The9

Apologies for the tardiness, I've been having a life and stuff.

They'll be selling them off from Easter, I would imagine.

Much as I love it, I haven't so much as looked at the PS4 since the post above, life is way too busy at the moment.

It didn't matter who was located where when Mane turned up late, the same people constituted the squad as would have done if Mane had turned up on time. Mane was not only still in the squad but got on the pitch. Seager would have been on the bench either way and Juanmi wouldn't.

And if we're cherry picking performances from the past few weeks, we beat Arsenal 4-0.

I saw Van Dijk in Winchester just after he signed, he had quite the group of followers. The only other Saints player I've seen in Winchester is Matt Le Tiss, and that was over 10 years after he retired.

I'd take Moyes, personally - from what I've read about his systems for player recruitment at Everton he'd be ideal for Saints, played decent overlapping attacking football at Everton, and he sure as hell isn't going to be enticed away by a massive job any more. Wasn't suited for Man U, was always a poisoned chalice, he barely had time to implement his long-term methods there and his previous successes were at a completely different level from the players he was now dealing with, his support in player recruitment completely failed him as well, and his biggest failing was probably not buying into the never-ending massive club mystique rhetoric their legions of plastic fans insist comes spouting from their manager. So yeah, Moyes, he'd be glad of it and have something to prove. I'm happy enough with Koeman, but there have been a few weird decisions this year in a bid to shake things up unnecessarily that suggest he's more bored than anything!

Glad I clicked to see that one - I think you may have me confused with someone else. I've just searched and this is basically everything I can find that I've said about Shane Long: "Ormerod was a great servant for Saints and perfectly suited our style - he was also a great finisher at a lower level. That's underselling Long's ability a little though" http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/archive/index.php/t-51441.html "He improved. We have to hope that Long can too. I think the main problem is his price. If we had paid £6m for him I don't think anyone would be complaining. I wouldn't say "flap", but he did pass a large number directly at the keeper, and pretty weakly." http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/archive/index.php/t-54326.html "I cannot believe we have gone through a list like below and the best we can get was Mr Long. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1987174-ranking-the-50-best-forwards-in-europe-by-goals-and-productivity-this-season Josip Drmic (7th in Europe) is surely affordable and worthy of a £12m punt. There are so many others before you get to Shane Long, one wonders if we even have scouts at all. Very perceptive, but he also played at St Mary's on Saturday for his new club." http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/archive/index.php/t-51391-p-5.html I did defend his brilliant no-look pass as deliberate though, glad he did it a second time for Ireland to prove it. "You have to be a complete imbecile to even consider that it was an accident." http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/archive/index.php/t-51591.html "Always weird to see Long judged on his goalscoring record when he's only once been in the position of being the main goalscorer at a club and he responded by scoring the most goals he ever has. Just strange logic to expect him to be weighing in with 15 goals from the wing." http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/archive/index.php/t-53997.html "As for "Long is running a lot because Pelle isn't", just no. Long's role requires him to run a lot, Pelle isn't supposed to be tracking the right midfielder and pressing the right back 5 seconds later. Pelle is doing his role as coached, Long is doing his. If the role requires it, it's because of how they're being told to play, not because of any deficiencies in the players - I've seen Pelle hare around like Long in patches, including against Hull. He has obviously been told not to as a general rule." "But if that's against what he's been asked to do, or is so unsatisfactory to management, why hasn't Pelle been left out? He's not been so essential to us with his height that he can't be replaced by either Mane or Long up top" http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/archive/index.php/t-53997.html "Pelle is in the side. Changing what we've been doing to great success for no reason, or because Pelle's injured, would probably weaken the side. Which is why there's a discussion about a like for like Pelle replacement" http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/archive/index.php/t-52368.html "There's absolutely no reason to sell him, he's doing exactly the job he was signed to do." (and a couple of other facts about his transfer fees) http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?55595-Sell-Long-in-January-to-reinvest#.Vovf-RWLTIU "I think Long's been doing fine, he's a hard worker, good Prem experience, wouldn't expect him to score many from out wide. It's not his fault it cost us £12m to buy him because he was only 6 months into a contract, but Mane has come in and looked a lot more impactful purely because he's a more pacy dribbler who draws more fouls. If you want consistency, that's probably Long, if you want an unpredictable spark, Mane." http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?51990-Long-Thoughts/page2#.VovhORWLTIU His touch was utter toss yesterday, but he was no worse than those tangibly not being bothered, of which I could count about 10. http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?51990-Long-Thoughts/page9#.VovhrxWLTIU Anyway, that kind of made up, lazy, unsubstantiated rubbish, is why you've been on block for the last 6 months. PS you spell it "numpty".

I think Romeu has the potential to be a better player but he desperately needs game time to get the chance to get to the level Wanyama was at last season. At the moment he's just a competent hand who does the simple things well.

He had and it is. Lucky he didn't get the straight red he seemed to be going for or we'd be missing him for the rest of the month with three games for a red for violent conduct or serious foul play plus one more game for it being a second red. Funny that...

I really like Antonio, he high-fived the wife after scoring that awesome dribble in the deluge at Bristol Rovers. His hilarious humping of Dean Lewington of MK Dons over and over again at St Mary's that one time was absolutely brilliant - but unless he's added a ton of technique or tactical nous to his game that I'm unaware of, he's always going to be a hoof and chase merchant, and they tend to get found out very quickly at the top level. He's certainly got enough pace.

