The9

Oh I assure you he gave the entire defence the runaround, but it was Yoshida's total inability to read high balls when we were basically only defending with the 2 CBs and with the FBs 20 yards up the pitch which was the problem. He goes under almost every header.

Having had some very limited exposure to this kind of thing, I can comfortably say that even though playing football is probably the thing I like best in the entire universe, playing football all the time and training is REALLY BLOODY BORING. I can't imagine how mind-numbingly mundane it must be to do that every day, especially for creative players or those who who thrive on the excitement of match day.

And his entire ability to do anything as a result.

Scored the equaliser right after Grant Holt had got off the floor in the box at the other end where he'd just dived in front of the Northam.

I'd say he was comfortably on the downhill slope from his 2010 peak, and exactly the kind of player we need. Right position, still an upgrade, strengthens the squad in our weakest position and potentially a nice "in" with the manager via the agent and nationality.

We could then be able to lose Sneijder in the summer and Schneiderlin in the summer. God help us when it comes to people spelling the guy's name right though. He'll be Schneider before you know it.

I bet his hair alone would have defeated your entire being, even if you'd just spent 6 months relaxing by the pool followed by a spa day.

Not having a high pressing game any more might have reduced that burden somewhat though. We only press for about 5 minutes a match now, when they forget they're not meant to be doing it any more. When was the last time you saw Schneiderlin or Wanyama closing down with the front men?

I nearly agreed with ART here, but fortunately he saved it by having an unnecessary dig against Long, and a really random and hilariously stupid point about Saints' World Cup participation. Against Sheffield United, out of the entire squad, the World Cup may have affected, um... Alderweireld, who played less than 20 minutes. Unless of course sitting on England's bench and standing up for 90 minutes at Bramall Lane had exhausted Forster. Maybe he meant all the players had stayed up for that 2:30am Ivory Coast v Japan match and it took 6 months for the effects to be noticed. Utter hatstand.

No, they're fit, but they're knackered from playing lots of matches with a core of not that many players. How do you suggest they get more fit? More training? I suspect that will have the opposite effect.

Quite. I'm after a refund on every match I've seen us lose now, pretty sure I could bankrupt Katharina at the reasonable price of a tenner a time.

Worth noting that Wayne Thomas also scored a penalty earlier in the shootout to get them to that point as well. I know, cos the wife tweeted him "nice penalty" when it looked like they would win, then hastily deleted it about 10 minutes later when he missed the second one.

I completely agree that we don't have depth at AM, I think Tadic in the hole hasn't worked as well as you'd imagine as well, and we don't have a front player dropping in, or the rotation we had last season with 3 or 4 happy to be in that position. But I don't think we need 3 creative AMs and Gaston also wasn't likely to start out wide, where he's also been deployed on occasion.

I think as a rule we should assume that unless Gaston gets a run in a team he's not going to improve. He has all the constituent parts but needs the match experience to improve some of his decision-making and that only comes from pressure in-game.

I was contemplating adding Taider to that list, but as he was gone before Gaston was that's probably not really a consideration, though he was clearly ahead of him for the brief period he was with us.

He's been shipped off to Sassuolo so they won't care. I must add him to my list of midfielders who were ahead of Gaston though.

What's strength of character got to do with it? Having already had a bust up with existing squad members, it's not in our interests to get him back. And for those who are wondering, yes, we can recall him in the Transfer Window, in fact that's the only time you can recall season long loans. Hence the haste with binning off Taider whilst we still could in August.

I think the size of our squad is more than adequate in midfield - even when I was discussing how short we were in other positions I never once questioned the depth in midfield. Unfortunately, we've been hammered by a disproportionate number of missing players there, and a couple of the possible options have also been deployed elsewhere to meet other crises. From my midfield depth chart above, the following have been injured or suspended (or both) IN THE PAST THREE WEEKS alone: Davis Cork Schneiderlin Wanyama Rodriguez Ward-Prowse Hesketh Alderweireld that leaves Long, Tadic, Mane, Reed and Isgrove who've stayed available - and obviously a couple of them are still very much on the fringes.

Quite. And we ARE stronger in midfield even without him, but that's also where we've lost the most players.

As the Only Person To Say The Squad Was Weak In October Except Smirking™ even I wasn't thinking "we need Gaston back", because we had the following people in midfield who were ahead of him in the pecking order (in no particular order): Davis Long Tadic Mane Cork Schneiderlin Wanyama Isgrove (picked ahead of him first game of the season) Rodriguez Ward-Prowse and possibly at the time it also looked like we wanted Reed to progress (and subsequently Hesketh, and Alderweireld has turned out to be pretty decent in midfield too). I may have missed some other midfielders, but the point was we were VERY strong in those positions and we may as well send him out on loan as he's not going to improve without a run of games, and we're not going to give him a run of games. As it turns out, nor are Hull.

Well, I'm still happy to defend him, when he hits a run of form he'll be blowing past people for fun and sticking undefendable crosses into the box. He's a confidence player though, and he does have some awful touches. I'm not holding my breath for a "run of form" to be honest, but I understand why he's still getting picked. He's a bit wider for us than he was at RB Salzburg when he was scoring for fun though, many of those goals came from an inside left position, haring past stretched defences. He SHOULD be an outlet for us to counterattack, but we don't seem to do much of that any more. Some of his stop-start running leading to unnecessary offsides, and insistence on cutting inside and passing to Wanyama against Man U almost every time has been annoying me though. But I think part of it has come from better teams cutting off the ability for Bertrand to overlap though, massively reduces his options. Oh, and obviously it now turns out he's a bit of a disciplinary gamble too - but he hasn't actually been sent off... yet. And he's still at least worth £9m more than Mayuka, I don't understand why they're getting lumped in together.

Still "there are better options", for me.

Dancing fairies and too much wine.

You are correct(ish), this new line in trolling must have some deep-seated source based on endless Saints-fan sarcasm, he never used to be like this.

The case for Gaston is basically "he is a player who plays in a position where we don't have a player due to loads of injuries and suspensions". I'd like it to be "he'd shown us he was really good", but it isn't.