The9

Weirdly I know 3 ST holders not going to this match for "other reasons", it's not just stupid kick off times and tv, though that's enough to put plenty of people off. It is getting to the point where I'll be considering if I need to have an ST next season if I can have the full matchday social experience without the inconvenience of having to actually leave the pub to go to the match and can see it on tv, though. £33 a match is a lot to pay just for the privilege of being there when you can get a similar atmosphere in any local pub now. Looks like the FA/FL were right all those years when they said televised 3pm matches would kill attendance.

Carrick is an excellent player to have when you've got the ball, not so great when you don't. Welbeck will get a contract out of some bottom-half suckers when Man U don't renew it in a couple of years and thereafter disappear from view. I've not seen Cleverley do anything, ever, to suggest he's anything other than someone who can probably control a ball with the fitness to run around in a Prem match for 90 minutes without achieving anything.

I would imagine the assumption is that they must already be performing to an adequate level to be in their club sides to begin with, the assumption being that Lallana will get picked for Saints even if he's not firing on all cylinders - and he's not got the same level of big-game experience. Which Liverpool players do you think are not worth their place then? Sturridge and Gerrard are worth their places, Johnson's injured and hasn't done anything majorly wrong for England, can't defend Henderson but he's not been on the pitch for ages for England and nor has Sterling, who's still living off his first 3 months as a pro nearly 18 months ago. I agree that some of the Man U players chosen shouldn't ever have got near the squad in the first place, but they do have European experience and Prem-winning experience and even that knowledge counts for something.

Missed a talismanic presence in the number 9 shirt if you ask me. I had assumed you got battered by the complete lack of mentions of the match by anyone anywhere. What's the Worldnet qualification cut-off for games played?

Has no-one heard that Guly chant before then? People are reacting like it's new. The Northam's been singing it every time he gets on the pitch for around a year now. Trying to remember what prompted it, it definitely started as sarcasm but now the whole Guly thing seems to veer massively between genuine affection and enormously tongue-in-cheek criticism being passed off as affection. And of course he did score pre-season in Spain and there was a (minor) pitch invasion. It's the chant equivalent of hipsters not even knowing whether they were actually being sarcastic any more.

It's not often I have a little stir, but this has been v. amusing. I think most of the criticism of Schneiderlin at the time was fairly justified, but he made the changes a lot of people didn't think he was capable of, and look at him now. As for ottery, glad you had the chance to see me play. I was never crap, so you must be thinking of someone else.

Subscription service, innit.

With no reason to expect the same outcome.

Good grief. I also watched it in Kelly's. We had the table in front of the (blurriest) screen directly opposite the bar.

Bale and Kenwyne Jones both injured in the first leg, a cynic would say Billy Davies' team were told to kick them to ensure they'd be missing for the second leg. I didn't see anyone leaving the boot in on Pele in that match, for instance.

At Withdean for the 2-1 win against Brighton having been behind with 10 minutes to go and them time-wasting from the kick off, Fonte off over the barriers, across the track, past the high jump area and up to the away fans, traversing the mile or so to the distant away end on pure adrenaline with the rest of the team trailing behind.

I think this is fair comment as well. I'd be interested to see if his pass completion is actually better under pressure than it is unchallenged, he's excellent under pressure and a bit less good when he's not as focused on the challenge.

And these are the margins upon which these judgements are made. Nice of you to support everyone's beliefs with some stats. FWIW I'm pretty sure even the people who were really critical of his wastefulness early on have realised our improved defensive performance is no coincidence and it's just something we'll have to live with for the greater good.

Was clearly offside. A lot closer than the two offsides MotD showed for no apparent reason before it, but offside nevertheless. Which would also have changed what was in the Man U "goal" column too.

Though it would be nice if a ref knew the basic laws about a goalkeeper bouncing the ball being still considered as having control of the ball, whilst something like rolling it along the ground Kelvin-style pre-kick counts as releasing it, and anyone could stick THAT in the back of the next legitimately. It's all around changes from the backpass law and then again the 6-second release law. I'm not a ref and haven't even taken a test for it in 20 years, but *I* know it's a foul, why the hell doesn't he? Also, re: the 6 second rule - it was introduced to ensure time-wasting didn't take place, which it now doesn't across football in this situation because of the threat of a foul being called. The ref can still call it, they just tend to give the keeper a warning first, which is far preferable than artificially creating a very good scoring opportunity for one team due to a minor infringement anyway.

Lallana needs to do this consistently for another few games to get a(nother) call up. He's been "not good enough for England" for about 40 games and good enough for about 5. Clyne needs to sustain his level for a couple of months, and to undo the memory of his poor U21 summer campaign when he personally did not play well. Shaw has Baines and Ashley Cole ahead of him, but if Cole fades away might get a call up. James Ward Prowse might also be a contender sooner or later, but he may need to be a regular starter first. Oh, and I think Sturridge has been excellent this season and will become a massive player (I don't mean "fat") for England over the next 5 years. Welbeck, however, is the black Brett Ormerod with a worse touch, more pace and fewer goals.

Interesting contrast with some of the Osvaldo battering on here earlier. I wonder how many of those people just took their cue from radio commentary, that still seems responsible for most cases of "hive mindset" on here, a bunch of people reworking Dave Merrington's thoughts. You'd think streams would have overtaken this by now.

