The9

To be fair he is playing injured and might be capable of looking better than Cork or Davis on occasion, Allen was at least trying his balls off to get something to happen and occasionally giving it away because he was trying to get some pace into their passing.

I see the plan was for Boruc to wear purple then... before we had to dig out the 2011/12 keeper shirt and 2008/9 keeper socks !

The board went up, I said to the wife "having slaughtered them all half, it would be nice if we could just get to half time without conceding a stupid goal again". Should have run down and put money on it. Yelling works in moderation, but if you start there, where do you go next ? So I hope he only does it when necessary. Seems to have worked anyway.

I try to be fair with this stuff (Lambert aside, as I have probably unreasonably high standards for strikers), but getting done down the wing and not tracking flat out certainly wasn't Guly's crowning glory.

For the record, our St Mary's Prem averages are : 2005 30610 2004 31699 2003 30680 2002 30633 So we're right on course for exactly what we always get when we're not in the top half and Europe...

Wiki says : The attendance record was broken on 8 October 1969, when 31,044 watched Southampton lose 3–0 to a Manchester United team which included George Best and Bobby Charlton

I don't know how we can expect to break the stadium attendance record if there's always one empty seat. Tch.

There was a channel on local cable for a little while, but I'm pretty sure it was actually "Southampton TV" not "Southampton FC TV", though there was some Saints-related programming. It's on wikipedia under UK TV Channels if anyone can be bothered, I know I can't.

Yup, that was West Ham.

That made me laugh yesterday. That's twice they've blatantly made up figures about attendance records now, even the West Ham one last season wasn't the figure they originally claimed, until they realised the one they announced wasn't a record. Puts the claims about the "best selling Saints shirt of all time" into a bit of perspective.

Now be fair, Whittingham hasn't had the benefit of picking and choosing from every uncontracted football player in existence for the first couple of months of the season until the August parachute money was spent.

FWIW I'd like to see us sign Boruc to a nice new long term contract, last thing we want is him buggering off to someone else in the summer.

I think that underpins our "rapid capitalisation on turnovers" mentality. We seem to spend much less time fartarsing around passing sideways against 2 banks of 4 organised defenders now. It's more "Get it near their goal, make an opening, have a shot".

I actually think it suits him a LOT better, we win the ball high up the pitch so he doesn't have to run far to get in scoring positions, and when he has the ball up front he always has a pass on and players in support. Earlier in the season he was isolated a fair bit - until we started pushing the wide men in behind him, which left us exposed down the wings too often. In Pochettino's team he doesn't have to do a lot of pressing himself, because the opposing centre backs by definition are not the quickest or best passers so he can pressurise them without needing to get on top of the ball all the time, and we press the first pass towards midfield to get the ball back with our midfielders, not Lambert. I would point out that he still hasn't scored at St Mary's since November though - wouldn't be surprised if his free-kick deflection ends up as an OG officially, it probably wasn't going in at the near post before it hit the wall.

Stood next to a Liverpool-supporting mate today, she said he's the weak link in their defence, much better going forward (usually). He didn't look fazed or remotely bothered by the crowd, took a touch and just stood there with the ball comfortably on loads of occasions, didn't look anxious or hurried on the ball.

I wouldn't be surprised if they've already decided but didn't want to throw the new guy in at Old Trafford - Redknapp certainly decided to dodge that one with QPR, taking over the following day...

Yup.

Actually having rewatched on MotD Gaston was involved in the better chances they showed - though we had 9 shots on target first half and they didn't show them all. One thing I did notice, with Rodriguez giving him a mobile striker to aim for he looks a much better player, both the goal and the other quick through ball he helped on were to Rodriguez - he even managed to spring Lambert through the middle at one point which deserves some kind of medal for persistence !

Liverpool side last time was J Reina, D Agger, J Enrique, M Skrtel, G Johnson, S Gerrard, J Allen (J Henderson, 69), Lucas (J Carragher , 88 ), R Sterling, L Suarez , J Shelvey. Lucas was the main difference I think, plus Gerrard was on great form at Anfield, transitioning the ball rapidly to Sterling and Suarez to run at us.

Careful, people will think you're me under a different user name. I was saying this in October, but since Pochettino took over, it's been more that Gaston doesn't really fit into a pressing side and thanks to that methodology we create enough chances to sustain Lambert in the side, basically at Gaston's expense. We're usually better off with Davis in there at the moment, we create more from Davis and co getting the ball in transitions from pressing than we do from Gaston's skill and creativity with only Lambert in front of him. FWIW I've been Gaston's biggest fan, but he was nothing more than above average today, the all-round team performance was probably better than his personal contribution, though it was one of his better Saints games. I don't think he's taking an unreasonable time to settle though, and still has plenty to offer us.

Funny thing was when we played up at their place, that was the first game where Cork and Schneiderlin played together in midfield where they were completely ineffective, and barely got into the game. But we were much better in midfield today than they were when they were stuffing us 1-0 up there.

Umm, because what Lawrenson said happened didn't happen, we harangued him BEFORE the penalty for which we were reported, the manager came on the pitch afterwards, the players didn't bother after the penalty save.

I liked the week Hulk Hogan beat him despite predicting Chelsea to beat Wigan 40 goals to 1.

FWIW http://www.sportsclubstats.com/England/Southampton.html shows if we continue our form of 9pts from 8 matches we'll have a 1% chance of finishing as high as 12TH ! On the bright side, also only a 1% chance of relegation. About 41% likely to come 16th, 36% 15th.

With the exception of his gash finish in the 1-on-1 I thought Lambert did a hell of a job getting the balls into him under control and distributed today. Thought he did very well tbh.