The9

Wouldn't being a defensive midfielder necessitate him making a lot of short, quick passes, which he's tangibly not very good at ? I don't doubt his ball-winning ability, I just don't think the rest of the team is appreciative of his squirty-ball passes or shinners much.

And I think that playing the team most suitable for beating that specific opposition will do that, which might not include Lambert due to his specific limitations (tracking back/closing down quickly to get the ball back high up the field, running at defenders and the ability to beat a defender one on one when he has no other options). And there's the crux of it.

Would you like me to draw you a diagram ? They were much better than us when we were sacking Pardew and being rubbish for the first 2 months, basically until we'd played 9 matches (the end of September), building their 11 point lead over us. When Adkins took over we were better than them for the rest of the season by the tune of 8 points, including not losing to them in either match between the teams. As for Kazenga LuaLua, he only played in 5 Brighton wins in that entire season (all between Sep and Nov when we were already closing the gap), and they had a win percentage of 31% when he came back in the Championship, so I don't think he's much of a factor.

Arguable, if you can be bothered, which I can't.

Dig Dig has said it much better than I did (aside from not mentioning that Lambert actually had the opportunity in the West Ham game and didn't do anything of the sort).

1) The advantage was in having more flexible players and not conceding 2 goals in 30 minutes like we did when Lambert got on the pitch. Lambert also came on in that West Ham match and created precisely nothing with us going further behind while he was on, whilst Rodriguez set up our goal, really not sure how you can claim Rodriguez was "ineffectual" when he was obviously more effective than Lambert on that occasion. 2) Rodriguez supported Fox well and despite City creating chances we've all seen what's happened with others in front of Fox against top sides (notably against Arsenal) -also, when he wasn't there we started leaking goals - arguably that could be because we became more attacking when behind and when Lambert came on, but you can't have it both ways. 3) No matter which substitutions we made against Man U we were obviously knackered all over the pitch and United have now come from behind in more than 10 matches this season, pretty sure it would have happened with the three who were substituted still on the pitch, plus you could have had any of them injured from playing into the oft-cited "injury danger zone" when already tired.

To be fair, I dislike it immensely for not being remotely near to red and white stripes but I still bought one and wear it to every match. It is tangible garbage that it's "popular" though, I'm just keeping my collection up to date.

Oh I don't know, Dyer and Walcott are hardly giants and they were in the system then.

1) Not starting Lambert is the right choice in certain matches 2) Playing Rodriguez at left midfield was one of the reasons we were still in the game at Man City when Lambert came on 3) Substituting any 3 players would have made no difference with the other 8 knackered, and the 3 who came on were the best 3 on the bench. 4) Can't argue that the manager carries the can for everything, rightly or not.

We don't release anyone for being too small nowadays, in fact I think our mould has shrunk and we've only got blond wigs in the cloning room.

I'd add Nilsson instead of Arias (but I was mostly fixated on Redknapp's signings)... I think Jacobsson gets a bad rep, he was a vaguely competent defender and half decent defensive midfielder, he just wasn't Killer.

My favourite Saints home shirt is the plain striped hummel (not the Denmark one) from 1990. Then from our striped kits the plain 2001/2 Friends Provident, of non-striped it's the sash, then the hummel Denmark style. Favourite away is the 2006 Cup Final Anniversary tribute kit - the players' version with Saints Apparel logo and flybe sponsor, as I hate the inaccurate unbranded limited edition replica with a passion. Also really like the black Friends Provident away from 2002 with the red panels on the side, and the current, surely to debut on Saturday, white kit. Honourable mentions to all of the Patrick Rank Xerox broad striped kits too. Worst home kit is the Pony tick and the current one is a close second, worst away kits are the Admiral blue flame of 1991 and the Pony tick away light blue from '93.

A classic pedant post (thankfully very rare nowadays) from The9 here... Actually the European Cup AND "original" Champions League were not just for the national Champions - they were for national Champions AND the current European Cup holders (first competition aside). For instance Nottingham Forest managed to win their second European Cup in 1980 despite not being English Champions since winning it in April/May 1978. However, where the European Cup winners were also their national champions the same season, the competition was, by default, purely for national Champions. I can't be bothered to check which seasons that happened, and of course some will argue that the definition of "Champions" should include the holders, but it wasn't automatically the case with the Champions League until Liverpool won it in 2005 when outside the qualification places and forced UEFA's hand to sneak themselves into the qualifying round. Also, Newcastle qualified for the Champions League without "significant investment" around 1999, as well as Everton who were previously mentioned.

Actually, on 22/02/11 having played 28 games they were 10 points ahead of us in League One. After 9 games of the same season they were 11 points ahead of us, so we'd already closed the gap on them. By the end of the season we'd beaten them at their place and were only 3 points behind at the end, so we were clearly already performing better than they were by then, which we continued by leaving them well behind in the Championship (Lambert sending off at their place aside). Maybe I'd have given it to you if you'd posted it at the end of September 2010, but by February 2011, no, the results clearly point to us being slightly the better side from September 2010 until Feb 2011 (and significantly better since).

I wouldn't have signed Calum Davenport, Olivier Bernard or Federico Arias. Would have signed Marcus Bent (2 more points against Everton would have kept us up), Lionel Messi as a 9 year old years before, and Fabio Cannavaro. Too late ?

