Chez

Lemina thinks to himself: that post would be more effective than our centre backs

I think a few people did question the signing of both Ings and Austin due to their injury records.

is Gunn's actually better?

1. use hypnosis to persuade someone to take Forster off our hands... 2. use hypnosis to persuade someone to take Forster off our hands... 3. use hypnosis to persuade someone to take Forster off our hands... 4. use hypnosis to persuade someone to take Forster off our hands... 5. use hypnosis to persuade someone to take Forster off our hands... ...is it working yet?

Yes. Unless we bring in some gems in January, which relies on us managing to offload wages (not idea how we will do that) I just can't see how we can turn this ship around. Look forward to this thread being bumped in May and all those saying yes being hung drawn and quartered for being such pessimistic bastards.

some point out the failings of both. Don't think Redmond has had a free pass. Fans have slated him on here and booed him at games. Not sure JWP has received that kind of hostility. Redmond shows that pace isn't everything and JWP shows that you are nothing if you cant get round the pitch quickly. Combine the two and you have a player.

Interesting debate. I am not into stats. Rightly or wrongly I judge a player on what I see and trust my judgement. The word `effective' is obviously critical to the argument. Ultimately we need forward players to create chances and score goals, so if they are not doing that, then they are not `effective'. There are counter's to this argument. If someone creates chances and his teammate does not take them, does that not undermine his ability to produce a registered `assist'? Obviously quality (weight) of pass is important, so part of getting no assists might be his own doing. I know their are goal and assists stats, but I am not sure I've seen chances created stats. If they exist, how is Redmond fairing there? Like most, I've been critical of Redmond at times. His lack of direct running and attempts to take a man on have left me frustrated, as has coming back onto his favoured right foot (I still don't understand why he is ever played on the left). This season I've seen a change. He looks extremely confident and has beaten so many opponents its not true. It happens so often you almost don't acknowledge them. I guess you are thinking "so what, if there are no assists or goals, what's the point?" and my reply would be that it keeps possession, helps release pressure on the defence, enables us to manoeuvre the ball int the final third without the need to just lump it in a hit and hope fashion. He is a great outlet. Our only outlet. He's become our only flair player. He might not be the best out there, but he's the best we have got. You might regard that as a sorry state of affairs, and you might be right, but for me he's been the only bright spark in games. What hasn't changed is his final ball. It's a bit like Rahim Sterling's shooting in the past - lots of scuffs, under hit, lacking in conviction and full of muddled thinking. A lot of that is because he is often on the left and he has no left foot. At other times there is no one there or they are marked. He tries to thread the eye of the needle too much too. Far far too many crosses never get where they need to. The upside to this is he is getting in dangerous areas, he's thinking about the delivery (perhaps overthinking) and we at least have a player willing to dribble with the ball. I've seen improvement. There needs to be a lot more, but our failings aren't down to him, which is not something I would have said last season.

Hypnotism. Only way he will,convince anyone to take Forster off our hands. Do that and we have a **** load of wages available to pay someone that can actually defend.

They play together every day...for a living. Don't excuse the players. They are not good enough. Actually don't blame the players, blame the scouts failing us time after time.

Bednarek isn't better at all. He just about held his own when hidden in a firman defence, as Target did. Expose either of them in a four and they are not good enough.

certainly created chances, but Spurs were in second gear.

been saying it for a long time, but then again who at the back is?

elementary mistakes at he back,and not clinical enough up front. Encouraging number of chances we are crating, but lots of negative stuff too. Have we won a single contested header?

Fed up,of reading how we can or should let Bertrand go because Target is becoming a settled fixture in the side. ********.

Reed and Matt Crocker being linked to the now vacant Technical Director post at the FA https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/46440109

there certainly are, but that's irrelevant when it comes to Saints winning games of football. What matters is how many starting midfielders in the Premiership are better than him right now? In my opinion it a lot of them. By the way, you can put together a pretty **** Premiership side from players with a lot of England U21 caps (many in the top 10 most capped players), the odd senior cap and plenty of Premiership games: Scott Carson 20 U21 aps/4 Sr caps Keiran Richardson 12 U21 caps, 8 Sr caps Michael Mancienne 30 U21 caps Steven Taylor 20 U21 caps/1 B cap Carl Jenkinson 14 U21 caps/1 Sr cap JWP 31 U21 caps/1 Sr cap Chalabah 40 U21 caps/1 Sr cap Huddlestone 33 caps/4 Sr caps Redmond 38 U21 Caps/1 Sr Cap Saido Berahino 11 U21 caps/4 Sr Caps Burundi Francis Jeffers 16 U21 caps/1 Sr Cap

are there no other managers called Hughes?

The squad he inherited is ****, so he can only take so much blame. I struggle to see how the next fella will get a tune out of this lot.

We have won once against them in 12 games home and away since our return to the top flight. There has been a few years when I thought we had a good to chance to win away at Spurs. The FA cup game in 1990 was one, the game that helped get Hoddle the sack another and anything seemed possible in 2003 and 2014. But if you are honest, getting some luck and sneaking a draw is not exactly an unusual outlook for Saints fans.

more than we got from Everton for Koeman, that's for sure. more than the extra we would have had to pay Koeman, that's for sure.

he also turned down more money from West Ham to stay with us at that time, as I recall, all be it I think he had a very young family at the time and probably didn't want to up sticks. Very little loyalty in football these days. That's about as good as it gets and for that I am grateful. He got a lot of stick during his career at Saints, but he, like many of the players in that squad, played a huge role in getting us promoted from the Championship. How many penalty saves that season? Maybe not the best keeper we have ever had, but players from that squad are `legends' in the loosest sense of the word and forever appreciated. None of that has any bearing on his management ability, but I hope he brings all kinds of luck with him and we sneak a point against Spurs.

Thank **** for that, however, with this squad of players, anyone coming in has a tough job to keep us up.

Nope. This is last year's figures. Probably higher now. I have suggested that our wage bill is too high for a long time now. The parachute payment is £40m. A 50% reduction in wages still leaves us short and who is to say that relegation clauses are 50% drops?

ballbags. Decent save from their keeper. Gunn seemed to move around two much prior to their spot kicks and wasn't `set' right when he needed to be. Not clever.

VAR never seems to take into account like deliberate. It just looks at whether ball hits hand, if yes, then handball. It's ********. It will no doubt help us in the future too.