The9

Have to say the referee is utter crap tonight, that was never a corner for Newcastle either just after Lovren's beautiful cushioned header to the nearest Newcastle player in yards of space.

I saw prime Zidane a few times in the flesh and... well, Henderson isn't even the most Zidane-like player in his 5 a side team at training.

He's always looked great for the U21s, it's translating that into looking great in the Premier League.

Well, Newcastle are still going to lose anyway, but that's another definite penalty not given against Liverpool...

Does make sense to fire Awford now though, they've saved on a proper manager's wages for the next 4 months and they can appoint Waddock permanently in August or when he starts threatening to walk without a permanent deal, whichever is sooner.

There was one younger bloke, with a modern haircut, who blurrily flashed into shot to the far right of the crowd pan just before the end of the video, who had a look on his face that said something like "I can't f0cking believe I'm here, watching this absolutely f0cking sh11111t, with these fat ugly absolute complete and utter f0cktarded morons making things wors...GET THAT CAMERA OFF ME!".

Everton. Dammit. EIGHT players then. I was actually unaware of this as I left when Yoshida's goal went in because I needed to get to South Wales by 7pm. That's my excuse anyway.

Good good, just a pity they started to work out how to play without him a month or two back. They have a LOT of injuries and suspensions, but Newcastle are utter garbage at the moment and Liverpool are still very likely to win.

Because they won something in black and white and have won sod all in the past 40 years, probably. Ignoring the recent thuggery, the big ugly open new stadium and everything else that's very modern football about Stoke.

Fiver for a ticket and a pint too. Plus you can print tickets at home and save the Cortese (wha?) Tax.

Not to mention Ward-Prowse isn't included, and we've got Isgrove, Turnbull and Stephens out on loan to L1 teams...

Just the 7 players with Premier League experience in the team then? Feels like doping when we actually pick something resembling an U-21s team. Though obviously with Gazza in sticks they'll only have to shoot 3 times and we'll be in trouble. Gazzaniga, McCarthy, Reed, Targett, Hesketh, Seager and Gallagher. Plus McQueen has a Cup appearance.

Hey, fair's fair, if they stick 8 on someone in the Prem next season I'll be right there saying "they showed me". But it is in no way comparable.

You need some kinda of Monday night hobby.

I don't think playing in a new build stadium that's got fewer people in it than most grounds is going to have any impact on Prem teams at all. The atmosphere at The Dell came from fans being so close to the pitch and the cramped conditions, plus to a certain extend the dilapidated nature of the place (though that wasn't uncommon in the 80s). The only "intimidation factor" at Bournemouth will be their crappy changing facilities, which I've experienced first hand, and the home team are barely better off than the away side in that regard anyway. Other than that it's just a smaller version of various photofit stadia and there's really nothing for a team to be concerned about, especially when you consider that 60% of the crowd wasn't even going to their matches 5 years ago, they're hardly hardcore.

Well, it hasn't updated for the weekend's results yet due to the Liverpool match later, but this is still valid: Points----Win-----Draw-----Lose----Title--UCL 74---------7---------0---------0-------0.0---91.4 % 72---------6---------1---------0-------0.0---65.1 71---------6---------0---------1-------No---38.9 70---------5---------2---------0-------No---30.5 69---------5---------1---------1-------No---13.4 http://www.sportsclubstats.com/England/Southampton.html

It was worth watching just to hear how Welsh Shaka Hislop's Trinidadian/Tobagan accent sounds. The rest of it, other than that Skate Hislop knowing exactly how much money Man City need to shift to meet FFP, which is profound by UK pundit standards, made me just want to punch the bloke who said "what?" all the time - and I'm not a violent person. I am now going to dig out the tried and trusted probability website, which will work it out for me based on a mostly decent model. In 4 weeks' time you lot will be sick of the sight of it.

But if he would still let pretty much every shot in, which he did in every match OTHER than away to Cardiff last time (and that got him an ironic verse of "he saves when he wants"), that still isn't a good place to be.

I don't think we're going to plummet - it's practically impossible for us to come below 7th now, but you just said you were happy to let the season play out, rather than trying to improve the keeper situation. No-one is saying that Cech wouldn't do that either. The money gained coming 2 places higher in the Prem would more than offset Cech's wages for the under 2 months he'd be our responsibility, hypothetical though it might be.

It's also pretty clear that he collects plenty of crosses despite rarely leaving the ground or his six yard box. It's a weakness, but nothing like the weakness it would be if he wasn't 6ft 7.

Well, he told the players they weren't good enough, signed a load of past-it players he knew from other jobs rather than necessarily better ones for the job, alienated some of the existing players and created rifts in the camp for no apparent reason, and showed pretty much no inclination to train them himself or take responsibility for any of his decisions (such as leaving out Phillips for the last match having trained all week with him in the starting line-up). Oh, and we also went into admin a few years after he left. As that's what he does everywhere and he's definitely never failed anywhere else, apparently, that is clearly "his all". Literally the only difference in the job he did at Saints and everywhere else he went was that Lowe controlled the chequebook, when everywhere else he got the ridiculous expenditure he wanted - and even that wasn't enough to keep QPR in the Prem 2 years ago. When it was obvious he wasn't getting to spend like a loon this time, he walked away, remembering to limp when there was someone looking.

Being 6ft 7 means he doesn't have to make those decisions as early as many - instead of having to time a jump he has, on many occasions, just ambled out and caught the ball. No-one seems to notice the number of times he does this sort of thing in positions other keepers would be having problems with. The flipside of that is that he doesn't get down as quickly. I would argue the point on his speed off his line, he made one mistake this season and fixed it the following match by not doing the same thing and making a save instead. To say a fit Forster wouldn't have got to Fonte's dodgy backpass is as arguable as saying 40 year old Kelvin wouldn't have - and HE made it.

I know. I already read the thread. Hence the comment about standard of facilities, rather than some spurious crap about capacity.

The reason Alex Bruce wasn't sent off was very obviously that even had he not gone to the trouble of fouling Long at all, the ball was already all but in the hands of the keeper, so there was no goalscoring opportunity. It definitely wasn't a red card, though probably should have been a booking. I thought that overall Friend had a pretty decent game, considering how crap he was last time - at least two of the things Saints fans in the Northam were shouting for and getting upset about were tangibly correct decisions (like the Hull fans bleating about our one corner which obviously came off the defender). But that was because the main decision he had to make was so very obviously a penalty even he couldn't bottle it.

They clearly will not have to ground share. There's no rule to say they should, and they have a temp stand they could easily expand or revamp to cover the standard of facilities needed. If Fratton can pass for a Prem Ground, Dean Court can.