Alanh

Great performance and a great result which we thoroughly deserved. To me it was apparent in the first 10 minutes how the team had several specific instructions which changed how we played. The effort to press their defence has been mentioned here and on MOTD2, but also there seemed to be a no backpass to the keeper rule as just about everyone looked for a forward pass even when the keeper was on. Redmond and Armstrong seemed to have instructions to drive forwards at their defence, with no checking back and slowing play allowed. We were engaging them in tackles about 10 to 15 yards inside their half, which protected our defence and helped isolate their attackers. We looked like an intelligent team - managers, coaches and players - and it was like a breath of fresh air.

I can see a role for Long this weekend. His pace and, ability to compete aerially and willingness to close down make him the ideal player to have on the pitch when our defence need an out ball. We can't move the ball quickly on the floor as we have few players who can carry the ball at pace, so Long has a role if we think that we will need to clear our lines and not have the ball come back immediately. Wolves will expect to have the majority of possession so wer will probably have to be patient and ht them on the break. Hopefully it will be more like Palace away than Liverpool.

Last season MH had a job to do and that was to prevent a team on a downward trajectory from being relegated. He managed that by a relatively comfortable margin in the end, and I don't think that any manager would have done much more given the low confidence and negative playing style that we had developed since Koeman left. IMO this season he has a different challenge - to take us to a secure mid-table finish and to be competitive against as many teams as possible in the league. In the first four matches, we have looked like we might be able to achieve that. The first 60 mins against Burnely were a mess because the team shape was wrong but he's learnt from that and since then we have been competitive, without necessarily winning. It looks to me as though the trajectory of the team is turning from negative to positive so there are reasons to be positive. At some point in the future things will go bad again and it might be time to resurrect this thread, possibly for some of the original reasons given, but not at the moment.

Received mine this morning. Roll on the 12th August.

But you can only name a squad of 25 players so if you sell a couple and replace them with 4 new ones how do you fit them all into the squad? Also we have often replaced one big sale with two new players. Lallana leaving brought us Tadic and Mane. When Mane left we brought in Boufal and Redmond. You're right that if you replace a quality player with someone who doesn't perform then the team suffers but that's an inherrant risk in the strategy which can't be emilinated completely.

Shane Long's got some great attributes for a footballer - work ethic, pace, occasional glimpses of skill/technique, but the two glaring errors from him in the last two matches - the failed flick inside at St Marys and the heavy touch around the keeper at Wembley - pretty much encapsulate our season. We have often got into good positions, but have been unable to capitalise due to a lack of something - confidence, ability, game management, tactics - at a critical time.

CB is a position where the right partnership is crucial. JS and Hoedt is not a good partnership in terms of complimentary skills. JS and Yoshida was better, but still not top end of Prem quality. JS has some weaknesses but is still learning and should improve as CBs tend to mature a bit later than some other attacking positions. At this moment he probably needs a more mature, bigger CB alongside him. Someone to do that job that Fonte did for Lovren and Hooiveld.

Based on the criteria that you have to win one and lose one then I'd lose the first and win the second as winning the second will both put us in the cup final and also give us a confidence boost for our remaining games.

As we were leaving N5 there was a bloke getting quite agitated about having lost his keys. Him and a few mates were heading back up the steps to look for them. Hopefully he found the steward you gave them to.

I remember an interview that Les Reed did a few years ago where he commented that if a club changed managers regularly due to on field failure, then eventually the people in charge of the recruitment process needed to be changed as they weren't doing their jobs correctly if the continually brought in managers who failed. I think that the failure to sack MP is down to Les and his team not wanting to be seen as failures themselves. Its not too late for a new manager to make a difference now - after all we probably only need a couple of wins - which could easily come from the typical new manager bounce, but I guess MP will go by mutual consent at the end of the season regardless of where we end up.

Working for me on Chrome.

