Dusic

Clearly CB is a huge weakness and clearly most players were awful - but for an experienced player he was so bad its untrue. Easily his worst game for us and he had some shockers a few years back. It wasn't one or two mistakes from him, it was 90mins of absolutely woeful performance. No strength, aggression, effort or leadership from a guy with over 200 PL apps for Saints, who should be one of the players to show pride for the club. Instead he was shown up by Nathan Redmond, who is the one player who could justifyably stick two fingers up to our fans, yet showed the best attitude by a mile last night. Yoshida seems like a great bloke, but that was up there with Davenport, Alan Bennett and Ollie Lancashire for ineptness. Played like he knows his contract is up in June and there isn't another one on the horizon.

I hope not. There are many factors at play and he isnt the primary one IMO.

Depends on the context of the monitoring. If its to get a sense of how the fanbase is feeling then again, the club have monitored forums like this for years. If the club suddenly revoked someones ST for saying that JWP has never kicked on then fair enough. But I doubt it would come to that. I have seen recently on Twitter quite a bit of unsavoury stuff directed towards Owen the guy who does the vlogs. I am not a fan of them but have nothing against him personally but some of the comments made on that topic and to him were pretty poor. And most of them seem to be made by blokes in their 40s and 50s who only see football their way (and often post behind an anonymous account). Not saying the Club will monitor and tske action on those types of thing (its not up to them to govern social media) but ultimately people are responsible for what they post and what they say and someone will always be watching, be that authorities, employers, friends, family etc.

The Club and Police probably already do that. Certainly the Police do before certain matches - its just sensible as part of their planning and has nothing to do with grassing fellow Saints fans but more to do with preventing potential disorder. Besides, a number of people have been rightly prosecuted for abusive social media posts, including racism, so as long as people aren't breaking the law there should be no need for the Police to be remotely interested. If you want to post on Twitter that Vestergaard is ****e then I doubt the Police will be on your back.

Totally disagree re the CBs. They are so limited on the ball and barely try anything more than passing to the full back or the other CB. Bednarek especially is dire on the ball. Not so much in technique as having no vision aside from the above pass. That, and probably a lack of movement from Romeu and Hojbjerg. But the CBs are certainly not adventurous with their passing, and it hampers us a lot, especially at home where the opposition gets behind the ball as it takes us about 3 passes between the CBs before we get anywhere as they each just pass on the responsibility.

Palace and Burnley have had good starts. Brighton playing well but struggling to convert it into wins. Newcastle solid enough but lacking goals. Norwich look quite open but Sheff Utd and Villa seem decent sides. Would think its very likely we will be in the relegation mix unless we have a month where we pick up 10 or 12 points. IMO there are 3 worse teams than us attacking wise but at the back we are probably amongst the three poorest sides, and yet again failed to strengthen this area in the summer. Overall we are easily in the bottom 6. Will be another tight one.

A point away from home against a superior team. Can't complain, we are clearly going to be in the relegation mix again and would expect most of our rivals to lose there.

Very suprised Boufal hasn't started the last couple. He has been our best player for the last month or so.

How do you know he hasn't learned anything from the last three games?

Austin is a ****.

Will be interesting to see if he takes many of our scouts with him. Would imagine in that game many are loyal to people rather than to clubs.

Our CBs, especially Bednarek, are so bad on the ball that it really hampers us. It takes us about 4 passes to move the ball to where others take 2 and allows the oppo to get back into shape. Clearly we have been spoiled by recent CBs like Lovren, Fonte, Toby and VVD but no just for their actual defensive abilities.

An absolute ****show really. How this wasnt addressed in the summer is beyond me and if we get relegated it will ultimately be because of that. Yoshida is so weak (and has never been a first choice PL CB for a good side) and Bednarek so utterly dreadful on the ball. Our most common pass is probably Bednarek to Yoshida, because he just panics with the ball at his feet and takes the easy option. Often feels like they **** themselves about giving the ball away so just put their teammate in trouble instead. Vestergaard and Hoedt obviously havent worked. Stephens shouldnt even be at the club. Unfair to view Danso as a saviour but why sign him if he is 't better than we have. The likes of Evans and Cahill are miles better than any of ours and were available for money we could probably have afforded. Norwich aside, I don't think any of our CBs would get in other PL sides. Worrying.

Yes because we would be ****ed financially given our wage bill and players we would struggle to motivate or get rid of.

Makes sense as Wilson is the most senior member of Football Staff we have, hence why someone 'non Football' will end up choosing his Successor. Probably not ideal ahead of January, but we have no cash to spend anyway seeing as we failed to sell any of the flops this summer. For a team like Saints, getting his replacement right will be crucial and possibly the difference between relegation in the next 3 seasons and staying in the PL.

Sure Gao will be an expert at selecting a replacement...

70 miles vs 30 so not sure thats 20mins. Brighton to Gateick is 40 mins in the car so very convenient. Equally not sure that mid 20s lads are overly bothered by forestry and wildlife. Many would prefer a range of restaurant options and a more cosmopolitan feel. Outside of London only Brighton can offer that in the south (and is near to London as well). Agree it comes down to cash but for most of the last 50 years Brighton/Bournemouth vs Saints wouldnt even be a debate. Now it is.

Interesting discussion topic. Brighton are also building well, already have their new stadium and training ground and are well backed by American Express - they signed a new multi year deal worth over £100m recently. Also have a big catchment area both to attract fans and young players. Being close to Gatwick also an advantage, whilst Brighton is a nice city to live in. Definitely competition and if we were to get relegated and then experience severe financial problems then it could be a long road back. Good competition, certainly.

The "We are scum, we are vile" chant is a low point in the history of the club's support. Especially when sung by teenagers with skinny jeans.

Are there actually lads who don't go to away games because they can't get tickets because they have all been bought by people who go by coach? Maybe for games like Pompey but most others go to general sale so not hard to get hold of if these lads want to go.

No. But clearly for a team that isnt used to seasons where we are one of the best teams in the league, there is certainly a different feeling when that does happen and the season is a memorable one with a tangible success measure i.e promotion. That is bound to generate better support versus an average PL season for Saints which over 30 years has largely been struggling.

This. If you ask people in recent times when they felt our support was better it would probably be when we were in L1 and the Championship. The time when we won a high percentage of games. When we scored a lot of goals. Dominated away games. Were a scalp for the opposition. Had players the fans liked. When we felt like we were on the up. That optimism has been replaced by a sense that we are not a particularly good team and have no clear direction as a club. Would bet when we inevitably get relegated within the next 5 years, the Championship won't be how it was the last time we were there...

Really hope Ralph ditches 3 CBs pretty soon. Quite clearly CB is our weakest position, so why play one more than is needed? Vestergaard almost ends up being a left back which he is totally unsuited to, and the others seem to forget to mark players. We get continually done down the sides of the centre backs because Vestergaard and Bednarek are so slow. They don't like being in those areas. Our CBs are also dreadful on the ball, usually takes four passes to get the ball to the other side of the pitch when many teams would do it in two. A back four keeps things much more simple, which our CBs badly need. Maybe wheel it out at City or Liverpool, but otherwise lets find some consistency in setup and selection.

He is obviously a bit short on confidence as hasnt scored yet but IMO isnt doing a lot wrong. Could easily have scored 3 or 4 this season and then the discussion would be very different. Still feel longer term he will come good, and he still contributes with his work rate despite not scoring.

We could also buy a crap £30m player. Remember Promes...