The9

You can't fault him for developing something to make him far more useful to the team, it's his USP and he's also head and shoulders above Gaston in dead ball delivery for Saints in the past 12 months just by virtue of his assist for Fonte.

Ok, well to go back to my other point (also made by Bexy above), I think Cork gives us the ability to keep and move the ball more rapidly in the middle than Wanyama does at the moment which is vital to quick breaks, expoiting transitions when teams are out of shape already and does assist in scoring more goals. We're not particularly adept at breaking down the proverbial "two banks of four" (plus one nowadays) and need to shift the ball around more effectively to pull players out of position. When you're playing 5-10 passes around your own defence before you can comfortably get it to the DM in enough space and with time to turn and look and play a pass forward, and it gets there 75% of the time not, say, 85%, before you can even build from the centre circle, that can make a lot of difference to how many chances you create over the course of a season. One thing about Cork is that I'm always confident he'll pull the ball in and move it on quickly, can't say the same about Wanyama yet.

I set the bar at a level he can only wish to attain, let's get that straight for a start. You are right that I often can't be bothered though. It wasn't at all clear, no. So you're saying that scoring a couple of long shots isn't likely to be offset by often conceding possession cheaply in your own half ? You'd best tell Saints, because the whole "short goal kick" routine was based on establishing the principle of keeping possession being more important than losing it numerous times from taking longer goal kicks upfield. Yet here we have a player who we've already seen likes to try longer passes and gives it away unchallenged a couple of times a half. Shelvey just passed to the opposition in his own half twice against Liverpool, two goals resulted. Who are Saints playing on Saturday again ?

I agree it was finishing with Osvaldo's, Lambert had two shots, first half mis-hit was ok-ish given the unexpected way it broke to him, second half he bent one but you'd expect the keeper to save if it wasn't in the corner. He might have scored either another day, as with the header, which was all he could do from it. Lallana's was his touch not his finishing, he took away the chance to finish. I don't see how Gaston would have improved any of those shots or Lallana's touch. Maybe we'd have created loads more chances to miss.

So what part of your point that "players are only worth having if they score goals" am I misunderstanding ? "cork never looked like scoring once" you said, like that was some kind of flaw in his game and he couldn't contribute anything without scoring. Yet nor have Shaw, Boruc, Lovren...

Nor is any defensive midfielder then.

Cork never will look like scoring, he's terrible at it and his shooting in particular is poor, but the way he plays is much more suited to the way we've previously scored goals than the way his replacement is playing. What he does is affect the game when he has the ball, not by scoring goals directly. By your criteria Luke Shaw is useless because he's never scored for Saints. It's nonsense.

Completely disagree with your first 3 sentences as nonsense hyperbole, but the bit in the middle makes sense.

Cork would make a difference to how many goals we score because he's capable of moving the ball in midfield much more quickly and accurately than Wanyama has done so far, which will allow us to attack sides before they get the chance to set themselves in defensive positions. He's also better at controlling it and shifting it rapidly in transitions, which was one of our more successful methods of creating chances when allied to last season's pressing game. Wanyama might score us one or two a season from long shots.

+ Strong, good at winning the ball, offers long range shooting and longer pass options, decent at knocking the ball backwards and keeping possession - in that way. - Sometimes weak first touch, tendency to give simple passes to opposition, a little ponderous on the ball on occasion, doesn't fit previous system, has been overusing long passes. Doesn't look like a £12.5m player at the moment, but it might be that with extended exposure to the system and the players he can improve the bits he needs to and grow into it. Looks like he's going to get the chance, but at the moment he looks like a play-breaker with a shot on him.

Lovren looks solid and difficult to beat, seems to have reduced his tendency to hoof even in the short time he's been with us, very rarely makes a mistake and looks like our best bit of business of the summer so far (this may change when Osvaldo starts scoring). Not hurt by the relatively weak starting opponents we've faced though.

I couldn't give a toss if he doesn't want to applaud me, same goes for the rest of them. Applauding the fans is what losers do after five goal defeats 300+ miles from home, that's pretty much the only situation where I'd get annoyed if the team didn't show some appreciation, and I don't want to see them get in the situation where that happens in the first place, so I can happily live without any of that stuff.

It's the pigeon-holers that ruin it for me.

I'd already drop him at home, and it's got nothing to do with any of the 4 reasons you gave. Try 1) Gives possession away too easily 2) Slow on the ball 3) Doesn't suit the system we used successfully to beat top sides 4) Strengths more suited to away matches I think he's got a decent shot on him (Barcelona game showed that for Celtic and yesterday's effort wasn't bad) but his limitations, which were well known in Scotland, don't seem to suit what we've been doing previously at all - we even seemed to have changed the system to accommodate him in the match against Sunderland.

