Alanh

I mean a formation where there are two banks of four (defence and midfield) who are set up in straight lines across the pitch and two strikers playing off each other. We set up like this sometimes last season as did many of the teams we played against as did Newcastle when we played them a few weeks back.

Chez, I think you read the game pretty well, but I've got to disagree with you on this one. I don't think you can call our formation 4-4-2 in the traditional sense. The fluidity of movement and interchange of the front four with a deeper lying attacker (yesterday RL, but usually Gaston) together with the holding play of Morgan and Cork points more towards a 4-2-3-1. It's certainly now what you would call a flat four in midfield. When we are defending deep our 'wingers' do the more traditional job of covering with the fullbacks, but that's about the only time you could say we play four in midfield.

Or move Puncheon to the left (as he is left footed) and put Gaston on the right and play Rickie behind J-Rod.

I reckon that all of our transfers in the summer were a committee decision. I also think that different members of the committee had stronger opinions on some players than on others. We are pretty sure that NA has been keen on J-Rod for a while but the rest of the transfers could have been driven by any of the members of the committee. NA has been positive about all of the players recruited in the summer but then he's positive about almost everything so that's no guide. It would be more interesting to know whether NA has a veto on the players brought in or if there is a set of criteria that they have to meet.

Nonsense. IMO J-Rod should be viewed as a replacement for David Connolly who left the club at the end of June. Mayuka is more of a replacement for Sharp and he looks to be able to offer the squad much more , especially as we are predominently playing with one up front, as he can play in multiple positions. Gazzaniga came in while we were on our pre-season camp so he was well integrated before the season started. It would have been great to get Yoshida in earlier but how were the management team to know that Jos would crumble so spectacularly after being the stand out partner at CB last season. Even if Yoshida had arrived in July in I still think Jos and Jose would have started the first couple of matches.

I wouldn't change much either in terms of personel or style of play. If we play possession football we make it more difficult for them to do anything creative and we quieten the crowd. I'd give Cork and Schneiderlin specific roles which concentrated on protecting the defence, possibly man marking Granero or Taraabt, and getting the ball to Adam, Gaston and Rickie ASAP (especially Rickie in the air so that he can put doubt in the minds of their defence by winning a few headers early on). I'd definitely start with Puncheon as he will retain the ball better than Guly or Mayuka, and would keep the same back four as started on Saturday.

We've looked long term by buying young players with potential rather than loaning in Andy Carroll and paying him a huge wage with no guarantee that his club won't take him back or sell him to someone else. Buying Gazzaniga rather than Jaaskeleinen is another example. Not sure how you can say they haven't brought in anyone of note when they have brought in the two mentioned above. I don't think anyone at Saints envisioned / planned a strategy for us to be bottom two after 10 games, but thanks largely to a very steep learning curve for the majority of the squad, individual errors from the players and manager and some very tough fixtures that's where we find ourselves and now is the time for the whole club to pull together and work hard to get more points on the board. 17th place or above is still within our reach.

Interesting that you had Schneiderlin down as a positive. For me he was the weak link in central midfield in terms of positioning and effectiveness with and without the ball. The goal was well taken and it's great that he's got two now this season but I think he should be dominating the game more against a team like Swansea - breaking up play, getting us moving and making us tick. Only Cork seemed to be doing that yesterday. It might be a tactical thing from NA but I didn't see his performance (goal apart) as that positive.

The difference is Prem experience both on the pitch and off it and a very different set of early season fixtures - have they played Man U at home, Man City and Arsenal away? Last season we were marginally better than them in the nPC across the whole season and by the end of this season we'll be able to see who was better in the Prem.

Best way to compare it is to look at other Prem club operations and see if they do more / different. I can understand the desire to keep injury news confidential. We get two interviews with the manager and a player each match week plus reports on how the junior teams are getting on. I'm not sure how the ticket office can be more flexible - they are just selling a product or dealing with individual issues - beyonf ticket availability and pricing news that's hardly stuff to engage the whole fanbase with. It would be good if Cortese did his radio / TV interviews more regularly and perhaps we could get more info on the community liaison work that the club does, but other than that, as a supporter, I don't feel any less welcome or informaed that I would expect.

AL is part of the problem in as much as the whole team is part of the problem. He's not been specifically responsible for any of the goals that we have conceded and most have come from individual mistakes by defenders. He's a player who can make things happen so presents more of a threat to the opposition than most other players in the squad. He puts in more than his fair share of defending and is capable of turning defence into attack better than most - i.e. the goal at Man City. I don't think dropping him is a sensible move but playing 4-4-1-1 and moving him into the hole behind the main striker or playing him in a flat midfield four in the same formation with GR in the hole would be worth a try.

Difficult to argue with that for a set up at home. Might be a bit top heavy with strikers on the bench so perhaps JWP for Lee. Away from home I'd go a bit more defensive and perhaps look at 4-4-1-1 with the same back five but then: Cork - Schneiderlin - Davis - Lallana Rodriguez Lambert Ultimately though unless we cut out the silly defensive mistakes the formation we play won't make a shred of difference.

Disagree completely. Our strike force last season was Lambert, Sharp, Lee, Barnard, Connolly. How many of them would you have been happy for us to rely on in the Prem? Knowing that Connolly was leaving and Lee was injured, Barnard IMO no where near Prem quality that leaves us with Lambert and Sharp to start the season. How can it therefore not make sense to spend about a third of our total spend on Mayuka and Rodriguez? We brought in 2 keepers and 2 defenders so half of our total recruits in the summer were defensive. How can you say that the defence wasn't shored up?

