The9

Can't disagree with that really, his form's been pretty dubious for the last month or so and when has he ever gone 5 matches without scoring for us before ? Took some guts to go for that header, but then it was a goal on a plate and that's what he's there for. Luckily for us, QPR were awful and hopefully it'll give him a boost, seeing as our next 2 matches are at home and he'll probably start at least one of them.

He was good at knocking the ball down (complete unshock there) but some of his passing around the box was woeful on Saturday - which I hasten to add is pretty out of character for Lambert. Not sure any of his "interplay" was of any note either. He was most definitely not "pure class", though "competent target man" wouldn't have been far from the mark.

No, we mostly won because QPR are a lot worse than Man City, Man Utd, even Fulham and Swansea for that matter. We dominated them like we dominated some Championship games last season. I've been impressed with our upturn of form but Adkins hasn't done anything majorly different, we're just not playing top half teams any more.

As the other thread got locked, here's the post I was making in there... I am making a broad point about people being critical of doing the same thing based on the outcome not the circumstances at the time or the bigger picture. It has nothing to do with whether one individual poster did or didn't criticise on one particular occasion, but there is an overarching hypocrisy in slating the manager for doing the same things all season and judging them based solely on results not the balance of probability and the circumstances at the time - i.e. some people are basically knee-jerking that everything he does when we lose is wrong, and everything he does when we win is right. Personally I can see he wants to give Rodriguez a game because how else is he going to replace Lambert as a regular starter in a year or two if he doesn't get the chance to develop ? On this occasion he decided that overall Lambert would be the best option, but there were still times where having Mayuka or Rodriguez on the pitch would have meant we had a better chance of scoring (Ramirez's run where he got eased out by Ferdinand was the most obvious, no-one to pass to with their defence nowhere). We won, so that looks like a good decision - but who's to say we wouldn't have scored 5 with Rodriguez running riot ? Equally, had he taken off a different 3 players at home to Man U I'm pretty sure we'd still have capitulated because all 10 starting outfielders were tangibly knackered - but there's no way of knowing that for definite, so it's ridiculous to claim it was an "error" when the alternative might have been conceding more and the decision (bring on our best 3 players left on the bench to provide fresh legs) is perfectly logical. Every judgement has to be made in context, not just of the result but also of the options available and the balance of probability. Too many people here just look at the result as the be-all and end-all of what's right and wrong. I can happily say I think Adkins has been consistent in his decision-making all season and I haven't seen anything inexplicable yet - even Yoshida's run of not-greatness and keeping his place could be is down to Adkins's stated aim of keeping a stable back 4, especially with him having only just put Shaw in. BTW DPS, even though I was replying to you I wasn't specifically referring to you, Dig Dig was right.

Just probably not until we have to play Arsenal on December 29th because the lower teams won't give us as many problems as the top half ones did ? The only thing I can see Adkins doing any different at the moment is putting Hooiveld in for Yoshida, Shaw's looking like a fixture after some decent performances (hey, maybe he was ill against Stevenage after all...) and Adkins has said he's going for stability at the back so it's unlikely he won't give Yoshida a decent crack, as presumably Adkins thinks that he's got quality and it will come through despite his tangible uncertainty in every match (including QPR) so far.

Er, I'd say he's changed absolutely NOTHING in the past match that he wasn't doing on a regular basis in all of the others. His "errors" you perceived then were not "errors", just as his error to take off the influential Ramirez on Saturday and replace him with the limited but enthusiastic Steven Davis wasn't an error - though it looked "interesting" at the time, Davis' play-breaking and use of the ball was a significant factor in our failure to capitulate. Was replacing Shaw with Fox not an "error" on Saturday but was one against Swansea ? Hindsight's a great thing isn't it ? The only thing that's changed is the ability of the opposition, and some of us have been pretty confident all along that we're not in the worst 3 teams in the division. Anyone who was critical before but is supportive now is a massive knee-jerking hypocrite.

We're heading nowhere near the ground for the 4 hours of drinking prior to the match. Though most of it will be done on the train anyway, I suspect. Decided against Clapham to Shepherd's Bush when we found out it was the same price to Waterloo and the travelcard covered us faffing our way gradually back across London.

Just slightly too slow for the Prem as evidenced by the endless times he got caught from behind on the ball, but still too mobile (at the time) to play in the defensive midfield "quarterback" role he plays for Sweden now. Career probably extended by playing for most of his career in a not-so-testing Swedish league when clearly of a different class to most of his peers.

I already answered that one the last time you posted it, it's because each individual player can be replaced only impacting on 1/11th of the overall team, whilst the manager is inherent in everything all 11 of them do. So making the change in manager is a much more significant change.

Of course, the fault there is with the Guly haters, not the people who can see Ramirez's talent. FWIW you're right up until the "only played well for 45 minutes" bit. He's been good in most matches and the last thing I'd want is for him to stop playing killer passes just because people aren't reading them - I want them to learn to read them.

Had an awesome curry for about £7 at the pub just up the road from the ground at West Brom AND re-found the cheap kebab/chip shop that I went to in 2005 which charged me about £3.50 for a portion of chips, a can of coke and a kebab back then. I haven't eaten at St Mary's for about a year so couldn't give you a score out of 10, but just the fact I haven't means it's not more than 5/10.

