The9

I suspect it's meant to be a number nine, but he hasn't thought it through, it looks different to everyone else.

I suspect it's meant to be a number nine, but he hasn't thought it through, it looks different to everyone else.

Who are these people?

My point would be that you'd have to be a LOT better than any of those players were against us to merit a thread. There was one for Hazard against us last season in the match we won, and he was only on the pitch for 20 minutes. If I was a Stoke fan I'd be keen to make it clear I appreciated good footballers too.

Well that's hugely convenient for the fans as usual.

Yes, and you could see from Lallana's face after the coin toss that it wasn't his decision, he held his arms out in a "what do you want me to do about it?" manner to one of his teammates as we were changing ends. Didn't quite realise the significance at that point because it wasn't that obvious that it was THAT windy, though they all looked a bit chilly with the breeze pre-kick off.

First long kick of the game has the surprise factor, Begovic would have been expecting it.

Bit of a stretch to blame Ward-Prowse when the two kicking off were either supposed to launch it down the pitch at the 3 left wingers - or alternatively were decoys so that Ward-Prowse would be able to dribble through. That clearly didn't work, either because Stoke weren't paying attention or because they knew we wouldn't hoof it into the wind, and given that the conditions were blowing the ball off players' feet all match long it's a bit much to blame someone for losing the ball in that situation - especially when he'd actually managed to get a decent enough pass off to Lallana when he got closed down. The bit that I always find amazing is how many pro players simply don't have the flexibility to play to the conditions - we spent nigh-on half an hour trying just to pass the ball long into the wind at Lambert or giving terrible passes behind players and getting caught in possession before going back to putting it on the deck accurately - and the goal we did score (also wind assisted in that it may have gone over the bar on a normal day, and also held up nicely for Rodriguez to head) was absolutely superb considering the difficulties in just making simple 10 yard passes.

Fair criticism I think. It definitely would have made a difference if he'd been concentrating, he was clearly switched off even as the ball was bouncing. Add to that that his starting position was poor and didn't anticipate that it might be a bit windy despite the obvious conditions, and even being unlucky to slip as he reacted meant he couldn't get back. He could still have got something on it on the second bounce if he'd not slipped.

No reason to, there wasn't a Stoke player within 10 yards, why risk stopping the ball and giving away possession in a dangerous area when 999/1000 times the ball will just bounce harmlessly through to the keeper? The fact that both CBs were already peeling off out wide to receive the roll out from Boruc tells you all you need to know about what they expected to happen. It was Boruc's fault for not considering the conditions and reacting far too late to the trajectory. I'll let him off, he's earned it.

I don't see any other top half teams with as weak back up keepers as Saints have. A Boruc injury would be more significant than anyone else except maybe Lovren or Schneiderlin.

My main concern is that we've played 2 teams in the top half and 8 in the bottom half. For some reason this massive skewing of fixtures doesn't matter to Saints fans this season the way it did last. Ok we've got 4 points from the visits to Liverpool and Man U already which gives me some hope for the forthcoming fixtures, but we've also only got 3 points from the 4 matches against Norwich, Sunderland, Stoke and West Ham.

IIRC, the queueing system gives you a number which never changes and then suddenly it's your turn. It's not ideal, but it's better than just "you are in a queue". I think the novelty has worn off a bit and travel is still far too expensive. I've been going to League 2 matches instead of the same Prem grounds. Can't argue with Arsenal at £25.50 though.

The only thing the game proved to me was that football played in high winds with a lightweight ball is much more of a lottery than it is in good conditions. Every other game in the past 18 months has proved we need some pace.

There is also the little matter of my ST working out at £33 a game now compared to £12.50 in L1. I'm giving serious consideration to just doing everything the same except not bothering to go to the match next season - £33 is a lot of beer to drink on a Saturday afternoon, even at Southampton prices. And on that note, yes, the OP is correct, we need more rich fans who are too stupid to realise they're not getting value for money or that the club doesn't really need to charge that much anyway, and I hereby stand down from my position of self-appointed superfan.

Ormerod and Beattie were absolutely the forerunners for the kind of high-press we're doing now. What they didn't have was 3-4 midfielders launching up the pitch in support of the pressure, but we scored a load of goals from Brett alone closing down and working his balls off.