It's recorded both on here from a fairly well established poster, and also in the Telegraph piece that Theo turned us down due to our league position. It's also been alleged that a different player who was close to joining was advised by his agent to think again because of our league position. Both bits of information may or may not be 100% true, but it's not just as simple as saying "the club should just go and get X player" as the player just might decide against us. If we had gained about 6 more points this season by holding onto our leads against Hudds, Arsenal and Watford we would probably be in mid table comfort and now have Theo in a Saints shirt.

Last season started with Fonte, VVD, Yoshida and Stephens as our CBs. Fonte's departure and Caceres arrival left us with 4 CB's for the second half of the season, with Yoshida and Stephens stepping up the pecking order, although only three were available to play after VVD's injury. Hoedt and Bednarek's arrival in the summer brought the total up to five with a new pecking order unclear because of VVD's hissy fit and slow reintegration. Now that VVD has gone we are back to 4. Fonte has been replaced in terms of number of CB's in the squad. You could argue that the quality might not be as high as the start of last season, but it is highly unlikely that we are going to see another CB come in during this window.

At the point our player played the ball forward Austin was offside. The deflection off the Arsenal player is therefore irrelevant.

Read Howard Webb's biography. He explains how refs have to have game plans for certain matches because they feature particular players, or there is history in the fixture. Essentially refs are never going to officiate inexactly the same way for every match and all refs are a bit different, but in the UK at least we have among the bets in the world.

In the rehearsal draw we got Arsenal away. Hopefully it doesn't happen again in the real thing.

We won't be selling him in January. We will almost certainly sell him early in the summer transfer window.

Seems to me that there are two schools of thought on how we can best score goals. Firstly we can play the possession game, have the majority of the ball and try to work opportunities with cute through balls feeding the striker(s). To be more effective at that we need to be more adventurous in our attacking play and possibly buy a better creative midfielder who can feed the strikers. This is obviously our preferred style but to be more effective we will need to trust Boufal to be the creative midfielder and put up with his inconsistencies. Sometimes we won't be able to play a possession based game so we need to have an alternative style - a counter attack option. We have just about everything needed to do this apart from a target man who can cause problems for the opposition defense either with his speed or size (or both). He also needs to be able to score. Long has some of these attributes, but can't regularly score. Personally I'd only look for a target man in January (unless we need a like for like replacement if someone leaves). Someone like Jorgensen at Feyenoord, Smolov at Krasnodor or Bas Dost at Sporting.

Andy Carroll. Great in the air, good shot on him. Perfect for getting on the end of all the crosses that we put in. Doesn't get many games at WHU. Will stay fully fit for his entire time with us. This is a fantasy scenario right?

Have you considered the main attribute a decent attacking full back has to have is pace? Look at Cedric, Kyle Walker, Clyne, Bellarin, Shaw, Valencia etc, they are all quick players and unfortunately pace is the major thing lacking with JWP. He's good enough in some midfield positions when the tactics are right, but he should never be played as an attacking full back (unless in a dire emergency).

There is a pretty clear correlation between what is happening on the pitch and the atmosphere generated by fans. Someone above mentioned the atmosphere being better in L1 and the Championship. That was because we were winning much more and so more exciting things were happening - goals, chances etc. In 2017 very little exciting has happened at home matches so the crowd has less to get vocal about.

So there were two occasions when we might have been able to send a ball over the top which Shane might have been able to latch onto. I'm sticking by my opinion that the match on Saturday wasn't one for him. Other games will be, but not that one.

With 21 players in Swansea's half at the weekend as you say, where on earth do you think the space was going to be created to place a ball over the top? Saturday's type of game was exactly what Long is not suitable for. When we have our backs to the wall and are defending deep Shane is useful as he's an outlet for a long clearance out of defence. Sometimes it works - Liverpool away in the semi - sometimes it doesn't.

Never seen him play but if he is left footed perhaps he is being considered as a replacement for Maya given that he hasn't signed a new contract yet and could leave this time next year.

The hospitality facilities are surely being upgraded so that they can be used more often than just matchdays. Having a facility which is only used about 25 times a year makes no sense. If we provide better hospitality opportunities that can be used outside of matchdays then Saints get an bigger income stream which leads to more investment in the team.