I'm paying £40 to go and see Eastleigh v Bolton in hospitality for a different experience. It'll be an interesting match, chance of an upset, it doesn't have the travel overheads that me going to Newport v Blackburn would have and not as outright dull as Saints v Palace, which I didn't even go to in the 4th Round last year. Thanks to the wonders of the BBC having to justify the licence fee to the government and BT Sport having a similar level of risk-aversion, none of these matches are on tv and all of them kick off at the same time. Saints v Palace not being on the box I could understand.

The only apology I'm interested in is him working his b011ocks off for Saints for the rest of the season.

I think Romeu will do his job nicely and he's been solid on most occasions when called upon, it's who comes in alongside that's the issue, as potential red card liability Reed aside we don't have an out-and-out DM if we wanted to play defensively. I wouldn't be completely against playing Romeu and Reed in the middle against Palace though, it might work and Reed might have got out of the habit of leaving late reducers in every tackle.

Fair to say Mane's effort this season has been on a par with last. Can't say the same against Wanyama, though I only really obviously noticed it in the League Cup game against Liverpool when he ambled back from the halfway line ignoring Lallana sprinting past him and in doing so also left Can with 10 yards of space to run into once he'd turned Clasie.

The opportunity to get bigger names in at slightly lower than market rate wages before the impact of the new Prem tv money by attracting and investing in top level European players before everyone's wages get hoiked up. Stoke seem to be on top of that with a few of their signings. However, I don't think we're far from being at last season's levels - our biggest problem at the moment seems to have come from losing a clear identity of what we're good at. We're trying to outscore teams at home instead of the focus on stopping them scoring we had last year. The tactical shift by others to deliberately counterattacking strategies and also some teams going 4-4-2 to try and overload the 6 defender setups knowing they won't be challenged at the other end is also something that doesn't sit well with what we did last season, but with Wanyama at half speed most of the time I think the main problem is that we've not quite identified the best way to use the players we do have without picking him. Mane isn't such an issue on the pitch, he's putting in the usual level of effort afai can see. The simplistic description is that we've gone with Wanyama/Clasie or JWP on occasions when we should have gone with Wanyama/Romeu, and lost games 1-0 which we'd otherwise at worst have probably drawn 0-0. The fact Wanyama is even in this discussion is a bigger issue than anything else at the moment, as aside from one game where Ward-Prowse looked decent, there's no real 2 DM equivalent to Wanyama-someone else in the squad any more so we can't play defensively even if we wanted to. Obviously when Wanyama performs to try and get himself a transfer (eg v Arsenal) it shows how little there is wrong elsewhere - but even with the showcase opportunity he was crap at Man City.

? Posts reasoned argument, weirdo claims "meltdown".

Anyone would think he had someone with a vested interest in him moving to a different club advising him or something.

A long ball Danish side which is now in the last 32 of the Europa League and won their title ahead of plenty of teams with CL experience. We'll see how Man U do against them.

At the end of the season we'll be nowhere near the relegation places. That's my view. I couldn't care less who does and doesn't agree with it.

Yeahhhh, let's see how long he's a Prem player for before we get all "told you so", he's currently made 5 more Premier League appearances than Lee Barnard. He'll be back in the Championship within 2 years, unless he decides to rot in West Ham's reserves.

Ticketing systems can be very complicated, as proven by Saints adding individual seat purchases for home (and eventually away) matches, having a system which takes previous purchases into account when determining if you are able to buy tickets at a number of different times and for a number of different increments, and still not ever using the points system they said they'd use 5 years ago. I somehow doubt even ours is state of the art, given the gazillions of criteria Arsenal, Man City, Man Utd and Liverpool fans have to get tickets, and the ability to get those online. Ours has never been more complex than "IF X and Y games attended, then YES". I fail to see how the Skates will have had this problem since they played us in the Championship - I remember going to a match for which I paid cash entry at Fratton in 1992 and accidentally qualifying for an FA Cup Semi-Final ticket, that's how big-time they are.

We also played 4-4-2 and finished below Portsmouth, I know what I prefer. We haven't been "rubbish so far" either, we've been typical mid-table so far, which is why we're mid-table. It's not as good as being 7th or 8th, but then we don't generally expect to win 11 out of 12 matches like we did last season either... when we also lost 5 in a row, which we haven't done this season.

We beat Chelsea and they've only looked like they've improved in one match in the entire time since, we beat Bournemouth and they're not 2 goals better than they were then and we're not 2 goals worse. Newcastle we played without a couple of our early season signings having played in Europe 3 days before, and they've got far worse since too. Plus we're also as good as pretty much any of the 6 sides directly above us. We'll still come somewhere between 8th and 13th, which is more or less what I said pre-season. We're currently playing without our first choice right back and centre forward, with one of our best midfielders from last season barely bothering to pitch up, one fairly regular starter suspended and another one dropped for disciplinary reasons. Oh, and Rodriguez out. That will affect results for all but the very top sides. Our supposedly "terrible" run of League form has included completely expected defeats to Man City and Spurs, three one goal defeats away from home to teams around us in the table, a narrow loss to Stoke at home, a 1-1 home draw with the worst team in the League... and a 4-0 win against the best team in the League. In pretty much all of the narrow defeats, despite us being affected by missing players, one tiny thing going either way could have led to us getting a draw or a win rather than losing. Fine margins, and we've been unlucky almost everywhere we could have been. Can't say I'm worried about it, with the notable exception of Wanyama aside there's nothing to suggest they're not putting the effort in - at this stage big changes are likely to be much more detrimental than just having patience and waiting for the margins to swing back towards us.

Or alternatively, the right back "problem" never existed.