The9

I absolutely mentioned the two midfielders who stood without making a challenge - I used the phrase "the moments Saints didn't know who was closing Dyer which came from the unexpectedly poor kick". The point is entirely that the crapness of the kick impacted on the ability of the team to defend because 1) it was unexpected 2) it was a gift to the opposition 3) they were in position and prepared for something else and 4) it takes time to re-evaluate positions and close the ball down which we didn't have. The stuff about people jumping in to have a go is irrelevant, because after his shaky start we spent years with him being good enough (Championship and L1) but that was at a level we are no longer playing at. Criticism of his ability to be good enough is based not just on "people waiting to have a go" of which I'm sure there are some, but also "people who can see he isn't good enough", which obviously also includes whoever at the club signed Boruc, Forster and Stekelenburg to replace him.

I'm fairly sure it didn't go where he aimed it, but the low trajectory gave everyone a lot less time to react than the long, high kicks aimed at Pelle we've got used to from Stekelenburg and Forster before him.

"Every right?" ^^^^

I can only assume he's not playing well for the U21s and they want to protect him. Hoping Stekelenburg is back Sunday anyway.

Davis' low kick gave the ball to a Premier League midfielder in 10 yards of space, and 95% of them would be able to pick a dangerous pass with that time and space. That meant the team was still caught in transition when Drinkwater passed to Dyer. The moments when Saints didn't know who was closing Dyer, which came from the unexpectedly poor kick, gave him the time to pick a through ball to Vardy. The defence was further up the pitch than they would have been in open play because it was a set piece (our goal kick), and with Yoshida dropping in too soon and in no position to affect play, Vardy was onside whilst being goalside of Van Dijk, and able to score. So it was basically 95% down to Kelvin's kick and the implications of that in terms of positioning and Yoshida's poor defending, and 5% Van Dijk for getting wrong side - which wouldn't have mattered if Yoshida hadn't been too deep. With hindsight Van Dijk should have taken a red card, but that wouldn't really help us against Liverpool.

You are definitely not the only one, fairly sure Crab Lungs agrees with you. FWIW I think Stekelenburg is currently a better all round keeper than Forster, but if Forster can improve his weaknesses (mostly ball juggling, speed of thought and decision on balls outside the 6 yard box) he's got a presence and physical build that Stekelenburg just doesn't.

He was MILES better at the end of last season than he was in his first team run in 2013, when he didn't look like he could save anything, never mind take a cross. As I say, I haven't seen him this season but there was obvious improvement.

Teddy Sheringham being Stevenage manager, Stevenage playing in red and white, and of course the identity and allegiances of the bloke who scored the equaliser all amused me last night too.

Nice. Currently playing for Welling.

I refer you to the "all time top Division points" and "all time Prem league points" stats on the Main Board, Portsmouth aren't in the top 20 of either of them.

Well, they were at least joint top until that last minute equaliser. Anyone know who won after extra-time in Stevenage's cup final? I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed the last 10 minutes of L2 last night. Newport winning away, Yeovil conceding late to cost them a point and drop them in with Newport, and Skates conceding later to knock them off the top.

It's an interesting point, but I'm not sure that "old football had bad pitches" is relevant to the discussion when the same teams nowadays have good pitches. Your point about geographical diversity is definitely valid, but with the exception of south Wales, there aren't many places where top level teams exist where they didn't 50 years ago - there are some nuances outside the Premier League, like the rise of Fleetwood, Morecambe, Burton and Crawley, but are they so different to Workington, Barrow, Glossop and Wimbledon? With Swansea in already, the only thing that's going to significantly shift Prem football geography in the UK is the likes of outliers like Plymouth, Carlisle or Lincoln making the Premier League. Hull was a fairly big deal due to the size of the city but they're still relatively close to Leeds, Sheffield etc. The long and short is, unless you're involved with a specific club, it doesn't really matter.

Because the time spent absorbing irrelevant information about the question asker could instead have been spent eliciting useful information that everyone was interested in from the 3 people at the top table who people aren't usually in a position to get direct answers from. It would have annoyed the hell out of me. Of course if you're a veteran of numerous fan forums you might be inert to this because you've seen it so often.

The point is that the club should only be doing something like this if it sees a tangible benefit - harvesting boys into a system that enables them to cherry-pick the top talent to support an academy system that underpins one of the club's main revenue streams for the Premier League football team has an obvious benefit - what's the equivalent for the "no-one cares and barely anyone watches" women's league? If it's equality it's garbage, if it's a revenue stream I can't see how it's going to be monetarised apart from the very small number of girls who were football fans but not Saints fans already, and that will be offset by costs.

The problem with that is that Solent are going to be concerned that if they ask too many "interesting but difficult" questions, the club will just not hold the event, and without the 3 club reps, it's not much of an event.

Clearly by your use of "bare" rather than the correct word, "bear", I can only assume you spend your whole time thinking about men with their shirts off, which is an incredibly sexist position to adopt. Shame on you, an absolute disgrace. You may note that knee-jerk overreactions work both ways.

Depends whether Sherwood thinks his job is safer from beating Saints away in the Cup or getting points in the league to get them out of the bottom 3. Or if he thinks he can do both. We've clearly prioritised the League Cup so far with the team we fielded against MK - but we also have Bournemouth on Sunday 1st Nov and it'll be interesting to see if Koeman rotates then, we're not going to get a better chance to, but they'll be up for it. We could pick Wanyama-Romeu at Liverpool (away against a top 6 side, if they're as bad as Chelsea we can go less defensive), Wanyama - Ward-Prowse against Villa, and Wanyama-Clasie against Bournemouth. I can see us starting Rodriguez for the last two as well. Probably give Juanmi, Caulker and Yoshida a game somewhere in there too, but not this week!

