Professor

If we're going to imagine - how about Boufal plays and gets a hat trick.

Pleased that Shane Long had a hand in both goals, being brought down in the area for the penalty and the second coming from Long's shot being parried out by the keeper. Reports say that his pace was a regular problem for Palace. A goal of his own will come but he is making an excellent contribution to the run of good results.

The EFL Cup is a competition we can do without as far as the first choice players are concerned. If we play a younger team and they get through, that's fine because they get another game in the next round, but if not, it really doesn't matter. This is likely to be the approach by most of the Prem clubs until at least the last 8, if not the last 4.

How does Pope promote the best interests of his City by going public with an issue that he could have asked the club about? From what's been said, would have got a perfectly good reply because minimum wage changes over time and is different for young people. The advert is immaterial as long as the person appointed was paid a legal wage. There is no evidence in that press article that they were not but this looks like a politician more interested in publicity than in the truth.

Fantastic. To think we nearly lost JRod to a loan.

Pleased to see JRod coming on and glad it's been done without taking Shane Long off. Shame that we won't see Austin and JRod together but on balance I think Claud has made a sensible move.

Tend to agree but Puel might also be thinking about the effect on Long that a substitution would do. He needs a goal to get his confidence back and the team need a confident Long. He can't score if he's not on the pitch so maybe with the lead at 2 goals, he'll stay on and carry on looking for a chance to take.

Inter being 1-0 down to Hapoel Be'er Sheva is interesting.

At least Wanyama didn't contribute to the Tottenham defeat. Maybe he should hope that MP keeps overlooking him.

Well said, angelman Agree completely. It's not just Sky but the whole Premier League media coverage which has become narrow on a few 'celebrity' clubs. That the Premier League is not English football is Confirmed by the second rate England Football Team. Having international teams playing in the names and colours of what used to be English football clubs ought to be something fans could reject but we are so wedded to the name of our club that we follow it regardless of foreign ownership and foreign manager and foreign players, few if any of whom share the fans loyalty to the club. It's not just our club that the fans have lost, but most other teams in the top two tiers of the professional game.

There is no doubt we should have won that match, so people should not become blinded by the early season league table. Long should have scored from at least one of those chances and probably from both of them. According to the R5Live commentary, if you can give Paul Allen any credit, we were the better team for much of the game despite this being against one of the so-called 'top clubs' at their own ground and we still have Boufal to add to the side. If anyone should learn anything from the game it is Jose Fonte giving away an unnecessary penalty. Watched it on MotD this morning and it was a second lunge, after the Arsenal player had already lost the ball. For such an experienced CB, Fonte must know he made a serious mistake that cost us a point. But it was only a point, whereas Long probably cost us 3 points. So, its not the team and its not the formation, its down to discipline and care by individuals. That is a problem which can be overcome following which the results will come. Wins at home to Swansea and Palace would change the picture. There will be alot of pressure on the players to win those games but we have a squad that is capable. Already, the draw with Watford looks better than it did, after seeing Watford's performance against Wet Spam.

Looks like Wenger is in panic mode. No striker puts away every chance but if Long keeps getting chances he will make one count.

Might have missed that Andy Durman had his tongue slightly in his cheek but it is a serious point. The purpose of an interview is to give information to the audience but if the audience become too bored to listen, the whole purpose is lost. There must be fans who sometimes switch him off as it's to painful to listen. Thing is, do the players switch off as well during training lectures? Is Puel taking English lessons or is he just hoping to get better over time? It would be good to think he was taking steps to improve his communication skills. In the meantime, Eric Black sharing the interviews would help, as presumably he already does in speaking to the players.

Lawrenson's opinions are of such little value and little interest that I'm only surprised the BBC carried on paying him after they let the other dinosaur, the Scottish one, go into oblivion. The BBC has subtly insulted Lawrenson by pitching his football prediction skills against so-called celebrities who have little and usually no, football background, and even then these random people prove to be better at it than he is!

