The9

I think he's right to apologise for the booking, but it still wasn't a penalty.

He definitely booked him for simulation, his mouthiness was mostly after the booking, and referees generally don't book players for histrionics, as clear from him not booking Hazard for a lengthy arm-flailing appeal of a similar level of insolence at another point in the match. I knew that one was dissent without being able to hear him, from the 20th row of the Northam 100 yards away.

I didn't think it was a penalty or a dive, but the only way to fix the problem is for referees to give penalties for fouls on attackers when they don't fall over - like the one on Costa in the second half when he was clipped but stayed on his feet. No-one, including Mourinho, has mentioned that since. If refs give fouls when there are actually fouls rather than just when a player falls over to make a foul look like a foul, it reduces the likelihood of simulation significantly. I think the yellow is about right - there was some guff the other week saying "it'll only stop diving when a player is sent off for a second yellow for diving". That happened within months of the law change, and it made no difference whatsoever to player behaviour. They'll still test the ref and a red card is far too much of a punishment for a situation with a lot of judgement and grey areas.

Don't give them ideas!

Tasteful and wonderful boots but completely missing the point of the Predator, of course. Which was to have stupid rubber fins on it to improve... something or other. They should also have had a tiny bit of red on there somewhere to preserve the "traditional" Pred colourway, not that they haven't already stomped all over that with the blue/red launch colourway in 2013(?) and waiting 6 months to launch a black/white/red Predator from the start of the 2010/11 season. For the record, my last two pairs were the 2010 Black/blue Predator X and the 2008 Original Adipure (which was only available in black). My all time favourites were probably the 1998 World Cup Ronaldo boots (obviously not the silver/blue/yellow abortions he wore in the final, the patent/kangaroo black ones from the group stages), though I do like the 2002 black Predators with the red heel and weird iron shaped removable studs too.

More likely to be us realising we can't afford Sneijder based on how much Katharina wants to spend, which is fine.

Quoted for fun, and to ensure the edit function doesn't ruin it. So what you're saying is that Koeman's leaving Reed out because he can't grow a decent beard? What a hypocrite.

Berahino apparently is a bit billy big-balls, not our kind of attitude and that's why West Brom have stopped bothering to talk to him about a new contract.

That went at the end of July, having sold Lambert, Lallana, Shaw and Chambers and replaced three of them with Pelle, Tadic, and Alderweireld. We're as cosmopolitan as anyone else now, there's nothing particularly "English" about Saints - Bertrand is on loan, Rodriguez is still injured, and ok, Forster and Clyne are in the England squad but that's under a fifth of the side.

...but we can all see it coming miles off.

Hasn't been for this season at least (Newcastle v Everton on 28th is also 1615). It used to be 4:06pm for a while too, I think it's to allow for a noon, 1405 and 1615 kick off to be shown with the appropriate amount of Jamie Redknapp literally-ing in between.

Considering suggesting Artur Boruc now to see if I can get a reply from Irene. Or Mayuka, for Aziz Ansah.

Because Bertrand is a better left back than Targett and after the sub Bertrand wasn't needed to play left midfield any more.

With what?

DAVID PRUTTON? The man who was lauded as saving our season every time he got injured and was poised to come back? I've never seen a bad word said about him that didn't contain the word "haircut".

Except Liverpool, when the goal he set up was from playing down the right? I honestly can't say I remember Tadic doing anything significant in any match since that, left or right side, and if he was Senegalese and a bit more random this forum would probably be battering him instead. The reason we're struggling at the moment has not got much to do with Mane's performances. We're still getting the ball in attacking areas, we're still creating chances, we're losing becasue we're conceding crappy goals from mistakes as well as not scoring the chances we have created.

That is pretty much how every squad system works though.

I was only doing it for three hours a day prior to an overseas tour and it was bad enough.

So did I, but I was sick of it within about a week. I think it's more about knowing you have to, rather than just doing it because you want to, which is pretty much the rest of my footballing life, when I used to play basically every night anyway. Admittedly for forty grand you'd lump it, but again, the point here is about playing at maximum capacity, stuff like that is going to have an effect - it's basically where the "second season syndrome" comes from. Initially it's exciting, it pretty soon gets routine.

1950s cartoons tell me it should be Maya Yoshida.

That doesn't mean it wouldn't burn you out and make you want to do something else for a bit.

But he didn't move to the right to accommodate Mane, who was happily playing in 5 goal wins for Red Bull Salzburg for another 2 weeks.

Me neither. Seems like an unnecessary outlay. Then again, maybe its just Saints making sure they get a decent fee when someone gets a little too excited about our academy and just wants to sign one of them.

Tadic was playing on the right in the first match of the season, which was before we even signed Mane, so I assume that means your argument is that he was shunted out there to accommodate someone we hadn't even signed and that wasn't playing? I will say that the 4 Austrian Bundesliga matches he played for RB Salzburg this season they won 8-0, 6-1, and 5-0 twice, and he only scored two, so he's not to be expected to be an out and out goalscorer.