I quite like the bottom of the "all-time" top division table - here's something for Bournemouth to aspire to, overtaking Glossop North End and Darwen: 58 Barnsley 38 7 4 8 25 35 3 1 15 12 47 -45 35 59 Northampton 42 8 6 7 31 32 2 7 12 24 60 -37 33 60 Swindon Town 42 4 7 10 25 45 1 8 12 22 55 -53 30 61 Darwen 56 10 5 13 56 71 1 3 24 19 124 -120 30 62 Carlisle U 42 8 2 11 22 21 4 3 14 21 38 -16 29 63 Leyton Orient 42 4 5 12 22 37 2 4 15 15 44 -44 21 64 Glossop NE 34 4 6 7 19 22 0 4 13 12 52 -43 18 65 AFCBournemouth 9 1 2 1 4 3 1 0 4 7 14 -6 8

The simple facts of "deserving to be in the Premier League" is that there have now been 47 teams who have played in the Premier League, and ALL of them, plus a load who still haven't, think they are deserving of being in the Premier League. There's one in League 2 which immediately springs to mind, for a start. Hence the meritocracy. FWIW in the ALL-TIME Prem table based on points gained, the top 20 is, as of last weekend, this: 1 Manchester United 2 Arsenal 3 Chelsea 4 Liverpool 5 Tottenham Hotspur 6 Everton 7 Aston Villa 8 Newcastle United 9 Manchester City 10 Blackburn Rovers 11 West Ham United 12 Southampton 13 Leeds United 14 Middlesbrough 15 Fulham 16 Bolton Wanderers 17 Sunderland 18 Coventry City 19 Leicester City 20 Sheffield Wednesday Meanwhile, the all-time Top Division record looks like this: 1 * Liverpool* 2 * Arsenal* 3 * Everton* 4 * Manchester United* 5 * Aston Villa* 6 * Chelsea* 7 * Tottenham Hotspur* 8 * Manchester City* 9 * Newcastle United* 10 * Sunderland* 11 * West Bromwich Albion* 12 * Blackburn Rovers* 13 * Bolton Wanderers* 14 * Sheffield Wednesday* 15 * West Ham United 16 * Derby County* 17 * Wolverhampton Wanderers* 18 * Leeds United* 19 * Nottingham Forest* 20 * Middlesbrough* 21 * Sheffield United* 22 * Stoke City* 23 * Birmingham City* 24 * Burnley* 25 * Leicester City* 26 * Southampton*

Only passes the test when he's not being convicted of something at that exact moment, basically.

Premier League Handbook certainly had it as a rule back in 2012/13 when we got back into the division. Haven't looked at this year's (yet) so dunno if it's still in there, but it was definitely a regulation which led us to name a few interesting people who weren't out on season-long loan in the first season back in the Prem.

Cost is clearly a factor with sustainability and FFP. We don't have an unlimited pot and we're signing someone by definition not as good as Stek/Forster but better than Kelvin on the off chance that the first choice keeper is unavailable for a significant time. We're not Chelsea or Man City and paying Prem first choice keeper wages for someone who doesn't play has to be weighed against the cost of points lost in that situation. Last year with our solid back 6 outfielders I don't think the keeper was THAT important, this year when we're allowing more efforts on target it's a different situation - we'll see whether we sign Stekelenburg permanently, which I think is a possibility in January or next summer, which would give us 2 decent keepers, which might be viable if we can get the wages sorted before the new TV deal money kicks in. Third and fourth with everyone fit though, see above. Because that's the closest parallel we have to potential performance this season, and Gazza's dodgy kick was partially to blame last season - psychologically both Leicester and he will know that. As for the Mane example, you have to ask if we pulled Rodriguez from the Man City game at the end of last season for similar reasons (allied to not wanting to risk him when he'd have another 3 months to be spot on). 24 is no age for a keeper, and they gave him game time at the end of last season when we were pushing for 5th - so they clearly thought he was up to it. I haven't been watching him this season so I don't know if his confidence is low again at the moment, that wouldn't be a concern for a more experienced keeper.

So anyway, I've only read this thread so that's my only source. Women's team, I'm definitely in the "who cares" category as I have absolutely no interest in 14th rate women's football no matter who the clubs involved are - if the club's doing it to try and build support amongst girls, parents, and somehow thinking they're going to attract anyone who isn't already a Saints fan OTHER than the kids directly involved in playing, then I think they're mistaken. It's a sensible PR move so they don't look like they're actively ignoring anyone, but I seriously doubt it will build any bonds that don't already exist and it's sure as hell not a money spinner - the only person I know of who cares about women's football has already posted on this thread. Quality of questions generally, difficult one - sounds like a filtering process or a stricter "say your name, ask your question" was needed at the very least. I had some good ones but didn't fancy going there to ask them, so maybe we need something like an AskRalph email address to pick them from (keep it off Twitter due to helmets...) then why not invite the people who have ALREADY asked the questions to ask them in person? Obviously there's a difficulty in ensuring relevant questions beneficial to the most fans are balanced against everyone potentially being able to put in input, but these things repeatedly show some fans are incredibly selfish with the available time. Plus there's no defined "fan agenda" to judge relevance, one man's interesting question is another man's "yawn", and nothing shows that more than the women's football question (or the analytics one I'd have loved to have asked which would bore the crap out of normal people ). So the question of "who filters the questions" needs resolving somehow without it being completely in the club's control to prevent them steering the agenda.

I did start "chips without mayo, it's not f'cking chips" in the square in Arnhem...

Back spasm in training, so shouldn't be major.