Saint_clark

I think Yoshida has been better this season anyway.

Austins all round play has been much, much better recently, very similar to Lambert in fact in the way he controls the ball and brings other team mates into it.

The entire draw? I'll put a bet on it.

Ffs. Yes there was, and although that was just a poor choice of phrase where we finished in the 80s is completely irrelevant to our aims and ambitions today. The game as a whole is totally different let alone the state of Southampton FC.

We had one season of europe (which we got nowhere in) in our best ever season at the time. Little bit different to finishing 8th, 7th, 6th and playing in Europe 2 seasons running. I really don't get your point with the above (well I do, you're trolling - I just can't resist proving people wrong), what do you propose we do? No-ones suggesting we never try to win anything, just that we're not going to be able to hold onto top, top players by paying huge wages and so going all out for top 4 would be ridiculous. Our best bet is to maintain our position, try to improve our squad slowly and subtly and aim to win a cup or two along the way.

You still haven't provided an example of a single club that meets all of Gemmels criteria by the way. One or two separate ones, but not all. As for Leicester, yes they did...and if we'd put our strongest team out in every Europa game and f*cked our league campaign, we may well have qualified two games ago.

And we may yet do the same, are we in the semi finals of the same competition they won or was that the alternate dimension I like to visit sometimes in which you don't exist? WTF is your point with Leicester then? That every single season we DON'T win the league by fluke, we should sack everyone and start again?

I can selectively quote too! And yes, you are.

Bournemouth and Swansea aren't in Europe and haven't got squads worth over £200million, nor did they have 7 years of consecutive improvement. Leicester was an absolute fluke, a one in a million, and you know it. Pray tell, what did they do summer before last that we can copy? Have a squad of players that had barely escaped relegation and nobody wanted, then go back to 90s style kick and rush football? Fantastic.

Worth remembering that Spurs were pretty much exactly where we are now 5-10 years ago, at this level.

Forget sitting back and hitting them on the break, why not play like we did V Everton and Arsenal ffs.

Now, onto Redmond...I still believe the potential is there for him to be a quality player for us. He was outstanding earlier in the season, missing nothing except the final shot. Last 3 or 4 games though he's been awful. Needs dropping to the bench - Sims really should have started yesterday.

Last summer we brought in £46mil altogether and spent £33.8mil, so a difference of just under £13mil. With the bumper new contracts we signed players up to as well. Saints not reinvesting the money from player sales is a myth that's easily debunked. Disagree? http://www.soccerbase.com/teams/team.sd?team_id=2471&teamTabs=transfers Feel free to check out every summer since we got promoted.

Was over the moon when we signed him. Then there was Villa away, then his injury, ever since he has been an absolute shadow of a goalkeeper. Like i said before, we should be looking for better than "makes great saves from time to time".

Jose needs to score there...poor from our captain.

Fuming with Forster right now. Get redmond off for sims second half please.

Forster needs replacing.

The bloke is doing a fantastic job alienating the fans, the youth players with these comments and the first team with the comments about Lukaku and the "we need the summer to make changes".

Not sure about that, up until the Arsenal game Fonte and Yoshida had started all League Cup games. My guess is that those two will play together either next thursday or tomorrow with VVD and Fonte playing at home to Beer Sheva in a must win game.

I really hope he goes to Barca when he does go, then we don't have to deal with him and he plays at a level he deserves. If he goes to United, Liverpool etc chances are he'll never play for one of the big three in the world as he's already 25.

Shame they missed him going past another one just after that at the byline, after he gets the ball back.

Summer no, probably not. But we won't sell him in january unless it really is something absurd like £80million.

We gambled on Rodriguez and that hasn't worked, Long has lost his scoring form and Redmond will take probably the entire season to adapt to the striker role (which I still think he can). Puel has got things spot on so far - evidenced by the fact we're still challenging on all fronts - with the only exception being Hull away. Why oh why we tried to coast on a 1-0 lead I do not know, and can only assume that was him using his experience against poorer teams in the French league who really would be out of it at 1-0. Lesson learnt, hopefully. For me, we really need to be a bit ruthless and call it a day for Jrod. Try and sell him on and get someone else in, recall Gallagher or just give Sims his spot in the squad.

Last time I did Palace was 2005, that Higginbotham goal! Is the Railway Telegraph still overtaken by Saints fans before the game?

I dunno, Van Dijk is usually rested for League Cup games and Fonte plays but he didn't yesterday. Perhaps a Fonte/Yoshida partnership on saturday with our first choice pairing v Beer Sheva?