Dom Gape is a talented sportsman for whom football might not have been his only option but now at the age of 21 this is his committed career. The news about him being loaned to Wycombe was on the OS on 31 Aug and suggests that his chance of staying in the First Team squad here might have gone, but players can continue to develop well into their 20s. Jamie Vardy, for example, was moving from Halifax to Fleetwood, in the Conference Premier when he was 24 and a year later was in the Championship with Leicester. As all Saints' fans know, Jose Fonte is one of our best examples of late development. It might yet be premature to write Dom Gape off if he can stand out during this loan spell. At the moment, after 6 games, Wykeham are struggling at the foot of the L2 table so you have to wonder if this will be the best place for him to show what he can do. He has made his first appearance for The Chairboys, coming on as a second half sub in the 4-1 defeat by Luton on Saturday but it is a shame that our people couldn't find somewhere more promising for him to go to. The loan is until January, so at least he isn't committed to a struggling team for the whole season.

1. Predicted 2. Meltdown 3. Did 4. Not 5. Happen

Its quite obvious that the decisions on Mané and Wanyama were forced on the club by the players and by the huge fee for Mané. The decision on Pellé reaching the end of his career was anticipated before Koeman left with the purchase of Charlie Austin. It doesn't make sense to try to blame Puel for everything just to bolster an anti-manager feeling after three games where the results could easily have been different. Can't really see the club sacking Puel over the playing system but it does look as if he needs to show more flexibility. Didn't he do that towards the end of the Sunderland game with three strikers on the pitch? But I thought that in taking off Tadic he removed our best player on the day. Perhaps Les Reed will be making suggestions to him after three disappointing results and I'd expect him to responds to any advice from above. Having said this, I wouldn't mind him being replaced just to get rid of those boring interviews.

A good example that in football just one or two individual incidents often determine the result. On another day, we could have been 2 goals up by half time and on yet another day, Jose wouldn't have given away the penalty. The game did show that we have a great choice of attacking formations with four very good front players backed up by Tadic and Davis. Even with Boufal to come, it would be madness to send JRod out on loan with all the fixtures the squad has to cover over the next few months. Just one wish or hope - that Claude is, or will, take more English lessons. At the moment he is taking so long just to say 'Yes' or 'No' that I lose the will to live before he's finished answering a question. There may be a genuine issue about this, that the players need to listen to him and I wonder if his delivery puts them off as well.

His video interview after the signing is very positive. A great asset to the club.

Fortunately, those fans who don't understand why JRod may be loaned out don't have any responsibility for managing the playing squad. This is obviously linked to the bid for Boufal and sadly, shows that the coaches believe JRod is unlikely to reach the club's playing standard in the near future. Already he is behind at least 3 other strikers and if Boufal is in the squad he could fall to 5th. The positive is that the loan might give him playing time he can't get here and indicates the club still believe he could get back to where he was. If they decide otherwise, he'll be sold but that hasn't happened yet. We'd all love to see the old JRod back in the team but at the moment it seems that player doesn't exist.

Although 1 point or 3 would have been good, I can't see any reason to be concerned about the result. Man U are, like we were last year, a top six side but they have strengthened their team whereas the best we can claim is that we've just about held our standard. We lost a player in a key position early in the game and Man U had home advantage. Just a case of drawing the blue line and moving on.

Saints' fans shouldn't be taken in by the over-hyping of Man U players because the media know their names, or that Pogba was massively over-priced for an anonymous player in Euro 16. Looking forward to Saints scoring as the crowd will soon lose patience after that.

Was listening to the so-called commentary on R5Live but have turned it off in disgust. The bias is simply appalling. Shame about Romeu's injury but to be able to bring on a player of Classie's class shows how far the club has come. Confident he will do well because this is just what competition for places is about. Players have to grab their chances. Now to follow it by text without that predictable commentary.

Definitely our strongest line-up. That team can win this.

Very astute piece of reporting by the journalist floating this story, or maybe hadn't noticed that Southampton have a minimum of 6 extra games to play overt the next few months, or that there's only just over a week to go to the close of the window. Presumably has bought the fiction that Southampton are nothing but a selling club and will offload the tea lady if anyone wants to bid. Not so astute after all.