James

Boaz but he might be a risk too far.

We played “well” against United at home as well. I’ve always maintained that it is easier to play well against the bigger teams as they give you more space. Ultimately though, their superior quality tells and you still don’t take points. We played well against United and then reverted to being trash. Same here. Watch us lose narrowly to Chelsea and the happy claps tell us that it’s still all ok. Unfortunately draws and narrow defeats against big teams won’t keep you up when you play utter trash against the teams you should beat. Palace, Everton and to an extent West Ham are improving whereas we are getting worse. MP will take us down.

Surely MP is gone after this. Surely.

Agreed. We need a change and fast. Look at Everton, criticised as the worst side to visit St Mary’s in many a year and have immediately improved under a vaguely competent manager. We’ve got an incompetent manager.

But we narrowly lost against City and drew against an awful arsenal...

Something has to change or we are going down this year.

Fail to win this and it’s one win in 8. Whether or not we are improving is besides the point, we are not picking up points. We were far from the worst side in the league the year we finished bottom.

Agreed. In our previous life as a decent top half side we would have put them away relatively easily playing the way they did.

The bigger teams tend to give you a bit more space and can make a very average side look alright. Look at West Ham, a narrow defeat against City (like us) and a good result against the big boys. Is everyone now claiming West Ham are a good side or that Moyes is a good manager? No, don't see why we should claim the same re Pell and our team really.

That was terrible all round. All well and good playing well against the big boys but its these games we've got to win. Got to get something here.

For all the PR guff about doing due diligence and only recruiting players with the right character off the pitch we certainly seem to attract our fair share of babies! As you say, maybe he should concentrate on actually doing enough to be selected rather than making pathetic protests on social media.

Honestly don’t think MP has a clue. Was hoping for him to come good after Everton and then a good performance against City but two poor sets of selection v Bournemouth and now today have made me doubt him seriously again. Large plate of humble pie waiting if we get a result but could see a 3/4-0 defeat now. Redmond must have some dirt on Les Reed to keep being picked after playing so consistently poorly.

Can only assume Pell thinks we will lose today and that we are saving our best for Leicester on Wednesday. Still, we basically rested Lemina on Sunday as well and (IMO) that cost us. If we lose badly today with that line up then MP better pray for a result against Leicester as if we don’t get one this will have been a ridiculous move.

What the hell is that team? No Lemina again is just odd and bringing Stephens into the team having not even been in the squad?!

Had Austin not been injured I think Puel would still be our manager. Thinking particularly of the missed penalties against Man U and Hull which you'd have fancied Charlie to stick away. That said, we weren't great to watch under Puel (much better away from home than we currently are though). I only really wanted rid of Puel for someone better and there's no evidence that MP is any better or even at least as good. With hind sight we should have stuck with him. I'm not sure many who wanted Puel out at the time would have been happy with us appointing Pellegrino.

If we lose three on the spin (could easily happen) we'll likely be in the bottom three. I wonder whether Les will have the balls to stick with MP or pull the trigger if that happens.

We still lost by the same score though, not really sure how keeping City out for an extra 7 minutes makes our performance superior to West Ham’s. Everton were in absolute disarray when we played them, was the generally accepted consensus that they were the worst team to come to SMS for many a year. The fact that they’ve now bucked up shows the impact a good manager can have. Not my job to pick the manager but, the question is, do you think MP is getting the best out of us? I don’t. We are playing better but long way to go.

Must have been watching a different game then, for at least the latter part of the first half Bournemouth controlled the game and we lacked control whilst they passed it around nicely. Barca may have been an exaggeration but they did dominate us. Whilst we are on the subject of cessation, I wish you would cease using the term “pony”.

Mario Lemina might have something to say about that.

Although my initial reaction was that we should have won, realistically we could have been 3-0 down at half time had it not been for a phenomenal save from Forster and a dodgy call from the ref (that he has since admitted was a pen apparently). We are a team with good players that is performing badly at the moment.

The fact that we can make such an average team look that good for any prolonged period of the game is a bit worrying I think. But, as long as we are playing ok for bits and pieces of games that'll be enough for MP (see previous comment re playing well for 25 mins against Burnley at home) to claim we were unlucky to lose/draw.

Agreed. We've got deficiencies in the team for sure but no way we should be worried about being in the dogfight. MP has to go but the win v Everton and the plucky defeat against City (replicated by an utterly atrocious West Ham) will have bought him some time. IMO there's no way he goes this season. If we finish bottom half he'll be gone in the summer and we'll be back to square one.

Not clear that Hoedt is much better than Yoshida yet although he has been decent enough. Very harsh that Stephens can't even get in the squad as a result of us buying him but I guess it is forward planning for VVD's inevitable sale.

Swansea, Palace and Newcastle I reckon. West Ham will be close. We will be far closer to the drop than some think even despite a couple of improved performances.

If the comments should be taken at face value then why are the FA investigating it?