The9

Haven't heard anything, nor am I likely to !

Man City are definitely wearing Nike from next season so you've misinterpreted it. Quite how you can misinterpret this sentence I don't know... "It will leave Nike counting only the Manchester clubs among their Premier League clients when City switch to the American company in 2013. City's current deal with British supplier Umbro ends at the end of this season".

I find it incredible that you regard the existence of a person on a pitch as some kind of relevant pointer to their influence. For instance, Jose Fonte has probably been on the pitch for all of our goals so far, is he an attacking talisman ? Maybe just pointing out the goals which Lambert has had some DIRECT influence on, and factoring in how much time he's had to do that compared to Rodriguez, Guly, Mayuka, etc would give you a relevant point worth labouring. As it is, all you've got is "he's been on there when we've scored", and whilst he's assisted and scored a few, in some situations (Steven Davis v Man City is the obvious one), we scored DESPITE his presence not because of it. I can't imagine there are many sides who'd accept a striker who is back to defend a corner barely getting past the centre circle as 5 of his teammates hare forward into a counterattack. Oh, and as for Lambert's workrate, after being told my assertion that he didn't work hard enough closing down was "garbage", guess what I was watching for on Sunday - and guess what didn't exist ? Closing people down is not his game in any form - and nor should it be with his skillset - but sometimes Saints NEED players who can do that when we don't have the ball and still offer a threat when we do. The simple facts are that Lambert gives us something going foward, and deserves to be strongly considered for every match. But what he gives us can be negated by defences doing their jobs well more easily than they can defend pace and movement, he's not going to be able to suddenly exploit new skills or traits at his age, has to be protected against overplaying to avoid injury, and is no longer a mystery to any opposing manager doing their job properly. Plus there's at least some question about his suitability in away matches where we need to defend from the front. Having said all of that, after next weekend's game we have a run of matches against less strong opponents, and we might again see the kind of attacking that worked in the Championship working in the Prem for a little while. The one good thing that's come out of Lambert's lull is Rodriguez and Mayuka getting the chance to get some match time and showing what they can do, seeing as they're both capable of improving significantly on their already-decent talents. It's getting boring having to point this out over and over, but we're not in the Championship now, Toto.

Statistically we're a lot less likely to lose in ANY situation where we've already got a one-goal advantage, so this is hardly a major point or much to do with the person in question.

If you ask me.

I was more interested in this which immediately followed it : http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20117987 as I saw Bale chuck his shirt into the crowd, but as it's yellow they've since changed the headline to "Brad Friedel's shirt".

Of course they are. Man City got 21 points for beating us, as did Man U. They definitely haven't proved they're the best sides by beating lots of other teams as well. They're in the top half because in the vast majority of cases they're better than the teams in the bottom half. Obviously at this stage the difficulty of a team's schedule can skew things, but mostly we have lost because the teams we've lost to are top half teams. We have one result against the grain at the moment, losing at home to Wigan, and we stuffed the other bottom half side we've played. The others are pretty much on par for a side which isn't going to finish in the top half, but we have no idea where in the bottom half we'll be until we play some of the other teams in the bottom half. For instance, I'm expecting us to lose at West Brom, but then we have Swansea, Newcastle and Norwich at home, as well as QPR away. I'd be happy enough with 9 or 10 points from the next 5 matches and that will put us somewhere around 15th. If we're still in the bottom 3 after that, I'll start thinking we're probably going to go down - but even then it's Liverpool a, and Reading and Sunderland home to follow. All far more winnable matches than the run we've had so far.

His withdrawal from the internationals was taken by some to be "evidence" that he'd be starting yesterday - or if you're me, more "evidence" that we have some idiot fans who will read meaning into absolutely nothing.

Quite. It's as simple as that. I like the fact he never, EVER says anything of note. Even quoting poetry isn't him actually saying it.

Pretty sure Ramirez will be our best player until at least Jan 1st whether he's in the team or not.

I'm completely in favour of him saying the same thing all season and being completely un-newsworthy. It worked fine for him last season and you can't fault his positivity.

Only if you are astonishingly good at the possession part. We're just not that good at it often enough, so the model doesn't work. There's a lot to be said for using the "extra midfielder" to keep the ball, but we've all seen what happens when you constantly lose it in midfield against better teams (especially Arsenal). I think we need to refocus on defending better as the creativity can take care of itself.

They hunt in packs but are MUCH better at defending when they don't have the ball and their excellent use of the ball and possession when they have it minimises their need to defend to begin with - we're not at the level where we can keep it in midfield in the Prem the way we regularly did in the Championship - at times in the first half yesterday we looked like we'd forsaken even trying to pass using anyone who wasn't in the back line, which is what happens when you want to keep it but aren't good enough, you get pressed back and back and back to the keeper and then hoof it away.

That's pretty much what I've been saying too - someone sitting in front of the back line instead of us losing it in the middle when flat and overcrowded and there being no buffer in front of the back 4. Neither Schneiderlin nor Davis does that at the moment, and the rest are basically purely attacking. As I've also realised since the weekend, we are almost always chasing back towards our own goal, and being pulled around whilst facing the wrong way, or if we're organised, we're not back in sufficient midfield numbers most of the time. The starting position of our full backs is part of the reason for the former, not sure why we can't get back in numbers though - we did it against Man City ok.

He starts defensive and stays defensive. For all the people saying Bale gave him a hard time against Wales, he was always there jockeying and making Bale beat him, and never out of the game chasing back from half way.

Biggest problem in the first half was a total lack of effort through the entire team. Positionally we were alright, provided the opposition stood still and didn't try to score any goals.

Yes Shaw is worse, and no he is not ready. His failure to get near the first team since Stevenage is all the evidence of that we need at this stage. Richardson was a better centre back than Shaw was left back in that match - and Richardson was not "good".

I'm pretty sure most of that is down to our system, I mean when we get a goal kick the full backs are pushing up to the half way line and they pull wide and push up as much as possible. When we've got the ball we're basically 2-6-2 and that will ALWAYS leave us exposed out wide at the back - Fox doesn't have any of the same problems positionally (and also doesn't hit Hollywood diagonals) when playing for Scotland in a more defensive back 4.

There are a lot of players not as good as Fox, have you not noticed ? There are about 3 leagues worth in England alone.

Saw the same thing as me then !

Luke Shaw looked out of his depth defensively against Stevenage, he'll have to improve his decision making and defending significantly to get near the first team if that's any indicator. He was ill for about 3 days after the Stevenage match, not sure how that would have made him better at defensive decision making, and it didn't seem to affect his ability to dribble with the ball...

Suppose there's no reason the 3 of them can't kit up and do the matchday thing if available, it's not like they have the same pre-match as the outfielders anyway.

Forgot to mention, having bulked up a few seasons ago when he was injured and maintained that muscle for a few years, Bale seems to have slimmed down significantly over the last year or so, he's much leaner and has far less bulk around his shoulders.

It was Mayuka trying to play himself into the team and the rest of them picking up on his energy and starting to inject the effort we should have had all along. They played like I felt, hungover. I find it difficult to believe we were playing more than one (Davis) in the middle of midfield for the entire of the first half, because every time we had the ball there was only one person for about 30 yards and we never once tried to pass to him.

We played 3-0-4 at some points in the first half.