The9

As I say, you can easily make a game-by-game case for us beating 5 sides which have been proven not to be as good as us over the 32 matches so far. Obviously probability is not in our favour in terms of achieving the best outcome from those games cumulatively.

I haven't actually checked, but others have said so. Edit: I have checked, and yep, programme starts 18:45 (it's a 7pm kick off) and it's on Sky Sports 1.

As I said above, it's the only area of defending where I'd rate Gardos better than Yoshida. Because Yoshida can't judge a ball in the air. Other elements of his game make him a borderline top half Prem centre back (who looks a lot better with the players around him), but heading is not a strength of his by any means. I suspect Koeman agrees given that he took Gardos off and brought Yoshida on against Arsenal on New Year's Day when it was spotted that Arsenal had 4 five-foot not-muchers in the attacking positions.

Would you like 2 years' worth of examples of him completely misjudging and running under high balls?

I thought he was obviously putting himself about to much greater effect even before he scored, but if by that you mean he started doing that stupid backheel flick again that never comes off, you're not wrong there.

No probs, I only happened to know they had a list of non-current players on there and wondered if it might be relevant - which it was.

It's on Sky...

Wanyama's ban would apply to 5 a sides at Goals if he was contractually able to play in them, never mind U21 Cup Finals.

It's fairly unlikely, but you can make a fairly easy case for winning our first 5 matches on a game-by-game basis, and you can make a pretty sound case for City continuing to bugger things up. The problem is that Liverpool's fixtures appear to be marginally easier than ours.

Interesting, because if we instead beat City by one goal, we'll come 4th on goal difference.

We could yet come 7th and still do that, though it is pretty unlikely.

It also currently says Fonte's got 190 appearances, but as it's accurate to 25th January you can work it out for yourself from there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Southampton_F.C._players You can sort the columns and it goes to 100 appearances.

He's dismal in the air.

Unfortunately(?) for us, half of last season's team realised it at the exact same time last year. Around about the time they sussed that the bloke spinning them the yarn wasn't the one actually paying their wages.

1. Lambert. As I can safely say he didn't want to leave. Though he did REALLY want to join Liverpool. 2. a) Because those players probably should be selected b) see a c) because they like seeing players rewarded for success for Saints d) Because they've got success at Saints so why would they risk further success by changing their situation. 3. Not unless FFP goes out the window and we go cash-mental, so no.

Still be enough for Europa League 3rd Qualifying Round in the likely event Arsenal or Liverpool win the FA Cup, and better than last season.

Not like Redknapp to look to blame someone else? And Danny said - "you f0cking signed hlaf of them and put this second rate team on the pitch, you tell me". FWIW Camara must have done well for us in the main to be accepted after that awful late tackle on Dodd at Wolves the season before.

Didn't we used to be able to delete posts?

They're not all that physical any more, though Yoshida in the air against anyone is a bad idea. I'd pick Gardos over him on that one (and only) specific criterion. Will be any two from Mame Biram Diouf, Walters and Crouch up top with Bojan inyured.

6th is still bloody impressive though, gets us into the Europa League Group Stages*. *except if someone who finishes below us in the League wins the FA Cup.

That's the most likely scenario, tbh. Can't see where Liverpool are going to drop enough points for us to do better than them even if we do haul City back in.

Spend money on decent prospects in summer, play well til January transfer window, ensure likely safety, sell decent players, reduce wages, tread water until following summer.

Yeah, big difference between being the best striker at scoring goals against U21 defenders who aren't good enough to get in the first team or go on loan to a decent lower league club and scoring against some of the top defenders in the world, and the likes of Wes Brown and Lovren.

Fonte made him look £30m better than he is? I have to say if they want to sell him back to us for £5m he'd be better than Gardos and could be useful for Europa games as long as they don't go to penalties. In the meantime, hilarious miss by Sterling. They are still going to win though.