The9

I still don't see why we would want Lambert back, rather than signing another Pelle which gives us years more of service and a more mobile player. There are hundreds of strikers who would provide more of an upside than Lambert would at this point, and it's not like it would be significantly easier to get Lambert back than it would to sign someone else, we don't have a recall clause or anything, it was a sale, at a decent profit, especially given his age and performances. The problem of not having enough cover is not about getting one particular person back, at the moment it's about not having anyone else who can perform that role whilst Gallagher is injured, and in the long term is about getting the most potentially valuable player in, including consideration of wages, potential development and sell-on. I will say that at 1-1 last night, standing it up to the lumbering big man at the back stick wouldn't have been the worst option. But what about the other 20-odd matches, playing 3 times in a week in the next few weeks, etc? Totally unsuitable for that kind of schedule if he was needed to start them all.

I don't think expecting us to beat a Villa side which had only scored 5 goals all season is "sky rocketing" expectations. Have been expecting tiredness in amongst the next 3 matches against top sides, but not on Monday with a longer rest than most on International duty.

I thought we were incredibly frustrating, short passing was often a yard behind the runner, which totally checked our momentum on loads of occasions. The goal was facepalmingly annoying and unexpected based on previous performances. It says a lot about Villa and the way they set out that we still looked the most likely to win it late on (Weimann miss aside), but we were a bit lethargic and there were very few points where we had the energy, speed and creativity to break down an entrenched defence when we were in attacking positions. Much of that was down to the square-peg-in-round-hole set up with Long in the hole, and later the inability to get the ball to Tadic or Pelle in dangerous positions - and I can't say I thought the Villa defence even played that well.

Gives us some pace that we desperately need to move teams around and a surprisingly strong if somewhat random player. Leagues ahead of Mayuka for instance in his ability to beat players and draw fouls in dangerous positions. He did take far too long on the ball today when we needed an earlier cross, but dwelling on the ball was symptomatic of the whole team and other than that one awful shot-thing he did early on I didn't think he was any better or worse than anyone. Your criticism is completely over the top and frankly a bit childish based on one match in which almost the whole team was poor in large chunks.

They don't play in Europe over the Christmas period, no CL games between this midweek and some time in February. That's how the Premier League gets to cram so many more games in.

I agree that the bigger clubs are better off all year round but at Christmas it's a different advantage - they have an advantage from having better players and more choice when fixture schedules are light and fatigue isn't a factor, they have an additional advantage from having less likelihood of fielding weaker players when schedules are busy and they need to rotate players (in a way we can't). It doesn't have to be DESIGNED in favour of someone in order to be in favour of someone.

You said having lots of games at Xmas was "not in favour of anyone" and have just agreed that it favours clubs with bigger squads.

Done, good questions, worth knowing there's a "agree strongly" option if you scroll...

I haven't said anything about scrapping them. Just pointing out that it favours the clubs with the ability to pay for two full teams of established top quality players. I'm not even sure if FFP allows us to do that if we wanted to. Which I appreciate is a slightly different argument.

No other player over 31 has been transferred for that much. That he would sit on the bench was obvious, they signed him when Suarez was still there and replaced Suarez with Balotelli. He was only ever going to play in European weeks when Rodgers' proper strikers were being rested.

It already worked for them against us at St Mary's, why wouldn't they? We looked jaded, passed poorly, gave Pellè no service and had absolutely no options to change it from out "so much more depth than last season" squad. I was more surprised we didn't play Tadić centrally with Long on the right from the start, or (with hindsight and based on a much shorter spell there) Cork in the middle. I didn't think anyone was particularly terrible, it was an all-round disjointed tempoless effort and I was glad of a point really by the end. And of course Villa just hoofed at Agbonlahor all game, clearing the defensive shield who didn't really need to be there, and I'm sure that we'd have changed it earlier if only we'd had Davis, Ward-Prowse or Rodriguez available Clyne's going to win Mom by a mile, no-one else got through without a high profile screw up and affected the game as positively as him.

When you're playing 3 games in a week against the top sides, it's nice to have quality reserves to switch in and out to not have to risk the starters if they're a little jaded, or to have multiple attacking options available from the bench if things aren't really working. The topmost sides can do that even in the midst of a run of difficult fixtures, it makes a massive difference if you can eradicate the inbuilt fatigue players will get from playing back to back games 2 days apart. Basically multiply the tired looking performance tonight against Villa across 5ish matches over Christmas and New Year compared to a side with players playing half that much with only a minimal drop in quality.

Good to see the team didn't look at all bothered by playing too much football tonight. Definitely didn't look at all jaded and struggling, also good to see the super strength in depth we have, able to bring on Mayuka and change the game with literally no other attacking options left.

