Professor

We ignorant football fans are hardly in a position to question the outcome of a criminal trial. A jury of 12 people listened to all the evidence and to a summing up by the judge and found Evans guilty beyond any reasonable doubt. According to a case transcript on the web an appeal was heard in 2012 which upheld both the conviction and the 5-year sentence. Not only would I not want to watch rapists playing football, I wouldn't want to mix in a crowd with people who thought it was OK for them to do so. In this case it looks like Sheffield United's sponsors take a similar view so any attempt by the club to protect their investment in a sex offender seems likely to fail.

Of course he should move on with his life and maybe training to be a brickie or a plumber might be a good idea. The objection is that footballers are celebrities and as such their behaviour can influence the behaviour of others so he should not be taken back into a position where he might be seen by some as a role model. Rape is too serious for it just to mean a two and a half year suspension from a footballer's playing career.

What a desperate argument to try to justify the unjustifiable. Anyone wrongfully convicted doesn't have to sue anyone as there is a compensation scheme that takes account of the circumstances. But glad to have the opportunity to mention that if anyone is appalled as I am by the actions of the Sheffield United chairman, there is a petition you can sign on Change.org

He has not served his penalty, he has been released from prison on licence half-way through his sentence. And to describe rape simply as a 'wrong' fails to understand what an appalling offence it is. No professional football club should employ Evans because football turns players into high-profile individuals who can be seen by young people as heroes and role models. Sexual crime is particularly nasty and extremely serious but no one convicted of serious crime should be allowed to cavort in front of the public as if the crime didn't matter.

Villa away: W 0 - 2 City home: W 2 - 1 Arsenal away: W 1 - 2 Utd home: W 2 - 0 12 points. But we'll still only be 2nd as Chelsea will win 3 of their 4.

A lot of people have lost interest in the England team. Even the boost it gives Saints' fans on seeing our players selected, went a bit flat when all three who were in the World Cup Squad couldn't wait to get away. But this latest comment by Hodgson makes you wonder if he's up to the job. What is the point of publicly 'warning' players that they will be dropped by England if they aren't playing in their club's starting XI. Its not their decision so why warn them? Explain the reason when they are left out, but to humiliate them in public in advance is hardly the action of a good man manager. I hope Clyne gets a start, or at least a sub appearance, for his own sake, but being an England player seems to have lost some of the gloss that it once had.

The nine games following the International Break in November 2013 were about as 'massive' as this year as the included Chelsea (twice), Arsenal, Man City, Tottenham and away to Everton. Of those 9 games last year we won ONE - drew two and lost SIX (5 points out of a possible 18). That looks very much like a record that can be improved upon this year, and we go into that period with 3 more points than we had last year. If we only get 12 points out of these 9 games this year, which could be W3; D3; L3 we would still be far better off than we were in January last season. The poor run last year came when Artur Boruk suffered a broken hand and was out for 6 weeks. As long as we don't have Gazzaniga in goal in December, I feel we'll be OK and that a top 4 finish is there for the taking. Not easily, because this is a hard League, but do-able.

Its good to see with the Newcastle and Swansea games that we can get on TV even if we aren't playing one of the usual suspects.

Why should any players want to stay at Southampton with all the effort needed here to compete at the top of the Premier League and in Europe when you can have a quieter life in mid-table with teams like Tottenham, Liverpool or Man Utd?

Have to feel a little nervous about whether the run will continue if only because I'm a Saints fan. We were in a similar position at this time last year after 11 games, having got 22 points with only 5 goals conceded, then after the Nov international break, we lost 6 games out of 10 and let in about 18 goals over about 6 weeks. That was while Artur Boruk was out with a broken hand, so events can change situations but even with that bad patch, we stayed in the top half of the table. Everyone talks about this 'tough' set of games coming up, but we are far better placed to get through that patch this year and with a stronger squad than last year. We can't expect to win every game, and we should be prepared for a defeat or two, but this team will be trying to win every game and it seems very unlikely that we will have the meltdown that happened at the end of 2013. We should get at least 10 points out of the next 10 games and very probably more. Even if was to be as few as 10 points it's unlikely we would have dropped out of the top four and with 'easier' games to come should be well in the race. So, nervous, but more exciting than challenging Reading for the Championship title.

It's not often that the victim of a stabbing in the back climbs to his feet and is grateful to the person responsible, but, Hey, Thanks Poch, that was just what was needed......

I can see us doing better against the Manchester and Arsenal teams than we did against Stoke, Hull and Leicester because they are less likely to try to play defensively which may allow us more time to play our own game. Might mean more goals for us.

Mick Channon did in his 30s, but he was probably the case that proves the rule. Rickie was great in his time but his time is past and we have Shane Long as cover for Pelle even before JRod or Sam Gallagher comes back. I think Rickie made a mistake in going but I like to think that Koeman would have wanted Pelle to come with him, even if Lambert had still been here. If he had stayed, Rickie might not have got a regular game here either but he might have stopped us signing Shane Long, so in hindsight I'm glad he went and left us with pleasant memories. I can't see the club being interested in a loan, or what Liverpool would get out of it as he must be of use to them as a squad player.