I've basically stopped posting because everything I mention can be distilled down to that lot and I'm bored with reading knee-jerk nonsense and a load of people who think being good in the Championship is enough for God worship. Agree that he's our best finisher, it's having to get the ball to him near enough to the goal to make a difference regularly that's the problem. Somewhere in the mix is the recent concern that clubs will concentrate on negating our attack at the expense of attacking us because they know they'll probably score anyway. Spurs and West Brom both seem to have erred on that side.

I'd class it as "having the same opinion as someone who knows what he's talking about when it comes to football", so it appears so and you should be very proud. I haven't mentioned that recently, btw. I'd love to see your wallchart of SaintsWeb mongs and the things you can mention about them to remind them of things they said in the past. I assume it takes up a whole wall. Still, got to be at least as much fun as recreating the 1980s in Pro Evo 2013...

There are two problems I have with our sale of Liverpool tickets. Firstly, they are more expensive than the Everton tickets, at a more financially tricky time of year (people saving for Xmas), Liverpool are lower in the table than Everton and the city (and area, and pubs, and nights out) around the ground are exactly the same - so why on earth are we able to sell this out but not Everton, which other than the opposition is an identical fixture ? The weird "big club" effect is still in place for Saints fans. Bizarre - unless someone wants to make a case that we've sold out because we think we've got more chance of winning this one... The other problem I'm having with the sale of away tickets is that the limited number of wheelchair and ambulant/enabler tickets are not available online, so we now have the utterly shameful sight of ONLY the disabled having to queue up on "launch day" at 9am in the p155ing rain. As a customer service for disabled customers that is an absolute disgrace.

I think it's a matter of branding and consistency, and where you draw the line regarding what the club was selling. From my vague recall as a kid in the 70s there seem to have been quite a few "pseudo-replicas" around prior to the 1980s and what you got often depended on what the club was happy to sell as "replicas" - things like the replica not being made by the same manufacturer (whether visible on labels or on the shirt itself as you'd expect now), and whether there was a club badge on the shirt or replica all seem to be a lot less consistent prior to the 80s. There were loads of instances of mums sewing badges onto random shirts too... The candy striped shirt above being a case in point. Saints shirts had a badge on, the Admiral replicas clearly didn't -does that make them less "valid"? So having said all that, did yours have a manufacturer logo, was it the same as the shirts the players wore, and did the Saints shirts and the shirt you bought have a badge on (or were they consistent through both being unbadged) ?

First ones I've seen that were overtly branded and sold in sports shops as "proper" replicas (in kids' sizes) were the first Patrick kits, a kid in my junior school had the Rank Xerox away kit, which is only weird when you bear in mind I went to school over 100 miles from Southampton. Newport County's amber Patrick-made replica was also for sale around the same time, so they were clearly centrally produced in a similar way to today.

I have four : 1) Wanting to be treated like a customer whose business is worth having when I WANT to spend money on Saints stuff (this covers anything I might say about ticket taxes and car park charges) and 2) The Lambert thing. I don't believe he's mobile enough to maximise our attacking options, especially in away matches. I also have concerns that if we don't treat him with sports science kid gloves that he's unlikely to stay fit. For some reason we go through phases of playing like he's on the pitch when he isn't, which is bizarre and not helpful to the likes of Mayuka who could excel with the right kind of passes, and for added measure I also think Ramirez's vision and creativity is being stifled by not having a mobile striker to get in on the end of his through balls. Lambert still has some value to us from his ability to make a ball stick up the field, but that's just not enough if other teams know to defend against it and that he won't offer a threat from most other situations. 3) I'm behind Adkins and don't think he's made any substitutions or tactical decisions that can't be simply explained, and it irritates the hell out of me that people bang on about his "mistakes". The squad isn't strong enough - who is to blame for that - so all substitutions are going to look dubious but there's almost always benefit to bringing on fresh legs and protecting our players from fatigue and injury. 4) I never, EVER want to see a Chairman on the cover of any football programme.

Are you stealing my thoughts ?

I don't think I agree with any of that apart from the bits about Adkins doing a good job and keeping him in charge.

Yeah, but FantasyLeague.com is my assist bible, and I'm going with what Associated Press reported on the day. FWIW he's our 3rd top scorer in FL behind Lambert and Lallana. Though Schneiderlin, Ramirez and Davis all have 1 goal as well.

Suggests you don't understand how the Prem squad list works. We can't sign ANYONE (other than possibly another currently out of contract goalkeeper) over the age of 21 to play in the Premier League for us before Jan 1st. We have no free slots in the "25".

He has 3 assists in the Prem, no goals. His goal against Stevenage doesn't add much to the "Prem Player" argument. FWIW I was in the second row of the stand in the corner of our fans and nearer the goal than anyone except a couple of people I was with, and when Guly did that header Olsson was fouling the hell out of him, he hooked and yanked his arm just as he headed it as well. Stuff you expect in the Prem, but definitely a factor.

To be fair I thought it was well known to everyone and his dog that we always take certain players, or certain types of players (returning from injury, over 30s) off at the 75 minute mark to prevent them getting fatigue-related injuries. Lambert's usually a prime candidate for the hook due to his body type and age, Ramirez was always going to get pulled when returning from injury. Puncheon and Mayuka weren't both going to come on as since Spurs Mayuka's being viewed as a wide right midfielder.

Beckenham off of Saints Forever calls me Taffy ironically, you know. Newportonians don't generally have such a problem with the English as they all know they are one really. England football internationals are always interesting events in Newport pubs.

He's the only player I've ever seen try and put a ball out for a throw in near the half-way line and concede a corner. Everyone else who was at Swindon as we finally bottomed out in Pardew's early days probably remembers it well too.