Every build up thread sees a pile of people leaving Davis out of the side. He's one of our most creative players, and works his balls off too. He's been essential since we got in the Prem, but continues to be underrated. Having said that, we were awful all over the park today, looked jaded and playing at well beneath the usual tempo also made a lot of careless mistakes, loose passes, slow hospital balls, played behind runners, all sorts. The kind of mistakes you make when used to playing at a high tempo and not concentrating on the "easy" stuff. Not just explained by Davis' absence.

And didn't they look knackered from it.

I think it's very much in favour of clubs who can slot in the kind of reserves who'd be starting at 90% of the other teams in the division when they need players to take a break or get injuries or suspensions. Just playing on a Monday night as opposed to Saturday afternoon could be worth having 2 regular starters available to us today or we'd be without about half of our midfielders. Saints don't have the depth to play that many games in that time frame without something giving, whilst the european qualifiers have the squads and the experience of playing every 3-4 days and managing that process.

I was fine with seeing the Cornell University Women's Soccer Team training, they at least come across as professional. I didn't see any of them actuallty kick a ball though, never mind try to catch one. To be clear, there are some good women's footballers, but not many, and the overall product at it's very best is equivalent to maybe an U14s towns representative match. You know they're meant to be good but they're nowhere near the level they should be to get on tv. Which is absolutely the case with almost all schoolboy representative football. Though Fash FC on Bravo back in 2002 managed to make a series out of a bunch of crappy parks players by turning it into a reality thing to justify showing awful football in front of tiny crowds, so clearly that's what they should be doing here. Though I'm not sure rewarding (wo)Man of the Match with a night out with Lucy Pinder would necessarily go down so well, but you never know. It also had Caroline Flack on it, so there's plenty of crossover for the Beeb already.

I've already posted my thoughts on women's football enough times that I probably only need to say "I pity those 45,000 people for not having something more worthwhile to do with their lives". And I spent half of Sunday watching a Hunger Games film and going to the in-laws'...

So is it that you don't understand the difference between a team and a squad, because that's the only conclusion I can logically come to? Having "at least one good player in each position" could be as few as eleven players. That is the definition of paper thin. Mourinho uses 22/23, and all of them are expected to be starting quality. Making do isn't really an option when you're playing top sides 3 days apart, unless you like handicapping yourself - which is kinda the point of the whole discussion about squad depth. It still all comes down to injuries, suspension and fatigue though. We might still get lucky at the right times.

As I've had this discussion numerous times already, I'll just highlight the bits I don't agree with. For a start Targett covering left back compared to Clyne at LB with Chambers at right is a significant downgrade. Fox was gone by the end of August last season and started one game, when Clyne was left on the bench. Gardos is difficult to read, other than that Koeman thinks Fonte and Alderweireld are comfortably better. Yoshida can fill in but despite a couple of decent matches he's always one striker with pace and one header away from a nightmare. I think you're dreaming if you think Spurs or Liverpool would consider Yoshida to start for them, Gardos I'd still have to see a lot more of, but by definition, again, at least our 3rd choice and last season Liverpool signed "our best defender" so why would they pick up the 3rd choice? Your "unlikely we'll have to go far down the list" list of strikers currently has only Pelle, Mane and Long fit, and at least two of them would be expected to be on the pitch as part of our first XI. So we are one more injury away from having no-one left from the list you gave. Who goes on the bench then? How do we change games tactically? Spurs and Liverpool are playing in 2 tournaments, that's why their depth is being stretched. That doesn't mean they don't have depth. Kane for instance has started maybe 2 Prem matches, because they choose not to pick him. He's still excellent "cover" if they wanted to pick him as he's scoring for fun in the Europa League.

Quite. And I was there for nearly a week!

I'd be drinking minus one pints about 20 nights a month, is that possible?

Well he's very good at making it look like he can produce exactly what's asked of him to meet a remit then. Because aside from the questionable use of JWP as a wide player, its difficult to pick many holes in it.

Completely agree, but this one happens to coincide with some of the 4 reasons Saints might be successful and the 4 we might not, without getting too far into opinion. Both sides of the discussion gives everyone something to argue about.

Fair enough. I think we're weaker in terms of depth everywhere other than midfield compared to the "big club" rivals for 3rd and 4th, and at best on a par with Arsenal and Man U in their weakest positions (both defence) bearing in mind that they have already had/are having injury crises. Liverpool and Spurs will depend on priorities and key player availability (ie Sturridge and Sterling for Liverpool), but certainly have more players who can slot in without obvious detriment to the team. FWIW I think one of the reasons Swansea are doing pretty well is that they bolstered their squad for Europa League last season and got plenty of experience, and were then able to shift on the players they didn't really want, whilst keeping the better players in greater . West Ham I just don't quite understand yet!