The9

You can switch your phone off.

Did he know what he was protesting about?

Frankly I'm shocked Saints didn't produce Wembley merchandise for all four of our visits in the past three years. Incidentally, looking at that Skate Wembley merch they appear to have changed their badge another three times... during the manufacturing process.

I haven't even thought we might go down since Man U at home tbh and Hughes was still in charge then. Even losing twice to effing Cardiff for eff's sake hasn't made me think any different. We are twice the team at the moment that we were at any point last season and we didn't even go down then. I think we'll end up 13th with Cardiff about 7 points off safety at the end of the season.

Do they get that Portsmouth is a lot nearer Wembley than Sunderland and that segregation has to happen somewhere? They'll probably discover Sunderland get more club Wembley level in a couple of weeks.

Good to see picking him alongside Romeu has produced the sort of form last seen under Puel - though he's been allowed to be a bit more attacking too (as the team is overall).

Been getting better and more confident with the ball, especially his couple of dribbles in the box recently, clearly learned from his sending off at Leicester and when he's back there (which isn't intended to be all that often) he looks solid enough. Far happier with his performances now than I was in the first few games. Cover would be Stephens, or Bednarek, maybe playing a 4, maybe Ward-Prowse with Slattery there, maybe Ramsay - who tbf looks more like a CB. Whatever the solution, we're not missing Cedric anything as much as we're missing Gabbiadini as a fit striker who can finish at the moment.

As I mentioned on FB, using that logic they should still have to beat all the teams eliminated by an U21 team. I think that's reasonable... The boycott is of course nothing to do with the U21 teams in the first place, given that they were also boycotting the couple of seasons before the U21s were even in the competition on some other equally spurious grounds (the reality being "we're gash and don't want to pay to watch this"). Just ran through the groups and these are the teams not eliminated if not for the U21 teams: Group Stages (teams which came 3rd in groups with an U21 qualifier): Carlisle, Crewe, Doncaster, Gillingham, Swindon, Forest Green Rovers, Charlton Knockouts (directly lost to an U21 team): Macclesfield, Barnsley, AFC Wimbledon, Rochdale. So in summary, if not for the U21 teams there would be 11 different teams they might not have got past... plus they only got this far due to beating Spurs and Arsenal U21s as well. Either way, glad they're being distracted from finishing in the top 3 of League One.

Sims is worth keeping, Gallagher showed in his cup effort that he is a million miles from looking like a Premier League footballer and we should bin him off as soon as possible. Elyounoussi has now been anonymous for 6 months but that's still only an eighth of the time since Gallagher last did something positive in the first team. Long is more than worth his place in a squad built around workrate and pressing, even if he can't actually score goals.

I thought he'd been poor until Saturday and played well against Everton - much higher tempo, more involved, more confident and less stupid fouling. Still not sure he's good enough at the moment but he's shown improvement already. Oh, he can't head though. At all.

They have ZERO chance of getting that one called off given that Newport had their best player suspended in the third round against Leicester - exact same argument - booked for a yellow in two previous rounds, teams in the top two divisions can't have a suspension at that stage. FA quietly said "go away, idiots", probably noting that they'll also be able to get players suspended after the 4th round for next season...

Lol, as mentioned 5 years ago on this very thread, their natural level with stadium size and support is mid-table Championship, and they'll be lucky to be in play-off contention if they get back there. They're not even the biggest club in L1 this season. As for the possible Cup result, they came to us in 2010 when they were worse than we've EVER been in the Premier League, and up to their balls in debt. Even then their short-lived Prem mercenaries, who they signed under transfer embargo, eventually got around to beating our legendary League One side with daylight, after a bit of a struggle. Last season when we were utter gash and in Hughes' first game with nothing resembling a midfield (it was Hojbjerg and Lemina both apparently playing in Wigan's half), we still comfortably beat the L1 leaders away. There's just no comparison if we stick the first team on the pitch. Their best player is a mid-table Championship team reject.

Apart from those two years after he left of being more successful than in any season under him, of course.

Completely agree with that, however crap reffing decisions (of which we only ever remember the ones we're negatively impacted by, not the positive ones) are not a reason for throwing away a system that's worked perfectly adequately for the best part of 150 years to replace it with one which isn't any better.

VAR corrects as many right decisions as it does wrong, irrespective of how FIFA spin the stats. We all saw it. Absolute nonsense of a system, implemented by anonymous idiots. No need for a ref at all if they're going down this route. Button pressers and video screens are far better than wasting our time with human fallability. As for atmosphere, suspense makes people quiet, not loud.

Hate it, doesn't improve decisions, ruins live atmosphere and undermines referees. Worst idea ever, worse in execution.

And Blackburn.

We're still in the top 25 in revenue in Europe. The entire Premier League is in the top 30. Our recruitment of managers isn't due to a lack of funds.

Judging by the shunting of our Everton League Cup game to the following week due to the Spurs v Man City debacle I should imagine there are far-reaching fixture faffing consequences and they're probably keen to bury it all in a weekend of fixtures, so it'll probably come out on Saturday morning.

Well, that's certainly some high-grade paranoid bo110cks you have there.

Ormerod by a mile of those three for finishing ability. Long for running around and defensive, Rodriguez for the other stuff around the box (but he used to sidefoot straight at the keeper too often too).

And as I said in the summer, we were playing wing backs to get us out of trouble and Hughes likes a back 5, let's see whether that lasts when he's got a permanent contract. Despite some hopeful signs with the formation in pre-season, we reverted to a 4 as soon as things got a bit hairy ( until last weekend's bus-parking attempt). It's a fair point about the signings, though it was obvious to everyone that Carrillo ceased to be a factor that needed to be considered when Pellegrino left. Boufal I think I'd probably still be arguing about too, though as with Gaston, time will probably show he just hasn't got the solidity you need in the Premier League.

Player ability and recruitment has been dubious, there's only so much you can do when some of your players just don't execute properly. Not sure why Romeu is suddenly struggling when he looked good alongside Ward-Prowse under Puel, but he, Lemina and Hojbjerg were all a lot worse than they are now for much of December til April last season. Tbh I've already spent far too much time trying to work out someone else's problem here, it's one of the reasons I'm not on here much any more.

No idea, but if I had to take a punt I'd say Reed sets the formation for the entire club which would clearly be his preference for the first team, and "the committee" leans heavily on the manager when determining whether we pick rubbish centre backs who we desperately want to increase in value so we can sell them. The whole theory about Les being too involved comes from Koeman getting slated when he left for not being in tune with the club ethos - which seemed to be about not picking the kids and bringing in Elia and Djuricic instead, and changing the formation (to wing backs to get us out of a slump). No-one since then has challenged the prescribed formation or system for any amount of time, though where the "was a second DM once" plays and where the bloke in the hole plays have been tweaked with the personnel (notably with some success for Ings, because he's too good to leave out or leave up top on his own to starve like everyone since Pelle). Fundamentally the problem is that the players clearly aren't as good as the ones that got us to the top 8, but a reluctance since Koeman to challenge "the Southampton Way" hasn't done us any favours either.

When they came 6th under Hughes their only 5 defenders with more than 8 matches were Lucas Neill Zurab Khizanishvili Andy Todd Ryan Nelsen Michael Gray Which is not that much better than our current lot when you consider 5 of them had to be on the pitch. Samba signed (and only played 19 matches) the following season when they were 10th.