James

Nobody is saying that but you can't deny that he hasn't had relatively frequent knocks, has looked uninterested of late and doesn't score many goals from open play at all...

Very disappointed. People say we aren't any weaker, but we are. Osvaldo may well be a nutter but he is a class above an 18 year old with 60 minutes of premier league experience. I know we will probably finish around 9th/10th and will probably get knocked out of the cup spectacularly by Sunderland but this is a season where I had hoped we would push on/show some ambition. To me, loaning out our record signing and relying on an 18 year old with no prem goals to his name and only 60 minutes of football in the league does not seem a statement of intent. We should and probably could have signed a stop gap on loan to cover rickie and the fact we haven't tells me we've given up on the season and are happy to attempt to consolidate. If Rickie were out for the rest of the season from tomorrow we'd have either SG or Guly as our main striker for the rest of the season....JRod cannot play through the middle only from the left. I hope SG comes good and I eat my words but that 60 minutes against arsenal doesn't mean I'd potentially entrust half a season to the lad, that wouldn't be fair to him or us in terms of his development. I wonder whether this is what MP actually wanted or what KL told him he had to work with. I hope the former or it'll be an awfully long summer.

Had we had a quality striker?

We had a thread about this literally yesterday....

That's the thing though. Surely there was someone we could have brought in (even on loan) who would score more regularly than an 18 year old with an hour's Premier League experience. Relying on SG is a big gamble.

Well said. SG played well in the first half but I barely noticed him in the second and he came off very early. And as regards that chance, yes better strikers have missed but a team with aspirations of progressing in the PL needs to have a striker that converts those...

Everyone saying JRod can play up front on his own can't have watched him for a while. He is awful there. Love him playing from the left but not up front as the lone striker.

I've just googled him - he doesn't appear to exist...

I agree with this.

Does seem like January is a cost saving exercise. A bit worried that our squad looks so thin now and I'm not as convinced as others seem to be that players like Gallagher are ready. Appreciate we won't go down but a shame to give up on what could have been a truly excellent season.

Everyone saying we'll be ok but if we had another Sunderland and (god forbid) Adam and Luke got injured long term we would be really struggling.

I will be sorely disappointed if we don't sign anyone and Osvaldo goes. Even with Fox going our squad now looks very very thin.

As long as the out is Osvaldo (it must be) then that is good news.

Based on our last match it should be Gallagher up top and JRod on the left.

Fair enough, just wanted to see if it was rumour or had come from somewhere credible...

Source?

I only meant it in terms of the fact that he is tall (4 inches taller than Shearer) but looks to have good feet for a big man. That's it. He wasn't really on for long enough to draw many meaningful comparisons so I'd be interested to hear how you drew a Shearer comparison....

Exactly, there really isn't much between the two I don't think. Clyne better going forward, Chambers better defensively is how I view it. Clyne probably edges it, but Chambers is hardly 'nowhere near as good'.

JRod is better than Rickie up front on his own? Not a chance. Thank god you don't pick the team and thank god Potch hasn't started playing JRod up top on his own in the League. Against Yeovil it was plainly obvious Jay is not ready to play that role full time.

I actually think Chambers is better defensively, just my opinion. I obviously think both are great, but don't think there is that much difference between the two.

4-3-3? Surely that's more attacking than my suggestion? Our usual formation gives us a lot more stability as you have 2 holding and the ability for 3 advanced midfielders to drop deeper (especially Davis) if we are under the cosh. We also need both RL and JR on as Rickie can hold it up and JRod can give us some relief with our pace. Plus, we've haven't played 4-3-3 this season, it would be a bit silly to start against the league leaders at home....all I'm advocating is to stick to what we know as we have seen we can beat the big teams playing that system. We lost 2-0 at the Emirates but for a large part of the game we dominated their midfield playing that system.

To be fair to him, he did actually play pretty well and made some nice passes and touches. I was surprised he went off but assumed it was because it was his first game back from a long time out. I think he will become a good option from the bench in the League (I know this won't be a popular view).

Boruc Chambers Fonte Yoshida Shaw Wanyama Morgan JRod Lallana Davis Rickie None of this defensive minded business, do that and we'll get hammered. Might as well give them a good go with our first choice XI.

Exactly - he would have never said that we won't give Dani a chance because he isn't like that. We will give Dani a second chance if he is willing to change and integrate into the group, that's what he said and that's what I believe the squad would do if the opportunity/circumstances arose. So he knew what he was saying, but he wasn't saying what Saint Charlie inferred he was I don't think.

Then why didn't he say it? It sounded like he was saying, if he's willing to come into the group that's fine, if he doesn't then he has to go.... That is far from saying 'you have to go, we aren't going to give you another chance' which is what the headline suggests.