verlaine1979

Boufal seems the better finisher, so would start him centrally with Tadic on the left, but no harm in letting them switch positions as the spirit moves them.

Good result. Gabbiadini seems like exactly the right kind of player to bring out the best from Tadic. Front three of Boufal, Gabbiadini & Tadic hopefully picks itself once all three are fit.

First half an hour was abject, and neither Davis nor JWP offered anything much first half. Romeu great as usual, especially the nicked ball out to Bertrand before the first goal. Gabbiadini just looks absolute class - movement, technique & confident finishing.

He didn't, he joined us on a four year contract. He's done the same at Liverpool - clearly got a savvy agent.

Blimey, you'd be confident of a win away from home playing with that back four?

Yup, that's the best XI in our squad, surely.

Despite the fact that our goal game from a pass through the middle, with a similar chance being called back for offside in the first half, it was particularly dispiriting that almost every spell of possession in the second half wound up with a pass looking for our fullbacks. The most aggravating aspect of Puel's tactical inflexibility isn't that he wont move from 4-3-3 to a formation more suited to our players, but that he apparently hasn't even noticed what a poor return we've had this season from crosses, and looked elsewhere for an attacking strategy.

I'd wager there's more chance that you have some sort of learning difficulty than any relative of a Saints central midfielder has ever posted on here with a deliberate agenda against Steven Davis. He's just not that good - no conspiracy required.

A good attacking midfielder would have produced more than 9 goals in 4.5 seasons (130 starts). His assist return isn't much better with only 15 during the same period. Sigurdsson is the usual comparison, but maybe that's a bit unfair, as most people are happy to acknowledge him as the best AM outside of the top six. Perhaps better to compare Davis to someone like Robert Snodgrass, who has managed to produce 19 premier league goals and 11 assists from only 85 starts over the same period. How can you look at a comparison like that, with a player who is pretty much the epitome of lower-table/relegation candidate talent, and not agree that Davis is just average at best? This in itself is quite remarkable - usually it's flair players who excite the most passionate criticism and praise, but for some reason, telling the manifestly obvious truth about Steven Davis is Saintsweb's cardinal sin.

The fact that you identify with him so much that you call him 'Davo' suggests you're probably not all that objective a judge of his ability. He's a mediocre premier league midfielder who excels at nothing. Always has been. The only odd thing about him is that so many Saints fans have spent so long insisting that he's more than that, despite the utter absence of evidence.

No we weren't - we've looked toothless and slow all season. We've had a lot of shots all season which count as chances in the football media data models, but since a blocked effort or Steven Davis whacking it into row z count as chances, it's no indication of how well we've played in attack. Which, in case you haven't been watching, is woefully, all season.

Low-pressure pressing sounds a touch contradictory, n'est pas?

At what point does pressing in your own half just become plain old defending? Wasn't the whole novelty of pressing as popularised by Bielsa, Pep & Poch that it takes place high in the opposition half?

Interestingly, if our form over the last 6 league games continues, we can look forward to around 7 or 8 points from the next 15 games.

Which in turn might give a cynic reason to think that rather than a database containing multiple options for every position, we actually have a small folder labelled 'Players doing okay at Celtic'.

What I don't understand is why, when we allegedly have a scouting database worthy of being the centrepiece of at least half of the club's PR output (including claims about tracking multiple options for every single playing position across most of the world's top leagues) does it seem that one of our two main hopes for a new CB was a Liverpool reserve who hasn't played for around six months? It's hardly black box genius to look at the reserve list of top five PL clubs and see who isn't getting much game time...

He's having a(nother) quiet season. Doesn't contribute anything like enough. Cue someone coming on and talking about his lung-busting runs into the opponent's half though. Saw him in possession several times tonight with open space, but lacks the pace and bravery to move more than about five yards before laying off to someone else (unless the passing lane is so broad you could drive a tank through it, as was the case tonight with the ball out to Bertrand). Additionally, can someone explain exactly what he's attempting when he tries those wild scooped shots from the edge of the box? It's the same every single time - somehow he manages to simultaneously get no pace on the shot while placing it miles over.

How Davis managed to stay on in that game is beyond me. Would have been far better of switching him for Boufal and keeping Tadic on, who even when he's having a rubbish game is still actually capable of beating a man and creating space where there was none. Still, no doubt 'Davo' will earn plaudits for managing to play a straight ball to Bertrand in acres of space, rendering him immune to any criticism for our absolute lack of creativity and penetration.

Hmm, looking back at the various articles from when the exclusivity period was announced, it appears that £200m was the original figure mooted for a takeover of the club, but now that it's apparently just a stake/partnership there's actually no indication of what the investment figure would be.

If we want to genuinely adopt the Dortmund/Atletico approach, we probably should be looking to bring in Gabbiadini and Diaz - developing one promising player at a time per position isn't really a scalable solution, as you can see by Dortmund's attempts to buy every promising youngster in Europe.

Would take Davis off for Clasie at this point. He's just lost it at least three times in succession.

Stephens very impressive. Redmond and Romeu also having excellent games. JWP looking significantly better than Davis, who has been caught in possession multiple times already. Tadic has done okay, save spurning a brilliant chance.

Interestingly, Leicester played a diamond first half, and we found diagonal forward passes from central midfield to the wings easy to come by until they changed shape. This was pretty much the same story for us at the start of the season, when teams seemed to find easy passing lanes to the far edges of our penalty area almost at will. So I wonder if our forward passing was more a consequence of these actually being the most high percentage, low pressure balls, rather than us suddenly finding the courage to take a more attacking approach?

Better performance, greatly helped by JWP and PEH putting in good shifts (shooting aside for the latter) alongside Romeu. Seemed to be looking for more pull backs from crossing positions today rather than just tossing in the high ball, which has been so easily defended against us all season. Passing was an odd combination of sloppy at the back but quite crisp up front. Tadic looked dangerous throughout, Redmond did okay (though probably not the most eye-catching ex Birmingham winger on show) and JRod's finish looked confident.

Argh, that's just criminally bad finishing.