Cork's very good at winning the ball (though I'd suggest not across as wide an area as Wanyama), but he's also very good at instant control, holding off challenges in tight areas and moving the ball on very simply and quickly to a teammate. He is gash at shooting and doesn't have a long range pass (unlike Wanyama) but in a team where a plodding transition between defence and attack which allows the opposition to get the defence organised is the main problem at the moment, a proven successful partnership which re-injects that urgency and pulls the opposition around would be great - though preferable in a home match when we actually have the ball more often. Cork's already done his role successfully in certain circumstances, but you'd struggle to say the same of Gaston, though he's shown enough glimpses here and there of his talent to get some advocating him as the solution. Maybe I should have given the award to Cork.

My Saints Anfield visits were 01/01/01 (Soltvedt scored, lost 2-1, the Scouse then-fiancee liked the result better than the away end) and last season's 1-0 hammering.

Get on the Liverpool preview thread, there are plenty of Ramirez shouts as well as a few Cork ones (I'm in the latter group overall, though not for Saturday, but that's because I think Wanyama's strengths are suited to playbreaking, not creativity, so we should use him away and Cork at home generally speaking).

I certainly agree that Davis fitted the pressing game/high transition game we played better, but we haven't really been using that so far this season. Will be interesting to see if we bring it back when it's worked against the top sides already.

I cannot see Saints even coming close on Saturday, we got overrun last year by a worse Liverpool side and with Schneiderlin and Cork in the midfield. I can't see me seeing an away win either, and I'm going to Exeter v Newport instead - doubt I'll see 2 OGs by the same player this week either though.

...Gaston Ramirez. Widely derided for being lightweight, a little one-paced, not impactful enough, lacking workrate, and just not involved enough at various points over the past 12 months, having been dropped to the bench for all but the Barnsley game this season he is now the saviour of Saints, his vision and creativity will see us through, he'll link fantastically with Osvaldo and should be starting away to Liverpool. So, which is it ? I believe Tadanari Lee is handing over the trophy today, having added his name to the engravings alongside the names of Matt Oakley, David Prutton, Darren Powell and Michael Svensson, amongst many, many more. Personally, I think he's got great vision and might well link with Osvaldo at home when he hasn't been off on a different continent earlier in the week, but in most away games when we're going to be in need of a more ball-winning midfield I can't see him starting any time soon. He's also not a magic wand to solve every problem the team has - plenty of which involve the amount of time it takes to get the ball out of defence, rather than the delay in executing once we've got the ball up front - though this is occasionally a problem too.

Actually I thought he was as poor as a lot of the others who are getting slated (Lallana and Rodriguez most obviously), but that's no reason to drop him after a hard week , when he'll be rested and highly motivated for this one - plus he won't get hung out to dry up front alone like he was last season there. I honestly can't see us getting as good a result as our 1-0 hammering last season though, Liverpool have improved a lot more than we have. Though if Sturridge is out we'll have a chance.

I don't think Osvaldo's a Lambert replacement until next season. I also can't see Lambert NOT starting at Anfield, or Ramirez getting near a Saints starting line up away from home for quite a while. And Schneiderlin/Wanyama is absolutely bolted on for away matches when we need a ball-winner. So I'd go for ----------Boruc Clyne Fonte Lovren Shaw -Wanyama Schneiderlin- Lallana--Lambert--Rodriguez --------Osvaldo--------- Possibility Ward-Prowse or Davis will replace Lallana or Rodriguez, but I'm not one of these knee-jerk tosspots who thinks specific players I don't like for no apparent reason should get dropped. I would like to see Cork on the bench but he and Schneiderlin got completely owned up there last season anyway. The bench will be the other few Prem quality players we have plus Kelvin and Guly, hoho.

Rodriguez scored 9 goals and Lambert 15 doing exactly the same last season, the only difference was that Puncheon was doing what Osvaldo is now.

I don't remember anyone saying that. I remember a lot of people saying we were terrible at defending and we needed to improve it, and we were, and we had. We've done that, but we have overcompensated - but as much as not committing players forward, the problem is about the lack of movement and slowness in getting the ball into attacking areas so we're not facing organised defences. It's perfectly possible to be solid defensively and get the ball moving quickly when going forward in order to make it difficult for the opposition.

Having gone to dig out the stats, I've found that we were very good at "clear cut chance conversion" http://eplindex.com/27890/how-well-does-your-team-convert-chances-premier-league-stats-comparison.html but if that's the case then we were also poor at scoring from less obvious positions. And if we're ponderous on the ball we're a lot less likely to create the "good" opportunities.