The9

I believe it went something like this: "Bloody hell, Clint Hill's 65s on betfair - Steve! Does he still go up for corners?" *Nod from Steve Grant* *Downs JD/diet coke* "Ok, how much have I got left in my account? £5.74 it is. Radders, lend me your phone, my battery's dead". I was a teeny bit drunk even when I did it, but it was a good day (other than the Everton result), as I also won £40 on a Norwich/Swansea double (more accurately a Newcastle/Sunderland losing double), and made about £20 betting on Stoke to win against Spurs at half time when 2-0 down and cashing out at 2-2 just as the market turned with 10 mins left. Though I did lose the £2 I reinvested at something like 150/1 on Stoke getting a winner just in case after the cash out. Lost £30 this weekend, refused to bet on the obvious Skate comeback.

Ward-Prowse is clearly our best free-kick taker, I just wish he'd aim for the goal.

"Old Irish Pub" and "Fox and Hound" recommended in the attached document in Ostergarde. Oh, and remember you're an ambassador of the Club and Country. I seem to recall Giordano taking that one too literally once.

The collection details email is entitled "Supporter Relations" and is signed "Kind Regards, Khali and Daniel". It includes the information that SFC are providing buses to transport fans to the stadium and back , which will be provided at time of ticket collection - though there are actually trains running to the rurally based Exhibition Centre "Herning Messecenter" station next to the ground. The Scandic Regina is "less than 5 min walk from the Ostergade where the main pubs and restaurants are located". I should really look at a map of Herning again.

My Twitter feed is still recovering!

What I said was "usual tactics of defending", so don't know where you got either idea from.

I don't remember this Alderweireld dribbling being a feature. Now Schneiderlin bringing the ball forward, that's a thing neither Wanyama nor Romeu do as well. And don't get me started on "three defensive midfielders".

Agreed.

To be fair I was absolutely sh111tfaced later that day after betting a fiver on Clint Hill for first scorer in QPR v Cardiff at 64/1 in the evening game, and the rest of the weekend was a write off, so I have an excuse for that one.

It just gets spent on player wages (we didn't get into the top 7 by not paying some players good money) and new infrastructure.

We sorted them down the right in Watford. We have a second choice left back who is never going to be an overlapping player (and for whom we have a replacement, when fit) which solves that, and a couple more matches together for Romeu and Wanyama (who weirdly swapped sides during the second half at Watford) to work out the ins and outs of sitting in for Cedric's overlaps I think we'll be sorted. They're exactly the kind of relationships which only become effective with practice and experience together.

Sorry, second half against Everton - basically whichever match happened last week at St Mary's that he played in. Been to far too many recently! Edited.

I struggle to see what Tadic offers in a lot of matches, tbh.

Quantify "years". Adkins didn't have the chance to establish a "style" in the Prem, under Pochettino we defended from the front and tried to score on turnovers by winning the ball high up the field and recycled possession around midfield when we couldn't get a fast break, and last season under Koeman we had a very defensive formation with fullbacks getting forward to give the side width, but we were never particularly possession-minded (unlike, say, Swansea) and struggled to score on the occasions where we were too predictable. This season we haven't really got a single style yet, but the signs are that we've reverted to defending from a couple of unsuccessful attempts at attacking Newcastle and the first half at Everton.

We've cut out one of the passes in favour of passing to Pelle and on to someone else while there are gaps in the defence. Cedric's two biggest failings so far have been his physcial size and his lack of commitment in overlapping - Fonte was having a pop at him for it (edit) against Everton on Sunday and right afterwards (and for most of Sunday at Watford) he was at it flat out. In some cases it's just about knowing what the expectations are.

We don't have a particular problem retaining possession, it certainly wasn't an issue on Sunday, when we played plenty of passes from defence, across midfield and then into the box. Sideways passes against an established defence are pretty ineffective at creating chances. At the moment we're just choosing to play balls into Pelle early because if the defence gets set his chance of finding a teammate with his flick or touch is greatly reduced. Pulling off the back line into midfield makes him tough to track without opening gaps in the defence and Rodriguez or Mane have been running into the space. We aren't "gifting possession at the front", Pelle has been winning plenty. The long balls against Midtjylland in the first leg were because they were closing down the defence and forcing them to go long - the only player lacking confidence (and maybe Saints system training) was Caulker - whose passing forward was much better - and on the ground - against Watford. There hasn't been "more pressure on the defence" since we started playing Romeu and Wanyama together at half time against Everton. I'm pretty sure most people were aware that rebuilding every season could be problematic and there's no guarantee we'd improve - Schneiderlin is a £30m player and even getting Alderweireld on loan was a massive coup. Clyne, not so bothered about, form dropped off hugely in the last 4 months with us, but they're three holes to fill and if better players were available they'd be playing for Man U, Spurs and Liverpool respectively. It'll take a little bit of time to find what works best, but the fundamental principles are likely to remain the same.

Defend like hell and hope we create enough to score, just like last season but currently with worse players on the pitch. To varying degrees. That wasn't our approach at Newcastle or against Everton in the first half though, due to the absence of Romeu or two players who could play DM.

Facts not good enough for you, replying on flawed hypotheses and smell tests, yeah, you fit right in here.

Any of our front 4 (or front 3 in a 5-3-2/3-5-2, er...) can score - the cup situation and the away goal mean our usual tactics of defending and letting the rest work itself out are only ideal if we've already scored. But of course in attacking we leave ourselves open to conceding a second. Given that both teams' preferences for defending first, I can see us maybe winning 1-0 and taking it in extra time with our better fitness - though I'm saying that under the assumption that we are actually fitter - you'd expect that their approach means they're trying to minimise player weaknesses and have some inbuilt flaws like our squad-based system does. Then again, there's merit to doing the opposite of what the opposition has prepared for from time to time - but I'm guessing we expect that we have the better side and if we make the least mistakes we should win.

Has anyone, officially?

Seems very well organised to meet the needs of the majority to me. In fact almost exactly what me and Steve Grant predicted between us - me with the times and Steve with the venue.

Most of what happens is down to "luck" in some way, Capoue not being skilful enough to head a deflected ball into the net from 2 yards out is as much "luck" as our most creative player missing 65 minutes of the match due to injury. That's just football, which also has far more variance in results compared to odds than most other sports. It's about trying to influence as many of the bits in your control as you can - hence the correlation between wages and league table position.

Based on our stats so far this season, WhoScored.com lists "creating scoring chances" as a strong point (as well as aerial duels), with "avoiding individual errors" and "defending set pieces" as WEAK, and "finishing scoring chances" and "defending counter attacks" as VERY WEAK. http://www.whoscored.com/Teams/18/Show/England-Southampton So basically, we attack more than most but miss a higher proportion of our chances than most (hence not scoring) and have until this weekend been poor at defending as well as making mistakes and getting caught on the counter, for which more having more defensive players is definitely a known solution. Or you can carry on beating your contrary drum and be "right" in the sense that outliers and anomalies exist in the very short term. Basically as long as it takes for our system to work again. Which will be about as long as it takes for us to get a decent CB (which could become Caulker) and for the defensive midfielders to get somewhere near the level of last season's.

It's just trying to find a way to get the same outcomes with less resources. Just having Bertrand back would make a difference, never mind losing Schneiderlin and Alderweireld and having to work around that. I think we're doing just fine considering what we're missing, this stuff doesn't happen overnight.

Seeing as we got a high-scoring draw by being awful at defending up at Newcastle, maybe we should forget to bother defending this time too?