CB Fry

If Everton lose away at Palace mid-week, they'll be bottom five come Saturday. I'd imagine the crowd may not be best pleased with their current standing, so if we get off to a good start we could properly rachet up the pressure on Martinez. And rightly so - where they are now is atrocious for a team with a thirty million quid striker on the books. He needs a decent end to the season or he is out the door - he's been "given time" to use the magic phrase and they've got worse and worse.

Imagine telling an Arsenal fan in August that they would be above City, United, Chelsea and Liverpool in mid-April. They'd be over the moon.

But it doesn't really make any difference. If Manchester United lose every single match from now until the end of the season then Liverpool and West Ham and Chelsea and Stoke can all be in contention for 6/7th too. We need to worry about what we do. We haven't been close to being good enough to be above Man U (or to finish sixth) all season - we need to improve, not aimlessly hope that everyone around us loses every match they play.

Liverpool are pretty certain to end the season on a good run to send the scousers (and the media) into hype-factor 1000 for next season. I'd love us to do it but I think they will overtake us with those extra games.

And just to prove I am a hypocrite, I am delighted by Stoke getting stuffed as it helps us in our mission to achieve our first objective of top eight.

Us finishing sixth will require us to go on an unbelievable run between now and the end of the season - with that in mind it's a bit of a waste of time just wishing for the likes of Man U to lose all the time because obviously they aren't going to. We'll need to earn sixth under our own steam. No one is going to give it to us.

That reads like a wind up to me.

Ah, fair enough - if it was Palace then yes they would have only just come up, they'd never managed to retain a Premier League until Pulis kept them up last year.

Yes. It has definitely happened in the Premier League era, and I think I might be right in saying it happened when we went down. Why? I would like Leicester to win the League so quite happy if Man United won today.

I think you didn't actually read my post. I'm quite aware what "to some extent" means, as my reply, which you quoted and didn't read makes very clear. Attacking players will get closed down, marked, stopped, hassled, deprived of space and all the rest of it by better defenders in the Premier League than in the Championship. That's kinda how it works. The rest is fiction in your head. I'd take a team with the strongest central defenders and defensive midfielders from the top flight and you build one from the Championship. My first, second, third, fourth and fifth choice line ups would still be stronger, more agreessive, a quicker and better than the creme de la creme of the Championship. That's what "to no extent" means. Did you read it in my post? As for your musings and thoughts, only a total idiot muses that we would only win one game between January and season end. It obviously wasn't going to happen, it was a utterly moronic thing to even muse but at the time you were adamant it was a possibility. It's only now, now the supreme obviousness of your rank stupidity is evident, and you're trying to play it off as a mere thought. My advice is to listen to me more, I can point out where you are clueless and you can take the opportunity to learn something.

This guy knew what he was talking about three and a half years ago.

How is it "to some extent it is tougher playing in the rough and tumble of the Championship" -entirely your words. Let me make it really easy for you. At no level, to no extent, on no scale, on no measure, on no metric is the Championship "tougher" than the Premier League. Not at all, for any style of football, for any given team, for any match. It ain't difficult to comprehend that you don't have a fu cking clue. But in January you were musing we'd only win one more game and as a result Newcastle could finish above us. Laughable. If you don't want to be seen as clueless, don't write the utter guff you do.

I thought the horsesh it about how "the Championship is, like, actually harder than the Premier League when you, like, think about it" was dead and buried several seasons ago but it's great to see some utter dins on this forum still parroting it.

"Excuses" for what? It's the Gastonettes who continually make excuses for him. He has proven, conclusively, that he is not good enough for us. Not good enough.

The club and Koeman will resolve the situation. The club won't just sit on their hands and do nothing because that's what Ronald did at other clubs so lets just let him do whatever he wants.

Just remind me how many of those managers had a year-long farewell tour. No.

The chances of us sacking him are virtually zero, but that's not the same as the management of the club just bimbling about saying to the fanbase "oh Ronald has got a contract until next June so we'll leave him be until about May 15th next year. Well tell you when he decides he wants to talk to us". You'll remember the outrage about how we were "caught napping/humilated/done over/etc etc" by Toby right? Imagine that. Multiplied by about a million.

It's not about the media, but others are right, it would go on and on all season. It's about players too, it's about planning for the future, and also about the relationship between the manager and the fans. If we go on a stinking run like we have twice this season, what will many fans' perception of him be then? Would Koeman really care if we finished tenth or sixth? Would the players be giving their all for a manager who is halfway out the door? How much of a fu ck will RK give about developing the next generation of young players, and just as importantly, how much of a fu ck do you think fans will think he gives? Players sign for lots of reasons, but one is the manager. Is the next Mane or VVD going to sign for four years when clearly the manager has no intent to? Who on earth would we sign in that January window - why would we give Koeman a penny? This is not Feyenoord and personally I don't really care what Ronald Koeman has done before wiht running contracts down. This is not the Ronald Koeman show, it's Southampton Football Club. I've said the several times, I think he will serve three years and go, but that only works if his last season is not blatantly and unequivocally his last season, he'll need to sign something to kill the story. Strachan was effing murder and than was a few weeks. Imagine an entire season and two transfer windows.

Maybe - but I think as a club we won't let him see his final year out without further commitment. We haven't let any players do that and there is no way the club are going go through an entire season with that much uncertainty. If he wants to complete that third year, he'll need to sign something this summer. Koeman staying on to complete his last year with no commitment beyond is fine and dandy if you happen to be Ronald Koeman but completely useless and counterproductive if you happen to be Southampton Football Club. We won't let it happen.

It's not really a step up, but it clearly isn't a drop down.

We did them a favour by even paying them a fee. There is no way we agreed that. Box of frogs.

It's mainly a match report from a match in the second tier of English football.

Kyle Lafferty scored tonight. So did Lewis Dunk. Can someone please start threads about how brilliant these players would be if only they'd had a chance in the Premier League.

Second class Champions League - even if they win the Champions League they're still a smaller proposition than the big two in Spain and also the likes of Man United. But you're right - they are too big for Koeman.

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