The9

Man Utd away he was superb defensively and contributed loads to that win too. For completion of my list above, West Ham (H) was the draw. QPR away and Palace home he went off on the hour mark.

I promise not to record it.

Cos you've typed it at least twice?

Well spotted, but what point are you making? That the money we paid Lambert, Lallana, Lovren, Chambers and Shaw a year ago has got us there?

Winger in "form player with fluctuating fortunes" shocker. I'd sign him, though I'm interested to know which of the kids you'd have instead of him? I agree re: Danny Fox, FWIW.

He came on in a game not long after the transfer window closed, did a fantastic impression of Gaston's Ghost and disappeared through a wall.

Based on no facts whatsoever, see above.

To be fair, McGoldrick wasn't any worse than Saganowski once he got his contract. And I think McGoldrick was shart.

Hesketh looked completely out of his depth in the half he had and was lucky not to be sent off before getting injured. In a match we lost to BURNLEY. Elia won us a game at Newcastle and only started in 9 games all season: won 4 (Man U away, Newcastle A, QPR A, Palace H) drawn 1 lost 4 (Palace Cup H, Swansea H, Liverpool H, Everton A). In short, your assessment of those players' positive or negative impacts is way off.

Seemed like the most sensible move before the match. And the defence wasn't under pressure, we looked completely in control all first half and at 1-1 we were still comfortably the better side. As I mentioned in the build-up thread, it was about whether Yoshida in the back line with Alderweireld was a better choice than Ward-Prowse in midfield with Schneiderlin sitting and Davis alongside him. As it turned out, Tadic shouldn't have been near the pitch with that performance and S Davis wasn't a great deal better.

Well, everyone except you thinks he's getting a lot of things right.

So to clarify: Arsenal win FA Cup (assuming they finish in the top 4 as seems very likely): 5th Europa League Group Stage 6th Europa League Group Stage 7th Europa League 3rd Qualifying Round Villa win FA Cup - they enter Europa League Group Stage 5th Europa League Group Stage 6th Europa League 3rd Qualifying Round In the extremely unlikely scenario of Arsenal collapsing in the League and coming below 4th but winning the FA Cup, they get the Europa League Group stage position for the FA Cup win. Mathematically they can still finish 7th, so... The highest league finisher that isn't Arsenal outside the top 4 gets the Europa League Group stage The next highest league position qualifier gets into the Europa League 3rd Qualifying Round.

Weird, I thought the stick he got was practically non-existent, given that he only got booed when he touched the ball, and that was about twice.

Quite, which are the kind of things the morons who run onto the pitch or start fights in grounds are the first to complain about. Because, you know, they're morons and have difficulty understanding tricky things like cause and effect.

Overall, pretty impressed. Considering how many players with first team experience we had last night, only Mugabi looked first team ready for the whole game - strong, good overlapping, good decision-making and solid on the ball. Would fit right in - and even he got done down the wing once. Really impressed with him though, easy to see how he could slot into the side. Of the others, Reed and Gallagher obviously have shown capability in the firsts already, but despite his obvious competence and workrate, Reed's tackling last night was reckless and woeful, and he was lucky to be on for as long as he was. Hesketh also made a couple of terribly-timed challenges and could have gone too, and that ball-grabbing stuff after the last goal was just daft and unnecessary. Gallagher seems to have everything without looking quite there yet, but it was a great winner. Gazzaniga looked half decent yesterday with the exception of the one time he (I think?) slipped over - couldn't do anything with the deflection. Good cross-claiming, decisions and punches, looks a lot stronger than the last time the first team gave him a go, though I have no desire to see him get a look-in this season at this point. The central defence looked decent without being spectacular and won most things whilst using the ball well, whilst Targett was there and running the risk of a penalty every time he held and blocked the striker's run 10 yards off the ball, though unlucky for the own goal. Gape was quietly going about things in midfield hoovering stuff up and difficult to judge alongside Reed/Hesketh's more obvious talents. Sims had a couple of great runs when he got on but looked knackered after his half-hour. Seager didn't really impress me in front of goal but did all the right sort of things (and proved the Pelle Lurk on goalkeeper kicks is a Saints-coached thing, which annoyed me greatly), McQueen looked strong and a decent runner just lacking a yard of pace to get away from defenders but played well and created more than either Seager or Gallagher in the first half.

Ah, women's football. Sucking up valuable airtime that could be given to more episodes of Homes Under the Hammer or Songs of Praise or something. Do not get me started.

Because idiots running on the pitch necessitates controls to prevent idiots running on the pitch, which is how fences and the like came about in the first place, which is part of the reason football fans used to be treated like absolute scum by society, which frankly some of them are.

