Chez

We have looked terrible defending set pieces. It has been coming. We are just not very good.

we're dominating, lots of possession, but mostly we go nowhere. Every now and then we almost create an opening. Can't fault our effort, just need a little more creativity. Defensively, we look a little fragile. Get one goal and they might get several. At set pieces we don't ever pick up Mee. WTF?

He held the ball up well against Chelsea, but other than trying hard, that is pretty much the only positive thing I can say about him. He's glacial slow, pretty average in the air and has the smallest engine I have ever seen on a Premier League player ever. He offers no dribbling ability and pretty much no threat. He is totally reliant on someone else laying on a chance for him. Although you can point to a lack of quality crossing, which is fair, he hasn't got himself into good positions IMO. That's one aspect he can and must improve. When he was about to sign I watched all his highlights videos and what I saw was a pretty poor striker of the ball (dare I say it another scuffer). The idea that he might be the finisher at the club (because he has a decent goal stats) is more hope than fact. Most of his goals look like simple, on a plate, tap ins...with plenty of time to set his feet, get his head up etc. the answer therefore is for us to create those guilt edge chances. Easier said than done though. Right this minute, I'd go as far to say that he is one of the most disappointing signings in our history. Not necessarily the worst, although he could easily match Carillo in terms of value for money, but just the fact we had money to spend and in two windows he was the best we could come up with it. I agree with Morse. A complete panic buy. The scout and whole transfer committee involved should be sacked. Having slated him, he will probably score the winner tonight, get the goals that keep us up and score a hatful over a long and illustrious Saints career, eventually becoming known as Sir Tall Pall.

This was/is the problem. We want a player of Ramos or Gakpo's quality, but simply can't attract them. However, why we settled for Onuachu I will never know. Actually I do. He is the archetypical Jones striker. We may have just signed Luton Adebayo and saved ourselves abut £15m.

Is Onuachu better than Che at anything? We had two windows to find a forward that improved us. Have we done that? Selles selection of Che makes sense to me. As does him bringing on Mara towards the end of a game rather than Onuachu.

I don't want to put a dampener on things, but our defence didn't look terribly stable when Iheanacho was finding acres of space and time. On another day he could easily have a hattrick and you'd come to a very different conclusion. Obviously I welcome the results, and we looked good against United, all be it against ten for a long time, but I'm not convinced our issues have been resolved. A good solid win against Brentford, with us offering them few or no guilt edge chances and I may be sold.

I'd say Selles just doesn't have all that much choice but to go back to the like of Che, Bednarek and Theo. The results with Onuachu, Salisu/CC and Orsic/Edozie have not been there.

Out of interest, was that for the Itchen/Chapel corner and is it an Adult ticket? Bloody good value that. A few £25 tickets still available, which is still a decent price.

Yeah that's an interesting comment (were you referring to summer and January windows, or just January by the way?). How does current selection reflect on our scouting/transfer committee? We've signed a shed load of players (15) to be fair, so it's inevitable that some won't be starting. It's also not unusual that a percentage of transfers `work out' too. Six starters and three on the bench out of a 20 match day squad. Not sure if that's good or bad. I guess the quality of player we had before matters. We were pretty shit last season, I think only KWP and JWP were starters that were ever going to be tough to improve on, so if you can't find players good enough to better the rest, you've not done a decent job. Starting: Bazunu, AMN, Bella Kotchap, Lavia, Alcaraz, Sulemena Bench: Carleta-Car, Mara, Onuachu Out in the cold: Edozie, Aribo, Larios (injured), Orsic, Bree, Out on loan: Lis Literally none of the players we have are what you could call `Selles' transfers, so he has pretty much no kind of bias.

such a shockingly bad displaying in every way. Individually, collectively, tactically...just horrible....truly awful. Let's not kid ourselves that we haven't been fucking terrible before, many, many times. But I'm trying to think of a display quite like it. I recall the 3-1 mauling by Reading in the FA cup in 1997 being particularly bad. I suspect there have been some equally insipid and inept performances since then too. Not sure how many have quite reached that level of kackhandiness.

