Chez

Delap was and is ****. When they played us last season he was non existant and wouldn't want him back.

Keeping Davies (if he had actually wanted to stay) would have been a no brainer, but Saga was **** last season and does not hold the ball uo well, gives it away far too often and would not be able to play on his own up front. Wages would have crippled us as well.

has he improved since the last time he was here then?

2 pens + McGoldrick clean through one on one. Their first goal was slightly fortunate in that both players went for the header, it hit them both and fell nicely for the Watford player to smash home. The second seemed to be slightly lucky but both came down to the fact we could not win the headers needed. They had the best chance in the second half when Wotton was done and their striker missed when one on one. We lost because we are too small and can't win headers, too bad pens, and missed easy one on ones. You have to make your own luck...

you can't be the better side yet be losing? We were better in that we controlled the game in open play, passed it pretty well, won the midfield battle and looked quite dangerous on the attack. Yes you are right we didn't take our three guilt edge chances and they took theirs, but you can conceded goals and play well you know. I am not sticking my head in the sand, I know you need to defend all types of attack including from headers, but I just wanted non attenders to know that if we could have defended at set peices the half time score would have been different. Second half we were terrible, far worse than the first, yet the score for the half was 0-0. We certainly were not equal to them in that half. They were terrible. We were terrible. Both will struggle. We will go down.

Davies wanted to leave, he had a clause in his contract and we needed the money. I question the price, but if he had it written into his contract that he could go then what the **** could we do?

Mills and James are too small. The same applies to Perry. You have to combine footballing ability with physical presence at the back. We are lightweight. Who is to blame? Who cares. All I care about is changing this fact. Watford signed Ward on loan and last week and today he won absolutely everything at the back today. Why on earth he was not signed in the summer ahead of Perry and Wotton I will never know. I realise we don't have money but what little you have has to be spent right. Look at the loans/signings...Pekhard, Forecast, Pulis, Gasmi, Wotton even Svensson, money or no money I have to question the logic of these signings.

what a powerhouse in the air he is.

for those that didn't attend let me just say that we played pretty well in the first half. Without a doubt we were the better side, but two missed pens and the easiest 1 on 1 missed by McGoldrick combined with some of the most pathetic defending or an arial crossed ball you will see and you have a 0-3 scoreline. Second half was a different story. Far too many players dissapeared and the manager did **** all about it. Why bring on Perkhard with 8 minutes to go? Why drop McGoldrick in centre midfield? Mind you if you are going to bring on Thompson only for him to give the ball away with every single touch of the ball then why bother? I want to single out one player for criticism and that was Ryan Smith. I have never seen such a poor performance in a first half from a saints player in 25 years of watching. Lightweight, slow, poor control, bottler, lazy, casual....he perked up for two runs in the second half but not for long. Normally I like to give players time to settle in but boy what a coward. I said before the start of the season we would go down and nothing has changed. We are lightweight, nieve, small, limited... Davis - 6 - didn't come for much. Might question him for second goal. Decent kicking. James - 5 - I have slated him on here, but he was OK today. His lack of height does not help the defence though. Wotton - 1 crap, slow, crap in the air. Crap. You get the message. Terrible signing and I said so at the time. Sprinted up to take the penalty and grabbed it with such intend that he may as well have had a tattoo on his forehead saying it is going down the middle. Lancashire - 3 done in the air far too often and not strong enough for a CB. He'll get better, he shoulkd be doing so out on loan in league 1. Mills - 5 - again his lack of height does not help the centre backs. Surman 4 decent first half, dissapeared second. Cork - 5 decent first half, dissapeared second. Out muscled far too easy when moed to fullback. Lallana 4 did next to nothing second half. Terrible game by his standards. I keep saying the formation is built around him but if he does not control the game then we effectively are a player doen defensively. McGoldrick 5 - he looked decent after he missed the penalty and was clearlty trying hard to make up for the error. Did nothing second half and is the ****test CM I have ever seen. Robertson - 2 did **** all. One or two decent crosses came in but he was nowhere to be seen. Smith - 1 - room for improvement, but I can see why Millwall were not picking him. Thompson - 0 - appauling. No, thats being too kind. Jan 2 - is clueless. McGoldrick to CM when Gillett is on the bench. **** off. Where the **** is Stern John? No one can tell me Pekhard deserves to be on the bench ahead of Stern.

about 600 Northern based Saints fans go to all the away games up that way, come wind rain or shine as it is the only chance they get to see the side without a 500 mile round trip.

in contrast I went a few seasons back, it rained just before the match and the stadium was empty.

why make a jibe at ST holders?

Not sure how they would do this. Perhaps weekend ST and midweek season ticket could be added as an option next season? Both could be slightly higher per game than a standard ST, but of course lower than individual game prices. By the way you can miss 8 home games when you buy a season ticket and still be better off than buying individually. There are 5 Tuesday games.

who cares about percentages of seats taken? That figure doesn't take into account size of stadium or price of ticket. If we carged £2.50 and had a 10k stadium it would be 99.9% full. Instead we have 32,500 seats and £26 tickets.

no point in him selling his 6% sharehold now. The share price is low, land prices have fallen (*someone please tell me how much the Farm land is really worth) and he has got himself a nice tidy job to tide things over during this rocky period. So long as he can keep the ship (club) above water he knows his investment is safe and gets paid at the same time. What's more when he can see the club is moving forward he is in the perfect position to evaulate whether or not to strengthen his position with cheap shares. If I had £500k tied up in a company I'd want to be as close to it as possible.

is he and will he? I'm far from convinced he is a better player than Lallana and I doubt there is a single supporter that is currently not going to games that will see that he is starting in the next game and thinks `I wasn't going to go, but I will now'. Funny how good these players get when they are out of the side. Give it another few months and we'll be keeping `a MLT' out of the side.

who says they went about things the wrong way?

some might say he stopped the titanic sinking having not been the captain when it hit the iceberg. OK, so perhaps not in those exact words...

the part yet to discover football?

every day of the week. A midfielder that can head the ball. We can only dream...

We are playing pretty much to our maximum with next to no talent to come back from injury. Can the same be said of the sides below us? Forrest for example have had terrible injury problems and have been extremely unlucky in several games. They will improve greatly.

you enjoyed watching us getting torn to shreds by an average Cov side? Each to their own.

What? He's prepared to lose games for what gain? I don't understand what you are getting at. Please explain.

as the original post said each manager has had different situations to cope with when taking over. I'd of thought JP's starting position was as bad as any. No money to buy players, absolutely no money to pay free transfers, the need to sell absolutely anything of value, a squad only just good enough of surviving last year , limited support and backing from the crowd, the best young players already sold, small crowds... Tough conditions, but he could still do more with what he has. The handling of Skacel and Stern could have been a lot lot better (admittedly I don't know what has happened behind the scenes) and a 4-4-2 away from home seems obvious to me. Having no right back is a crime IMO.

I guess the question is, is Gasmi a Pirlo or Kaka type player?