Lots of weirdness on this thread. 1) Kelvin blame for the first goal arguable at best - it was windy, it always is, but there's no way he could have judged that the ball was hitting the bar where it did and usually that isn't falling to the only Stoke player for miles - and there's no way he could jump with the intention of tipping the ball over when there was no way to judge where it was going - and even then it hit the bar almost above the post, so outside the target. We just sat there a bit dumbfounded, they hadn't looked like scoring even when Nzonzi was a yard out with an open goal. 2) The offside. I thought it was Arnautovic (10) and not Crouch (25) who was offside for the first ball into the box (see screenshot above) and it looks like him in the pic (Wollscheid is number 26 nearest the camera). Anyway, he didn't play the ball from the first ball in, so he wasn't offside. The fact he was blatantly interfering by being in an offside position immediately behind a defender who should have left it but couldn't take the risk is one of the failings of the current offside interpretation, but not offside. The defender hasn't been able to "play him onside" by heading it since about 1950 because the ruling is made at the time the ball is played, but he wasn't offside after the defensive header, because you can't be offside from an opponent's touch. Thought Kelvin might have done better with the shot into the ground, but we were really unlucky that Adam threw a leg out and managed to get it to fall perfectly for him when it looked like we'd cleared it. 3) Clattenburg. Thought he had a fairly decent game until I realised he'd booked 4 Saints players and no Stoke, despite them spending the whole match grabbing and shoving and a couple of worse bits. Though Pelle and Clyne both hurled themselves into stupid challenges other refs would have red-carded. At the wrong end to see what happened to Alderweireld, but well done to the Stoke morons for chanting "cheat" and booing his "timewasting" when we were a goal down in injury time... Overall, a really weird game. Stoke were BAD but created 2 goals and 2 even better chances they missed. Schneiderlin was superb, Steven Davis was loose with his passing again, and Tadic was "get him off at half time" poor - completely wasting the opportunity to shoot in the second best chance we had. Oh, and for those keeping track from the pre-game thread, Yoshida played well for him, won a few headers in the box but did misjudge and go under one late on which led to one of Stoke's better chances. The fact we didn't have Wanyama and had to play Alderweireld in midfield was probably the difference all in, though I'm not sure I can say it affected the goals directly. We had more energy and control of the game throughout without looking in any way like we were threatening to score or near the level we were at against Chelsea, and despite not looking particularly bothered for large chunks of the game, and we had nothing in the box at all despite Mane being lively all around the area. We just need to shoot more and throw stuff into the area more until Pelle thinks there might be a reason to be in there. Stoke hurled shots from 25 yards and got breaks from deflections and broken play, we NEVER do that. Thought the fans were alright, apart from the morons who started a fight in the away end (same idiots it always is trying to tell other people how to be proper nawty fans and looking for trouble anywhere). Stoke were silent other than plenty of booing (they thought Clattenburg was against them too), one "come in a taxi" due to our 700 empty seats (minus the pay on the day people, of which I was one), an "if he played for Stoke you'd send him off" and a "Delilah" after one of the goals. I think they sang OWTS as well, which is pretty stupid.

It would definitely be played at Eastleigh.

Unlikely I'll want to go to another Conference play off final after seeing Newport do it a couple of years ago but I wish Eastleigh all the best.

Arsenal win, 7th makes Europa Lge 3rd Qualifying Round, 6th and 5th into Group Stage of Europa. Villa win, 5th to Europa League group stages and 6th to Europa League 3rd Qualifying. Lucky we will know where we finished by the time of the Cup Final, innit?

Um, why would I want to cheer for that Skate Sherwood to be successful?

Looking at those above us, I don't think Rodgers could get Saints to 6th, doubt Pellegrini would as he's failed to motivate City's millionaires for a long time now, and know for damn sure Pochettino wouldn't have been as successful this season as Koeman has been with his tactical tweaks - plus the team would be dead on its feet by now. I think Mourinho can achieve anywhere, Wenger would go back to scouting roots to bring the kids through though its arguable, van Gaal could... probably... but he has different strengths. Of those outside the top 7, Pulis could do something but you wonder about limitations, Pardew... mmm, too much silliness around the management and you wonder if his success at Palace is due to his level, and Roberto Martinez will prove next season where Everton really are without Europe distracting them. Can't see Monk or anyone else doing as good a job. So he's a top 6 manager.

The light blue with navy/red shoulder flashes? Would probably have to!

Exactly, hence the guy caving in to a settlement and a cringeworthy toadying apology, and hopefully a bunch of people chucking in a few quid each to help him out, knowing the same could happen to any of us in an unguarded moment.