The9

Puel is clearly saying that because he, like anyone who is paying attention, knows that after the League Cup semi-final second leg the only way we're playing a run of midweek games for the rest of the season is if we make the FA Cup semis or draw every FA Cup tie. He'll finally get to pick his first team without considering any other matches away to Sunderland on 11th February - if we don't need an FA Cup 4th round replay. The last time he was able to pick a team without there being a match within the same week to consider was on the 27th August. Since then we've played Sat-Thu-Sun-Wed-Sun-Thu-Sun... International Break... Sun-Thu-Sun-Wed-Sun-Thu-Sun... International Break... Sat-Thu-Sun-Wed-Sat-Thu-Sun-Wed-Sun-Wed-Sat-Mon-Sat-Wed-Sat-Wed-Sun-Wed-(Sat)-Tue-Sat... and then a midweek off (assuming we don't need a replay against Arsenal) and then the Sunderland game. From the 11th Feb, the matches will be Sat-(Sat)-Sat-Sat-Sat-Sat... Int Break... Sat-Wed-Sat-Sat-Sat-Sat-Sat-Sat-Sun with only FA Cup replays, postponements or the League Cup Final adding any midweek games. We will have no reason to be rotating the team at that point, and criticism of tinkering would actually be valid, instead of utterly short-sighted. People who think there's a problem with the manager rather than the fixtures are missing the point entirely.

You ought to try going to away games with an ambulant/disabled person - apart from Chelsea the view practically everywhere is 50% the back of an advertising hoarding and 10 % stewards.

Only just seen this. What a bunch of helmets we have for fans. The only problems this season are the schedule and the number of chances we've missed.

Oh, and FWIW one of the reasons Forster looks "bad on crosses" is because he makes most of them so very simple people don't even remember he's caught them. Lloris is short and has to leap and fight for everything, so looks more spectacular - Forster just stands there and catches it. He could do with coming off his line to claim a few more which aren't immediately in his vicinity, but aside from his spotty kicking (precisely one of which gave us any problem at all) and absolute lack of effort to get down for the 4th long after it mattered yesterday I thought he was fine.

Started very well at Everton with some excellent saves, then went backwards (shockingly at the exact same time Everton stopped defending and left him exposed, stop me if you've heard that before), has occasional spells of looking decent but still not significantly better or worse than Forster.

Though as this hasn't changed since last season or the year before I'm not sure what relevance the manager has to this.

Something else (from November) that'll be different next season - Prem clubs will be permitted an additional sponsor on the right sleeve of the shirt. Depending on the details of the current Saints deal this might or might not get us some more money, though some clubs have exclusive sponsorship deals so won't be able to take advantage of it. Originally reported by the Daily Mirror on Nov 12, apologies for the moronic tone of the reporting, but target audience and all that: http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/premier-league-clubs-given-go-9248842

I shall be attending Portsmouth's next match - away to bottom of the universe Newport County, who went to 120 minutes with Plymouth whilst getting knocked out of the FA Cup on Wednesday. FWIW thanks to the damage to the away stand caused by over-exuberant Plymouth fans there are 195 fewer seats available in the away end. Strangely this has not caused any issues for Portsmouth's travelling hordes getting tickets.

Not only did they not chuck the shirts into the crowd, they didn't come within 30 yards of us at the end (typical enough when I was actually at the front for once) and had clearly been reminded not to give the shirts away. A girl won the random draw the week before, didn't see who won the prediction competition (and I got a correct score too, which was annoying).

Judging from the promo pics the material is the same UA snowflake weave on the other matchworns this season (and as noted previously, on the black training tee I have, but not the lime or red ones). I may pick one up if they do the charity thing again, depending on when they sell them. If they just sold replicas of it would save me a wodge though.

I don't know which shirt you're referring to? They haven't sold a replica third kit since we had the all yellow and white/grey flybe away and third in 2007/08, though technically you could buy our 2012/13 yellow Umbro aap3 third shirt the season before when it was the away kit, but it wasn't for sale in the first Prem season back and was pressed into action when they realised the all white kit was all but useless (wore it twice, Liverpool away and home to Chelsea as our official home FA Cup kit in a desperate bid to shift them).

I think you may actually be right here. You forgot Long (who'll definitely want to play against his old club West Brom just as Rodriguez will probably prefer to play Pochettino's Spurs). Wouldn't be surprised to see Cuco for Cedric at right back against West Brom either. And he'll almost certainly play at Norwich. Will be interesting to see if Redmond gets rested against West Brom because he'll be keen to play against Norwich - and whilst I'm sure player preference isn't a major driver for Puel, it pretty much fits with what he'll probably want to do anyway.

They're still playing regularly - just not every game.

