Nordic Saint

That is not at all fair on Stephens. He was playing virtually alone in the centre of defence as Gardos moved about as much as a training dummy. Nearly every Arsenal goal came about through outpacing the centre of our defence and exploiting the space where Gardos should have been. Poor Stephens was run ragged like Fonte used to be when he had to play alongside Hooiveld. But even Hooiveld was more use than Gardos, whose movement off the ball and covering play were non-existent. I wouldn't call Gardos the Ali Dia of defenders. He can head the ball and on the rare occasions a forward runs into him, he can tackle, but like most Romanian league players he is about League Two level. He's certainly nowhere near good enough to play against Premier League strikers. Stephens, however, shows he has the potential to be a useful squad member at least. If Gardos had played instead of Stephens at Liverpool, we probably would have lost 3 or 4-1.

Once again we saw today how having our singers hiding in the corners off the away end for big cup games makes them more like home games for visiting teams and that was as embarrassing as the performance on the pitch. Why can't the singers get behind the goal at the Chapel end at least for big cup games? There really are no excuses.

Don't worry, with his injury record. we won't see him running around much. In fact, with all the coats and pairs of tights he need to even sit on the bench during a Seria A game, we might not see much of him at all.

Not injured enough, you mean? This fellow sounds a much better prospect for our treatment room: "Spartak Moscow's Serdar Tasci could be arriving at St Mary's on loan for the rest of the season according to media reports this morning. The German who won 14 caps for his country between 2008-10 won the 2006-07 with his first club VFB Stuttgart and played over 200 games before joining the Russian club in 2013 although due to an injury in training it would be several months before he made his debut."

I think the first manager who introduced that counterattacking style was Udo Lattek. Before that, football tactics had always been about trying to dominate possession and territory. I must admit when I first saw it in action with Bayern Munich, it seemed a bit like cheating, as their opponents, including, funnily enough, Liverpool, had most of the possession and did most of the work but Bayern scored the goals. It's worked well for us this season against the big clubs, except in the Tottenham game. I guess Puel would have analysed that one and put things right.

Puel's joy when Long's goal went in puts him right up there with Nigel Adkins in the charming man stakes as far as I'm concerned. He's also a very good manager especially when you consider the hand he's been dealt with player sales and injuries. Many would have hung their heads in despair or become ratty and irritable under similar circumstances. But he's stayed calm and got us to Wembley against all odds.

Some people will criticise the club for anything. If the club really wanted to exploit the situation, they'd merely have to sell mini season tickets with cup final ticket priority to assure that every remaining home game was sold out. I'm happy with the current arrangements. If the club ignored loyal home fans in order to reward fans who've chosen to live in the north of England and only attend a few northern away games each year but miss most of the home games, it really wouldn't make much sense. However, if/when we reach the FA Cup final this year, where our ticket allocation will be less, they could give first priority to season ticket holders who've attended all of the FA Cup ties, both home and away. Anyway, at least 31,500 of us are on our way to Wembley and that doesn't really leave any regular fans out. There will also be thousands more tickets available on ticket sites. If I were a businessman who lived in Yorkshire, hadn't been to any of the home cup matches and didn't have a season ticket, I'd fork out the 285 quid the ticket sites are currently asking for

If only Les had signed a striker

I'm not! If we score a goal tonight, Liverpool will need to score 3, and that's something they haven't done against us in any of our last 6 visits to Anfield.

As Gabbiadini seems to have spent more of his career in the treatment room than on the training pitch, our modern medical facilities will obviously be a big attraction for him. Hopefully, Les will show him a couple of our other recent signings, Pied and Boufal, luxuriating in them, to clinch the deal.

i think we're being very sensible not to pay that price for him. Napoli want to offload him, as he is an injury-prone liability, who has only managed 2 full 90 minute league appearances in the last 2 years. They will take any offer they can get for him on transfer deadline day.