A few interesting things on there from May 2009: Arizona posited that Schneiderlin's stats in 2008/9 were "f'cking appalling" and questioned if he was "Saints' biggest waste of money ever", then "I don't care if 99p was paid up front and we owe the rest when he reaches 100 caps for France and gets a World Cup Golden Boot. Spening money on kids, when we had a squad full of better adapted kids (i.e. ones who grew up watching and playing English football and have spent the last 3 years sat at the back of block 6 for every home game) was wrong." He also said " I really don't rate Wotton, but I'd have him in the side ahead of Schneiderlin, simply because he gets stuck in." Dicko said he "lacks the heart and fighting spirit to make him the top player he thinks he is" Saintjersey lumped him in with "Smith, Gasmi, Pulis, Pekhart and Molyneux" as "Saints' worst season for signings". Ewell : "Give me Wotton over Schneiderlin every time. It is no good if you have the ability but no heart, drive or passion for the game" and "worst signing since that huge disappointment Skacel. Good riddance to both I hope!" aintforever "useless, uninterested french kid worth nothing" ottery st mary : "Very poor at Exeter playing Centre Half....Could not head the ball and definitely could not tackle.." "James when I saw him the year before at Exeter and in the reserves was a much better centre mid field..." Andy_Porter (ha!): "He's sh*te, he just doesn't do anything at all. He just ponces around in the centre circle letting games pass him by. Gillett is a much better option in the middle." um pahars "Poortvliet and Schneiderlin, because in them we made two very, very, very poor decisions that ultimately have cost us big time." ALWAYS_SFC "Stupid money wasting buy....we had very little money apparently and wasted it on this lightweight frenc bambi... Thing is we we get anywhere near the 1.2mill?....not a chance.." Turkish (!) : "Is that not the point? no on really knows what he is. Hes played centre back, central defensive and attacking midfield and wide attacking midfield this season and been pony in all of them. Not got the pace for the wide midfield positions, the skill for attacking midfield or the aggression for defensive midfield. His stats say it all, he contributes nothing. To squander £1.2m on a kid when the club is in serious financial woe is just plain folly and in Lowes top 5 blunders" The9 said: "Just another example of a good player made to look poor by the lack of quality around him. He can't head, he's not the greatest tackler, but he can pass all day and he sees options in advanced roles - when there's someone to actually pass to that is" Then ruined it with: "God knows why we've ended up playing him at DM when he should be playing in the hole", though he has sat in the front line on occasion this season! Though this wond'rous assessor of talent also said of other "talent"... "Gasmi's quite decent actually, skilful, puts effort in, creative too. But he's a loanee, isn't he ? - EDIT, and leaving. Oh well. Smith is one footed and shoite, like a bloody terrible version of Fabrice Fernandes. Already found his level and now dragging the rest of the club down to it. Pulis is just "meh" and I hope I never have to see him in the first team. All indications are that he brings nothing, though I don't think I've seen him play. Pekhart was and is miles better than McGoldrick in touch, distribution, heading, awareness and speed, with much quicker feet, all of which he showed on his debut, but he clearly got p1ssed off with McGoldrick getting games ahead of him and getting shunted out wide and stopped trying. Molyneux didn't look very good in the one match I've seen him either."

Which sort of makes sense, that way they get to show more overall action. I believe that the broadcast contract only allows a certain amount of "highlights" content to be broadcast but there's no limit on what can be considered analysis. Though I still think the highlights were a tad unrepresentative, and the commentary was biased beyond belief and utter nonsense in places.

I didn't notice that he was "bad" at all. He missed one chance and that was due to the pass being behind him, which itself was almost necessary due to the position of the defender the pass had to miss. I've seen Lambert and numerous other strikers do the same thing in the same position, and Welbeck didn't even manage to control the ball never mind have a shot from a similar chance against Poland. Other than that, the way we play tends to mean that we don't create that many clear-cut chances for strikers - which is how we can get 18 shots against Man U without the BBC feeling they need to show more than 3 of them. And it's long been a feature of good top flight teams that their strikers often don't move until they're directly involved in the phase of play - I don't get it myself as I think it makes them easy to mark, but plenty of players (eg Mario Balotelli) often don't do anything much until the ball is in the final third.

Just like Cork did when we stuffed them in the second half up there last season?

I thought they had a referendum for independence coming up?

Dell-sized mentality. Get to sleep, you've got a big game in the morning...

I saw him at Wembley with the rest of the Wrexham squad losing to Newport County in the Conference Play-Off in May, also true story. He missed an absolute sitter and Newport went on to get promoted with 2 late goals. I regard it as revenge for the rampage he went on for Blackpool against Newport in the FA Cup in 2001 just before he signed for Saints. Also, Adam Lallana is the only player I've seen mis-hit every shot - as I saw McGoldrick catch one properly on tv a couple of weeks ago.

Tch, those Skate-Gooner derby matches are something to behold... plus I've just checked and he's talking bo11ocks anyway, none of the Skate-Arsenal matches in the Prem have failed to feature at least 2 Brits in the starting line up (unless Richard Hughes and Aaron Ramsey weren't born in Glasgow and Cardiff respectively, which they were). Most had at least David James and Matt Taylor for the Skates. Now if he meant English, yeah, 30 Dec 2009 : but that's not "not a single British born player on the starting line" is it? Even allowing for Scottish independence there's still Ramsey. Portsmouth A Begovic, S Finnan, T Ben-Haim, N Belhadj, H Hreidarsson, Y Kaboul, A Mokoena yellow card (A Vanden Borre, 58 ), K Boateng (N Kanu, 71), R Hughes yellow card (M Brown, 89), H Yebda, F Piquionne Subs not used: P Diop, J Utaka, M Wilson, J Ashdown Arsenal M Almunia, T Vermaelen, A Traore, B Sagna, W Gallas, A Arshavin (C Vela, 82), A Song, S Nasri (C Eastmond, 85), A Diaby, A Ramsey, Eduardo (T Rosicky, 72) Subs not used: M Silvestre, L Fabianski, J Wilshere, F Merida