Redmond has the highest pass completion % of all our strikers, and the 5th highest in Premier League games of the entire squad (ignoring Pied's 11 minutes). He's also played more minutes than his rivals on the list, which includes non-pressurised passers like Romeu and Yoshida ahead of him, alongside the more attacking Davis and Hojbjerg. The other 3 strikers, Rodriguez, Long and Austin, and Fraser Forster, are the bottom 4 on the list of 23 players with pass percentages under 65% - Redmond's is 85.8%. So he's a lot of things, but he is absolutely not the reason for us losing possession. He also only does 2.1 dribbles per game, and has 1.1 bad touches (Boufal has more than double that), so it's not that either. https://www.whoscored.com/Teams/18/Show/-Southampton

Quite, we're playing on Spurs H 28th Dec, West Brom H 31st Dec, Everton A 2nd Jan and then Norwich A FA Cup on 7th, Liverpool H Lge Cup Semi on 11th and Burnley A on 14th. If we draw with Norwich there's a replay on 18th, Leicester H on 22nd, Liverpool A Lge Cup Semi 2nd Leg on 25th, a possible FA Cup 4th Round game on 28th/29th and then Swansea on 31st Jan. Anyone not expecting rotation is completely deluded, and part of rotation is definitely not definitely putting out our strongest side three times when we're playing 3 games in 6 days, even if they have finally had just over a week off first team matches. You'd have to assume we'll have the stronger side in alternate games: Spurs, Everton A, Liverpool cup first leg and second leg and, depending on our Cup results and who we draw and where, either the FA Cup 4th round game or Swansea. That leaves the weaker side for West Brom, Norwich A, Burnley A, replay/Leicester and then the easier of the FA Cup 4th round or Swansea games. And yeah, we'll probably go back to trying to keep the ball and not run as much, and score one more than the opposition.

Pitch is cambered as well.

And probably getting through a few rounds doing so. Everyone does it, you should probably get over it.

The rules were changed because the EFL assumed the likes of Man U and Liverpool would put their U21s in and for some reason thought League One and Two fans would want to see big teams' development sides. And then of course lots of Prem teams refused to enter, and the Premier League itself changed the age restriction on its reserves/dev competition just to make the use of U21s look REALLY weird.

Lionel Messi wasn't playing every match when he was 17 - he played 10 times for Barcelona C. And then aged 18 he played 22 games for Barcelona B. He was also injury prone for his first 3 years, which doesn't suggest he was particularly well managed either. Ronaldo played for Sporting's U-16, U-17, U-18, B team and first team when he was 16 - but he didn't start a game until he was 17 and a half and he only had 25 starts when he left as a 19-year old. Neither of these records suggests Messi or Ronaldo played excessive numbers of games as players breaking through.

We made every effort to get into the Europa League knockout without sacrificing Prem position. Given that we're 5 places higher in the Prem than this time last year, were one late header away from getting through in said Europa League and missed absolutely shedfuls of chances throughout the group, and we're still in the League Cup at the semi-final stage, I have to wonder what exactly you think "making an effort" looks like? Are you suggesting binning off the multi-million pound Premier League prize money and chance to get into Europe again (which by the way was a great experience) to make sure we beat Liverpool and probably Man U to win the League Cup - or would your chosen approach maybe use squad rotation to put out teams for EVERY match which should be good enough to get results? And as for the Checkatrade Trophy, I can't say I've been bothered to watch a game, and we still got further than the Skates' first team.

He plays for Swansea, in case you hadn't noticed. Aside from their League Cup win against then 4th tier Bradford they've done nothing we haven't bettered in the past 5 years. Whether we choose to try and outbid the likes of Stoke or Leicester is a different matter.

Remind me of the times Pardew's won a national league title or got to a Champions League semi-final?

I'd get rid of our entitled whiners and get more people who don't throw childish wobblers every time they don't get their own way with the result. Oh, did you mean the team?

I'd rate them in reverse, mainly because the great team goal ended up with a scrambled one yard tap in, even though there was a nice backheel and a dinked cross before that. Bertrand's was an excellent run past multiple players from nothing and a finish right in the corner. Rodriguez's third was a great strike on the turn, but those kind of things can go anywhere - though of course that's part of the appeal. They're all on the very side of good though, but much of a muchness overall. Why Ake's header is in there, God knows.

Bristol City, but notsomuch Rovers as they don't tend to play as often... Newport v Bristol Rovers is probably more of a rivalry given the historical crapness of both (though even Bristol Rovers were second tier for a while when I was a kid), but "Severnside Derby" *cough* is reserved for Cardiff v Bristol City. Anyway, Cardiff fans have grudges against a lot of people.