Jagielka is only 34. Two of the Premier League's top goal scorers this season are Ibrahimovic, aged 35, and Defoe, aged 34. Real Madrid's Pepe is 34 next month and Chelsea were led to the league title by 34-year-old John Terry. Nowadays, centre backs especially are at their peak in their early 30s.

I've got a feeling Manolo Gabbiadini is going to take over from Boufal as the star of this thread if we sign him. He's very frail, got weak ankles, suffers from 'muscle fatigue' and his injury record is awful. Also, on the rare occasions he's fit enough to play, he won't like the cold weather as he even has to wear tights for the bits of games he plays in the Italian winter.

I must admit when I started going to away games several decades ago, it was more about 'invading' opposition territory after consuming large quantities of alcohol and I noticed very little other than the interiors of pubs and football grounds, but in recent years I've found one of the attractions of away games, especially in small northern towns, is doing a bit of sightseeing before games. It's taken me to places I'd otherwise have had no reason to go to, like Barnsley, Oldham, Bolton, Burnley and Hull. What got me thinking about this was seeing Leicester fans wandering over the Itchen Bridge after the game to take some photos, although little did they know they were going to end up in Woolston. Do you have any quirky away games that stand out? Barnsley was one for me: the quintessential small northern town, with hilly, cobbled streets and views of the pit heads. Saturday night in Blackburn was always fun. Least favourite: Tottenham. I'm sure there must be something interesting connected with local Jewish history but I've never found it.

He was good, especially as he was up against 2 of the paciest strikers in the league in Vardy and Musa. His passes from the back went a bit astray a couple of times but his defensive work was solid.

The linesman was in front of me. From our position it looked like Yoshida had headed in and that he was offside, which is what he flagged for. In fact Morgan was goal side of Yoshida, who wasn't offside. Whatever they may say later to cover themselves, it was a complete cock-up by the officials caused by the fact the linesman didn't realize it was an own goal. Fortunately, it didn't affect the result so it will be forgotten about.

What an excellent performance from the whole team. It's got to give us a lot of confidence going into the EFL Cup semi-final, especially after Liverpool lost at home to Swansea. Puel deserves a lot of credit for this after all the stick he's taken. Chapeau!

The players feel the same way: Virgil van Dijk ‏@VirgilvDijk 2h2 hours ago Thank you champ for everything you have done for me and also for the club, was a pleasure to play with you! #saintslegend #champ #gutted https://twitter.com/VirgilvDijk?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

BEST The magnificent central defensive partnerships he formed with Lovren, Alderweireld and van Dijk, making him probably the most consistent and least error-prone centre back in the Premier League over the last 3 years and the rock on which our team's success was built. WORST The way his reputation has been tarnished by ITK 'leaks' from the club about him being 'Billy Big ********" . Is that an old South London expression?

Well, as he has only managed to complete 90 minutes in a Serie A game twice in the last 2 years, they would be. The poor lad suffers from ankle problems and muscle fatigue.

The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer. An utterly brilliant, first-hand account of 3 years fighting and surviving on the eastern front, as it was overwhelmed and driven ever farther westward towards Germany, written by a French boy from Alsace who joined the German army in 1942 at the age of 15. Many of those fighting alongside him were younger. This is the best book I've read for years.

The snippets Les Reed's PR boys feed to the press are like the jokes you pull out of Christmas crackers: fairly random and not to be taken seriously.

A last minute winner! The magic of the cup! And the win was all the sweeter because it was the first home game I missed this season so I didn't have to endure the awful football. From the Radio Norfolk commentary and post match phone-in, it sounded as though Norwich fans thought this performance by their reserve team was even worse than their first team's 2-1 defeat to Rotherham last weekend.

I think you've answered your own question. It's about their resale value. The board's priority is for the business to make a profit. Even taking that into consideration, I think the club is often in too much of a rush to cash in on them. We could afford to keep players like Mane here for 3 years of their 5-year contracts rather than just 2 and probably get an even bigger transfer fee for them.