After this weekend, can't agree that top 4 is not possible. Not just because we got the win at home to Leicester, which tough as it was to get the goals, was predictable but because of the performance of the competing clubs. There's no reason why we shouldn't get results against those teams on a par to the results that less capable teams than ours have been getting. The problem of keeping the team together still doesn't go away though. Players will naturally be tempted by bigger pay packets. Football is a short career and if a player is offered double his wages by another club,.....well, I know what I would do regardless of how much I like my present employer. Perhaps the best hope is that Champions League might encourage a player to stay because it might increase his future earning power and then extra income may allow SFC to increase wages under the FFP rules. But if we have learnt any lesson this year, it is that we shouldn't regard the present staring XI as all being irreplaceable. Changing all XI wholesale would likely have a negative impact but individually, each player can be replaced as long as you retain the bulk of the squad to ensure continuity. In the first game under Koeman this season (at Liverpool) despite the departures he still played 7 outfield players who had played regularly last season. One thing I think we can be sure of is that Les Reed and the decision-makers know better than we fans what went on last summer and will be better prepared to act so as to minimise any similar situation and to strengthen again with more quality players as needed, whether from the Academy or elsewhere.

Thanks for re-quoting the post by Turkish. He's on my ignore list so it was a rare opportunity to improve my education.

Lallana was excited at playing Champions League football against Real Madrid. Wonder if it has dawned on him that he only got a game because Rodgers had thrown the towel in and was playing his reserves to save his first choice players for the Chelsea game. Even when he sat on the bench today as an unused sub, maybe he still doesn't understand that he's now a small fish.

My students might agree but I'm starting to think you aren't really CB Fry as he knew a lot about a lot and not just football.

Could we now have an apology for putting Southampton in the South-East? Last time I checked, the City was still pretty-well smack bang in the centre of the south coast, or Southern England as many would call it.

Sorry JackanorySFC, obviously hit a raw nerve. I accept what you say about the sports pages because obviously you know better but is it not still the case that overall editorial control determines how much space is to be used for a populist approach to sport and that only a minority of the 'predictions' of football transfers actually happen?

Just to continue my anti-Lawrenson diatribes, this week's Lawrenson prediction of 2-1 for Saints against Leicester may be right, it may be wrong but as usual the so called 'analysis' of the forthcoming match bears no relationship to the prediction. Based on the printed comments, a bigger winning margin would make sense and that's without any mention of Saints remarkable defensive record. So no justification of why he has Leicester down as scoring against us when very few others have succeeded. The report on his performance is always positive, regardless of how badly he has done. So against Rachel, it read "Last weekend, Lawro got one correct result from 10 Premier League games, predicting the perfect score in Swansea's 2-0 win over Leicester." It would have been more accurate to say: "Lawro only got one result correct and 9 wrong." Last week, three teams scored 3 goals but Lawrenson's predictions have no team scoring more than 2. They really should give the job to Rachel Riley.

Even Nigel Pearson seems to accept that Leicester will lose but as Koeman has said, once-off games can go either way and every opponent has to be taken very seriously. That's why I'm confident we will win but it will only be a substantial score if some of our players do better at taking the goal chances. Even Mané and Pelle missed sitters last week but I'm sure they will have been offered some advice.....

Its worth remembering that the main purpose of The Sun is to act as a propaganda sheet for Rupert Murdoch's political views. Some readers may already have the same views as Murdoch but the objective of the paper is to try to convert others. To do that, it has to be bought by members of the public because a propaganda sheet has no value if no one reads it. So, it is filled with cheap, populist content, such as Page 3, stories about soap stars and sex or relationships, as well as football and sports stories that may cause people to pick it up to have a look. Truth doesn't matter because that isn't what the paper is about. They just want to get people to open it. Am I cynical. You bet I am...... As for Kane, a non-story, and by the way, the Sun is also wrong in saying it's Koeman who handles transfers at Southampton. RK will be asked his opinion, but transfers are the responsibility of Les Reed.

I appreciate Steven Davis very much but I hope he's not worrying that he needs to score more goals himself as that could affect his contribution to team effort. I hope he's had a talking to this week after the last minute of the Hull game when he could have set up Jack Cork for a better scoring chance but instead of a simple pass, he blasted over from further out. I doubt that Tadic would have done that. Its goals that count, not who scores them.

Any of the ten points could be a thread on their own and many have been but still nice to see all the issues in one document. A comment on one thing - I'm not sure the substitution at Hull of Tadic by Jack Cork can be used as an example of Ronald Koeman's tactical ability to reshape the team mid-game. I'd agree that he has shown he will do that when he thinks it's helpful but I thought Tadic went off at Hull because he'd suffered a head knock, not for a tactical change.

The inclusion of the permanent sub, Rickie Lambert, suggests that England are short of decent strikers. Given his lack of match practice since last April, I'm afraid Rickie would seriously struggle, even against Slovenia but I imagine he's only there as a sub and he is getting plenty of practice at sitting on a bench. If Clyne doesn't play against Slovenia then surely he must get a game in the friendly against Scotland, otherwise what is the point of having him in the squad. He's arguably the best RB in the squad but Hodgson's 'Big Club Fixation' has to be overcome.