Smart move by Selles to bring him back to the right back position (despite him seemingly happy with AMN at RB) to try and nullify Rashford.

looks the same as he always has for me. Works hard, but doesn't have that genuine pace anymore and without it, he doesn't really have much of an all round game. Not sure he ever did. He's been injured for quite a while, but now fit, he's doing the same things he was before his injury. Lots of running off the ball both in attack and defence. I don't think it has anything to do with him being out of contract in the summer. He's always given his all for Saints. Not sure you can ever point to a lack of effort. I just wish we had had him here when he was at his peak.

we beat them 4-1 at SMS last season. They have then won 3-0 and 3-0, so a 4-1 victory would make things nice and neat and tidy (and really boost confidence for the run in), although I'll take any kind of result.

personally, I missed the commentary, although not the obviously pre-prepared lines and endless stats. I always fast forward through the `analysis' and post match interviews. Both boring as fuck, so didn't really care about that. Would have liked to have seen much longer highlights, but I perhaps the BBC are only permitted to show so much/many minutes of action?

Only about 700 tickets left by the looks of things, so gonna be a decent crowd. We got absolutely stuffed by Brentford last time, but after their defeat at Everton and our draw at Old Trafford there will be a little more optimism about. Despite the defat, it did look like Brentford created chances, so we will need to play well.

Bournemouth seem to be playing pretty well. Fprget this United game, I worry we won't even be good enough to beat them. Fair bit of water to go under the bridge before then mind.

draw would be a tremendous result. The Liverpool game was a just blip. They have been in tremendous form.

AMN isn't that guy. Get KWP back to RB on Saturday.

You think what's OK? The reply doesn't seem to match my original post. I thought my point was relatively clear. He was brought here to dribble and create. If (and I am not sure its the case) he has lost a bit of confidence and stops trying to do that, there is no point in him being in the side. I want to see him go at the fullback every single time he gets the ball in their half. He didn't do that in the last game, but hopefully he will at Man U. We need an outlet and a threat on he break and he has t be that man. I didn't actually touch on his end product. There hasn't been any so far, but for now, I'd just be happy to see him dribble and attempt to beat the fullback. We have got zero end product out of our other attacking wide men, such as Edozie, so it's not as though him failing to get a goal or an assist would be a step backwards. Not attempting to take his man on would be though.

I would be very tempted to move KWP back across to the right to help stop Rashford. I suspect AMN will continue, but not sure he is best equipped to stop Rashford coming inside and scoring, as he has done a fair bit this season. Should/when Rashford comes inside, it's going to be very important that Lavia is already there filling that space, CBs are willing and able to step out and midfield is tracking runners so those two are not torn between two jobs.

Tall Paul maybe, but Sulemena has seen plenty of ball since he got here. One thing I noticed in the last match at least, Sulemana was given the ball in a forward area and rather than turn and go at his man - something he was brought here to do, he took the simple option and passed it backwards. It minded me of John Barnes playing for England. He had plenty of time and space to turn and dribble, but he chose not to. It looked like his exciting carefree attack-at-all-costs attitude that he showed on his debut at Brentford had disappeared. It concerned me when I saw it, as I wondered if he'd lost a little bit of confidence. I hope that is not the case as we need him to provide that little bit of invention to unlock teams.

I'm not certain like you, but wouldn't be surprised. The pain he seemed to be in, not just when he went down, but at the end of the game points to ligament damage and that's obviously very bad news.

I started playing football for Tyro side Warsash Wasps. Their original ground on Church Road used to be an old strawberry field. We used to spend about half an hour before every single game picking up stones. Pretty much every game you came away with some sort of cut. It makes me wince just thinking about the possibility of a knee slide to celebrate a goal.

I don't understand how a guy that scored 29 goals in 43 games before he came us can look to be so incapable of scoring goals for so long. Lots of strikers have a drop in form and confidence, but its pushing on two seasons now. I guess he hasn't played every game over that period, but he's had plenty of games and quite a few opportunities to make things happen or take a scoring chance that comes his way. He looks total devoid of confidence and is pretty much a waste of a shirt. It's such a disappointment. He was brought in as an Ings mark II, but the only similarity is his lack of height.

I can't get my head around it. When a player comes on, no matter how shit he has been before, he has the opportunity to play well and help us win. Why in earth would you not get behind him? Every dog has his day. Some fans are just thick. Even if you disagree with the substitution, you don't boo, you support, encourage or at the very least shut the fuck up and see what happens.