coalman

It's why we've given Manning so much rest since the busy Christmas period so that he'll be fresh to nullify this part of Boro's game and have our most positionally astute defender in the best shape for this key fixture.

Let's face it - do we really want to be reminded that we're playing football again in a day's time? Far better to turn on Sky tomorrow morning and be pleasantly surprised.

That's another argument against the Sport Republic manager recruitment philosophy. You want your manager to be part of the reason that players want to come to the club so you need someone with enough stature that players will want to work with them. And you want players to have the confidence that that manager is still going to be there in a few months.

Proper captain's performance. Representing the team in a positive light to the press. I can see why Spors was so keen to extend his contract.

It's what the fans of other teams feel when they play us

You have to admire Rasmus for running a tight ship. Having completely restructured scouting across the group under his personal supervision he's also managed to completely stem the tide of leaks and rumours.

You don't need coaches when you have analysts. Duh

The data clearly shows that for a 37 second period before Christmas that he was good enough to dominate the final of the Champions League. These kind of bargain certainties don't come around very often.

This is Saints. We'll just send one or both out on loan without an obligation buy and face the same saga in the summer.

BBD will be back in the summer too. A strikeforce of Downs, BBD and Archer is going to take some beating..... Stewart will also have a couple of good games and get a new 4 year contract before promptly getting injured again. Oh what a time to be alive as a Saints fan.

Sadly true. I think we're such a long way past hoping that this time is going to be different that we've resigned ourselves to a saga where the outcome is also the answer to the question: what's the most embarrassing way that Sport Republic can screw this up?

He's missed half of his last 8 so that's a good shout.

4D as in breast size because Sport Republic appear to be a bunch of colossal tits from where I'm sat?

Having Armstrong coming from wide might suit him more. Though if Scienza is out then I'd love to see some kind of involvement from Edozie.

If there's a decent striker available at the decent price that is better than we have and wants to come here we should absolutely sign them up. The same should be true any window though with all positions prioritising the areas of greatest need.

We've been lucky enough to get this summer's signings modeling the new kit midway through the season as the famous Sport Republic player recruitment algorithm goes into overdrive.

This for me. We keep rebuilding around a core of players we know can't step up to the next level. Years of poor recruitment mean we don't have the senior players to build a team around. Just whatever is left after we've sold our best. Armstrong is ok in the Championship. He will bring goals but it's rare he can take a game by the scruff of the neck like Charlton. And that requires the other team to back off and give him space. We know he's no good as a lone striker yet our revolving door of managers seem need to relearn for themselves. Our formation leaves him isolated and doesn't get the best out of him. He won't get on the end of many crosses and is at his best with through balls to feet or pouncing on 2nd balls. He'll run his socks off but we don't press as a team and haven't for some time. We could say this about so much of our squad - we aren't playing to their strengths. He's taken 33 penalties and missed 8 and he's had more shots than anyone in the league. It's not just that he's not clinical for me. Many times he shoots from impossible angles when there are better options. He is supposedly a senior player but as captain he's been anonymous. My fear is we'll do what we did with Jack and renew him because he's all we've got left because we are so fucking terrible at finding strikers. Our inability to recruit in that position means we've gone from Ings to Che to Armstrong to Archer(?). This is the culture we have - sticking with what we know because that's the best we can do even though what we know has been proven not to be good enough for what we want. With a growing stable of not good enough players either on the bench or on loan offering no real competition to each other for places in an environment we aren't playing to their strengths. The argument that we can't do better or he's good enough is just a sign of our managed decline. If we're to get back to the Premier League we've got to have more ambition to that. Armstrong is a hard working pro who has been a good servant to the club but if we have aspirations to be better we can't sleepwalk into thinking the status quo will get us where we want to go.

They don't. It's an average of everyone who has been in that position which can give an indication of a player who may be good at finishing or otherwise. Plus the actual value is decided by a human based on a set of guidelines which is why different sources will give different xG for the same game (as we saw for the Pompey match on Sunday). Even discounting the fact it's an average of averages, the human element means it's about as far from a measure you might use to make real world decisions as you can get. At best it might give an indication whether you were in the game and whether the scoreline is flattering or whether you need to understand why it has happened.

Particularly away - we've conceded more goals away from home than any other team in the Championship.

Armstrong will be out to prove us wrong and put himself in the shop window before it closes. I have a good feeling about this. 2-1 to Stoke with Armstrong scoring a penalty.

Or more numerous. The BBC had xG as 1.66 to 1.11 in their favour on the basis of 14 shots (3 on target) to our 6 shots (4 on target). So while we had the better chances we really didn't create all that much.

Hire a competent manager. Then trust them to resolve the issues with culture, training, tactics, fitness without micromanaging them based on some gambler's spreadsheet from 10 years ago.

I'm a bit sad that Martin didn't get to properly stamp his cultural identity on Rangers. He wasn't there long enough to properly establish the patterns of training, tactics or excuses that were his legacy at Southampton, Swansea or MK Dons. Hopefully Leicester have forgiven him for choosing Scotland over the Midlands and will bring him back to the Championship.