PJ

I’m taking advantage of kids for £1 to take my 6 and 4 year olds to their first game. Hats off to the club for this. I appreciate some fans might not want a load of young kids in the ground. It probably doesn’t help with the atmosphere. But hopefully it helps make my two lifelong saints fans (hard to do, now I live in London)

Thanks! That’s the explanation I was looking for. It’s a crazy rule. It encourages Armstrong to leave the ball alone and hope/trust the linesman does his job and flags offside (if Leeds player attempts to play the ball). That would be ok if we could always trust the linesmen to get it right.

Not disagreeing with you, but why unlikely? Have you seen the replay for the first part of the Leeds goal? If I knew how to post an image I would…

Haven't seen it mentioned anywhere, but would VAR have ruled-out Leeds' goal on Saturday? It seemed from the TV replays that Leeds' first attempt was cleared by Armstrong (I think?) with a Leeds player immediately behind him. Armstrong was stretching to clear the ball, when presumably he would had let it go passed him and out for a goal kick if the Leeds player wasn't there. From the resulting scramble, Leeds scored. Because i've not seen a single comment about this, perhaps i've got it wrong, and the leeds player was being played onside by someone...but i can't see it from the TV replays

I didn’t say he should do that, just that I can see it happening (I didn’t suggest Stuart Armstrong either btw - I think the team I quoted is best on current form & availability). I like Alcatraz, but he’s been a bit and miss so far this season. I’m not even sure he is among our best technical players. Just my view

yep, this. Alcaraz might feel hard done by, as he clearly has bags of talent. I'm not sure he quite offers RM what he's looking for. It wouldn't surprise me to see him become a bench-player for us (when at the start of the season 9/10 of us would have put him in the starting 11 every week).

Surely his agent (and Swansea) will be on the phone to saints, letting us know of the situation. His agent and club will want as many clubs as possible interested…

Even if we get Downes agreed on Monday, I think it's a risk him playing this weekend. He's (supposedly) been off for food poisoning, which must have quite an impact on cardiovascular fitness. I'm guessing he didn't feature much in West Ham's pre-season? He wasn't in their squad v Bournemouth on 12th August. It must have been ages since he played any competitive minutes. Despite looking thin in midfield, I'd not put him in the 11 for QPR...