I've never known a time when strikers weren't expected to defend, and even by the mid-90s it became obvious that any half-decent side would and could exploit non-defending strikers. You simply can't afford to have players who don't pull their weight at all defensively at any level of professional football, or the side just gets pulled all over the place - most obviously (in a standard 4-4-2 as it often was then) by full-backs getting into the opposition half unchallenged, and then in a 2-on-1 against the wide midfielder. By then the attacking side is already approaching the attacking third and the defence is short. Obviously we work harder trying to get the ball back high up the pitch than most in addition to this, but this is the main reason people have been saying Lambert isn't well suited to the system, and presumably why you think we're signing someone else in January. It's the reason Berbatov isn't at Man U any more as well. - - - Updated - - - Yes. Apart from step 5 sounds a lot more complicated than it is, steps 1-4 sound a lot more straightforward than they are and I'm not sure if Step 6 quite exists in that sense. Ooooh, new editing stuff, when did we get a template upgrade?

It's nice to see just how much worse than the TERRIBLE QPR that Palace are though.

I think I'd rather base them on similar events from this year, to be honest. Smaller sample but probably going to be more accurate with nearly a quarter of the season gone.

I hadn't even noticed he didn't like Lallana, I must be having a life or something. Now if he was just slating Rodriguez, Osvaldo, Rowe, Lee, Guly, Sinclair, Seager, Barnard and Forte I reckon I could work it out.

I was pretty scathing about how boring I thought we were against West Ham, because I thought we'd overcompensated defensively and had become terribly dull and unentertaining in doing so, but a few things have changed my mind. Firstly I rewatched that particular game, and though I was bored when I was there, we created enough chances to win that match, we just missed them. Also, it has to be considered in the context of having just lost without scoring at Norwich, and being the only point Sunderland got in their first 8 matches, which were the two games immediately before failing to score at home to West Ham. Then we got a result at Liverpool which changed pretty much everything, based on an excellent defensive performance allied to the ability to still create chances. The next few games we got good results without compromising our attacking, and I just got used to Wanyama's limitations - plus he was no longer stifling our attacking abilities at source, as we'd learned to work around it and still create things. Finally, who in their right mind is going to criticise anything about the balance or tactics since that West Ham match? Four 2-0 home wins, a win at Anfield and a draw away to Man U is excellent form. We're doing well, and though I think we might be in a little bit of a false position (4 of the next 5 games are away inc the Lge Cup), if we're in the top 6 and League Cup at Christmas we've got a shout of achieving something, which is an outstanding achievement.

Spooky, I was just reading through the thread and... see above. In terms of being generally more critical, I just thought that if we were legitimately aiming for European football we'd have to do a lot better than be reliant on one over 30 year old, and have said for ages we needed to sign someone more mobile to play up front alone in away matches. We've done that, and hopefully he'll show us what he is still showing Italy fans. Aside from taking a couple of weeks to accept that Wanyama just can't pass when he has time, and that he wins it back more often than he gives it away so I can deal with that, I don't think I've been generally more critical of anyone else, and I think our tactics under Pochettino have been excellent with the exception of Pochettino's experimental period at the end of last season. Regarding my personal abilities, much as I'd love to have been a "proper" footballer I learned enough at the level I did get to, to know that my body wouldn't have sustained the amount of training needed to get much further, and my brain would have started to get bored with football when my enthusiasm and effort was always a big part of my game. The biggest problem I have nowadays is that I've been relatively crap since I knackered my knee 13 years ago and most of my peers here have only seen the over-30, knee knacked version who doesn't run much.

Update: 1) Still the same, not been addressed yet and if anything the ticket office has got worse. 2) We have now signed Osvaldo who is that "next level" and in the last away match used him as a lone striker with Lambert on the bench for the first time in the Prem under Pochettino. Lambert has remained remarkably resilient throughout, and I'm pleased he's looking like he has a shot at going to the World Cup with England, but he is very gradually going to be phased out in the next year or two (I've now been saying that for about 2 and a half years). I've reassessed my opinion on Ramirez in the light of another 11 months of non-achievement, he's slid down the pecking order appropriately, and he's pretty much on his last few chances with Saints, though he has talent, we haven't seen much of it and others are simply better suited at the moment. 3) After a difficult transition period, I am behind the new manager, also still comfortable that Adkins did about as well as he could with the squad he had at the time, but this is a non-factor at the moment as no-one's having a pop at the manager at the moment. 4) He's doing quite well at this, at least.

I was thinking that earlier, but there's still ticket taxes, the kit, car park charges, the lack of wifi in the stadium, the queues in the concourse, empty seats, the utter pointlessness of loyalty points, and a pile of other stuff no-one's bothering to mention for as long as we're decent on the pitch. It's been the case for getting on for 4 years. They're still broken, but no-one cares until we lose.

I haven't had a pop at anyone who sings it with logical lyrics. Unfortunately I'd say that was about 1%.