A win today and we're guaranteed to go above Liverpool into the top 5, which would be a terrific start to the season, expecially considering what's happened with Liverpool this summer.

A statue? Perhaps even a shrine where CB Fry could worship him?

It must be tough in your village, being both deaf and blind. https://www.google.co.uk/search?safe=off&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1280&bih=677&q=signs+les+reed&oq=signs+les+reed&gs_l=img.12...2771.9849.0.11699.18.17.0.0.0.0.200.1331.9j3j1.13.0....0...1.1.64.img..5.10.1063.0..0j35i39k1j0i19k1j0i5i30i19k1j0i8i30i19k1j0i8i30k1.vXCLOE8NUrQ https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=les+reed+southampton

I've never known a director of football who has sought so much publicty for himself before. I seem to recall that the photo ops when new players were signed for example were given to managers. Now he grabs them all for himself. I guess this gives the desired impression to some of our fans that he is the only one responsible for our success. To what extent he really is or isn't, I don't know but I'd prefer it if the PR focus were more on the managers and players and less on him. This Les personality cult has reached the ridculous stage now where some of our fans idolize him and hate our players and managers.

Although he is ridulously underrated by some fans on here, I always feel we miss Steven Davis badly when he doesn't play. The Wolves game was a typical example of how our midfield can become directionless and lethargic without him. Ward-Prowse, Tadic and Hojbjerg contribute nowhere near as much.

I noticed this: "Liebherr still has £31m in loans to the club at 5% interest" Am I right in thinking that the Club has now paid her back in full?

I really haven't noticed these improvements you see in Redmond, McQueen and Stephens. Romeu is the same as ever. Yoshida is playing well this season but that's relative to the other players who have mostly got worse so maybe he's just stayed the same as he is old enough not to be influenced much by coaching. We'd be better off without Ward-Prowse. He wastes all of our goalscoring opportunities from free-kicks and slows our game down, which is why Pellegrino doesn't play him. Our finishing has continued to get worse and most of our players have deteriorated: Tadic, Forster, Davis, Long, Austin, Bertrand etc. So, I really don't see your point.

I've never particularly liked van Dijk but has he actrally said or done anything negative? All of this seems to have come about from the club washing its dirty linen in public again through a series of well placed leaks. The same has happened with so many players and managers before always with the effect that some of our fans are left hating our players and viewing Les Reed as their hero.

I used to be impressed by how much players improved wih us but since Eric Black took over as first team coach, that has been reversed and players seem to be getting worse. As the main reason he was appointed was because he spoke French, perhaps it's time to replace him.

I guess you mean our first team coach, Eric Black. He should know all the answers.

As we saw with Jordy Clasie, being a Dutch international nowadays is about as much of a recommendation as being capped for Romania so that in itself doesn't mean much. Lack of pace is a fatal flaw in the Premier League, and some of the lightning fast PL strikers will ruthlessly exploit it. If he is indeed that slow, maybe he can at least replace the hapless Gardos and Bednarek when we play lower league sides in cup games? Let's hope he isn't that slow. We'll have to wait and see and hope for the best.

I agree with you on this, Always. Tom28 is one of th best ITK posters on here. Long may he continue.

He'll be sold in January. I doubt we'll see much of him before them. The fans hate him now so there will be few complaints when he's sold, although this long drawn out saga has probably driven his transfer value down.