For me the biggest positive is that we are scoring regulalry and through a variety of players. You can't win games and get points without scoringso you have no chance of staying up if you are having trouble getting goals. I think it's a positive that our key issue (our defending) is readily identifiable. The majority of our new players have shown that they are better than what they have replaced and can do a job in the Prem. Gazza v Bart, J-Rod v Barnard, Yoshida v Jaidi, Clyne v Richardson, Davis v Hammond. Ramirez looks worth what we spent on him. Mayuka looks exciting and will be a valuable addition to the squad We have home grown young players pushing for starting positions against leading established Prem teams and holing their own when they are on the pitch. We do not have the pressure of being in the relegation zone at present We have a run of fixtures coming up which should give us the opportunity to get our first clean sheet. My guess is it will come at home to Swansea.

I gave one a test drive earlier in the year and the main thing that struck me was the high road noise compared to other cars I'd test driven. In the end I went for a Golf as I've had them before and they've never let me down.

California was one of the best holidays I've ever been on. We were told to drive LA to SF as the views up the coast as you hit the mountains are better. Driving North to South you don't get that. SF to LV is a two day trip at least as you'll want to drive through Yosemite and Death Valley at a pace to take it in rather than just with your foot on the floor. We stayed in Santa Monica, Santa Barbera, Monterrey, SF, Bishop and LV. Monterrey was the only dissapointment and that was because the weather was dull and overcast. Enjoy it, there's loads to do regardless of what you are interested in.

With Connolly leaving we were always going to buy a new striker so the purchase of J-Rod makes sense. Sharp's departure was more down to him being a victim of the change in formation to 4-3-3. Difficult to see him playing as the central striker in that formation with relatively little pace and no aerial threat.

Major overreactions on here IMO. Kelvin's not perfect and I'm sure this season is his last as a No1 for us. It would have been great to buy a replacement in one of the last three windows, but he's been exposed by defensive errors from midfielders and defenders in every game. Let's see how he does against the likes of Reading, West Brom, West Ham, Villa who are our real competitors in this league rather than some of the best attacking talent in the world - RVP, Tevez, Podolski, etc.

If we had played those four matched throughout the season and got zero points from them rather than in the first four games them few people would be panicking. IMO the time to be convcerned is if we are more than 3 points adrift at the bottom after 10 games. Yesterday I thought the real problem was in midfield where Arsenal, especially Cazorla, were allowed too much time on the ball and as a result were able to play through us in little triangles. They obviously have much better players than us in this area of the pitch and so it was disappointing that we didn't seem to have a strategy (or implement a strategy) to counter their fluid play. On the odd occasion that our midfield got the ball we conceded possession too easily and aften in our own half and as a result of both of the above our defence were under almost constant pressure in the first half. The big test comes in the next four matches. We need to pick up points and get a couple of clean sheets. That will help the confidence levels and give some of the newer players the chance to settle into the system.

You could argue that based on us playing 4-3-3 with one central striker that RL and JR are first and second choice while Mayuka, Guly and Lee can also play there, so you could argue that Billy was 5th choice. I don't believe NA sees the squad in terms of 1st, 2nd choice etc, but rather as a group who are each capable of delivering something different. I reckon the conversations was something along the lines of NA saying that he wanted to keep BS but couldn't guarantee match time. At the same time an offer had come in from Forest which NC was happy with which they felt duty bound to tell BS about.

Completely agree. Those saying nothing was done about the defence are ignoring the fact that we brought in Clyne who has been a top performer in each match so far, and Yoshida who is captain of his country. I fully expect him to claim Fonte's place and hope he forms a strong defensive pairing with Jos. In this window we have brought in a keeper, 2 defenders, a CM, a winger and 2 strikers (if Mayuka is s striker). That stikes me as strengthening across the whole team rather than selectively ignoring certain areas as is being suggested by some. To answer the OP, until we see GR play there is now way of telling whether it is £12M well spent so too early to answer the question with any certainty.

The @Southampton Way' isn't new this season. We are implementing the same passing and moving, possession style of football that we have done since Adkins arrived. The formation is a slight variation on last season and some players are getting used to their differing responsibilities but we still look like the Southampton of last year when we get on the ball and knock it around so I don't see the 'big unfocussed leap' that you are referring to. You're right about the possibility of losing players if we go down, but we could also lose players if we / they are successful as Swansea have found out with Allen and Sinclair.

He was excellent yesterday. He tired in the last 15 mins as many of our players did and I had him down as a candidate for substitution when AL was taken off instead. He went down with cramp towards the end which hilights that he is still getting used to the pace of the Prem. he had one nervy moment inthe first 15 mins when he just hoofed a clearance, but after that he was composed andmeasured all afternoon and compared favourably alongside Davis who has much more experience doing a similar role. If he develops as he should then we've got a real asset on our hands which hopefully we can keep.

Kind of irrelevant as Al Fayed doesn't own it anymore.

The main reason we haven't sold out yet are it's August so loads of people are on holiday . We didn't sell out our first game at SMS and rarely do sell out the first home match of the season for that reason. In addition we're playing Man U next week so any fans who needed to be selective about which matches they can attend are more likely to try for Man U tickets first. That might mean that Wigan tix are a fall back plan for those that are unsuccessful and consequently will sell nearer matchday.