But Redknapp's REPEATEDLY said he won't be bringing any players in... Anyone want to add anything to his modus operandi (Saints excluded) ? Joins underachieving or stagnating club who would benefit from any kind of change Says he won't sign anyone except maybe a couple of loans to assuage worries about spending Lets current players try for a week or two knowing they'll be trying to impress Makes minor changes by picking English workhorse to get fans on side Falls out with at least one previous regular Starts suggesting the squad is down to bare bones and needs "one or two" Openly critical of side immediately before transfer window opens using an analogy about his wife's footballing ability Signs half a team of the kind of players previous manager wouldn't have been allowed to, including at least 2 previous players Side makes progress up table Reserves full of previously perfectly good players who never get a look in but cost loads in wages Redknapp now saviour Media wa-nkfest Further Massive overpriced spending on previous players Club begins to stagnate after 18 months as Redknapp gets his head turned Resigns or sacked due to unspecified reasons or introduction of Director of Football (ie losing control of the transfers and related bonuses) Club goes into spiral due to unsustainable wages Redknapp loved by all (except Saints fans) despite everything

Last I heard Guy Whittingham was caretaker, as if anyone else is going to take it on permanently...

Such as whom ? I'm struggling to think of any. Milner and Barry are technically solid though.

We create chances when we get players forward to support Lambert's knock-downs and hold-up play. When we get players forward Lambert is there to pick up chances. When we don't get players forward Lambert does not do anything on his own. The goals v Man City were from us flooding forward, we also got players forward against Man Utd. Like I've already said, we're fine when we get players forward in numbers to support Lambert, but he's no use isolated and doesn't create anything on his own. This was proved beyond doubt at Arsenal when he was completely anonymous. He wasn't much better at Everton or West Ham when he came on, struggled at home to Spurs for a half and didn't offer much at West Brom either. But against less competent defences we are able to get people around him. Both the goals against Man City came from us swarming forward in numbers which we didn't start doing until we were behind. This is a problem against sides who pick us off when we over-commit (eg West Brom, West Ham, Everton, Man City late on) but not a problem against sides who are not as good (QPR, Swansea, Newcastle). Man Utd just proved that they either didn't know, or weren't bothered, about dealing with Lambert, because Arsenal completely negated him the week after just by sweeping up in front of him as well as competing the headers. We also failed to get anyone in support of him in that match. It's not like I'm even basing it on goals because it's about his all-round contribution - he's only scored once since September 22nd if you want to get into that argument, and that was an open goal from a yard out agaisnt the bottom team. Admitting he's more effective against the weaker sides is as far as I'm prepared to go with it. If we want to be challenging for top half or better we need to be able to do all the things Lambert offers us and more, and not hamstring our own attacks with players with limited mobility.

Shaw's been playing more defensively than Fox did. Whilst Shaw has been excellent at least part of his success has been not being forward as much as Fox - though he does sometimes provide an overlap, his starting position is therefore more defensive so there's none of the space in behind that was being exploited with Fox. although the last 10 minutes at QPR showed Fox does tend to drift forward a little, as I can't imagine Adkins' instructions at 3-1 up there would have been to push forward... One time Shaw wasn't quite where he could have been was for the Yoshida/Gazzaniga clanger - Fox was ALWAYS an outlet for his centre backs in that kind of scenario, and ironically Shaw was a few yards further forward on that occasion, so Yoshida didn't know he was an option either when he played the backpass or when he lost the ball after Gazzaniga played it back to him. But that's splitting hairs on what's been a start-worthy set of performances from Shaw so far, much better than he was at Stevenage and certainly helping us look more solid (as well as benefitting from us not playing against the top sides).

Mayuka, however, is lightning fast and judging by his lack of gametime not quite up to speed with other aspects of his game in our system. As ever, there's a balance between what works and how much you might gain or lose by changing it, and when we're playing poorer sides we use Lambert too much outside the area to leave him out. Williamson was outright assaulting him most of yesterday whenever a ball went direct to him in attack facing his own goal, but he was still able to drop deep and influence the game, and with our midfield aware they need to get ahead of Lambert to offer a threat, that seems to work against poorer sides. We get plenty of ball in attacking areas and can build and get players forward in support. Against the top sides though, it hasn't worked and we need someone who can create things himself. If this season has taught me anything, it's that the line between Prem and Championship is not as important as the line between Europe contenders and the rest. Lambert is a perfectly functional, if slow, striker against bottom half Prem sides and we're not yet able to play effectively without him.

Twice.

We all know the cliche about the ball moving faster than any player - but Messi's got the ability to run at people with pace and create opportunities, and that alone means teams can't set up just to defend against their passing. You can't afford to be over-reliant on any one thing at the top level or you get found out easily - though it's still harder to defend against pure pace than anything else because having pace means you can make up for deficiencies in other areas more easily.

Exactly. Although using two of the best players in the world as an illustration is at least as incongruous as using the likes of Waigo and Antonio (all pace and not much else) as an illustration of where pace can get you. Let's suggest Aaron Lennon or Nathan Dyer, maybe even Matt Taylor as a happy compromise. Fast and pretty good technically without being incredible - they add something but without their pace would they be Prem players ? Is Michael Owen still of Prem quality now he's in his 30s ? On the flip side, Sheringham never had any and was able to carry on for years because his awareness and technique meant he found time to do things without needing to be the quickest to get there.

%age possession is a useful pointer when you're already winning as obviously having the ball stops the opposition scoring. Swansea last season played a lot of what Strachan called "propaganda football", and also completed more passes in their own half than any other team. Fat lot of use if 2-0 down and highly useful if 1-0 up. We didn't play propaganda football in the Championship and with the exception of the first half against Spurs I don't think we've done it much in the Prem - initially that was because we couldn't keep the ball, but now we're playing worse teams our ability to impose ourselves and confidence is coming back.