Professor

Always a bit risky to set current circumstances against the whole of history - which 'the most united we have ever been' tends to do. Who knows how united the club and its fans were between 1897 and 1899 when Southampton FC won the Southern League championship for three years running. Personally, I do remember 1966 when Ted Bates got us promoted to the First Division for the first time with Martin Chivers scoring 30 goals. I'd say we were very united in those days, doing well in the First Division and getting into Europe, although I do recall it was a wet night at The Dell when we were knocked out of the Inter-City Fairs Cup in 1970 by Newcastle, of all the European teams you could choose from! Maybe the OP was thinking of the strife during the latter part of the Rupert Lowe chairmanship and we are certainly more united than were then, so maybe more united than we have been since we came to St Mary's would be a very fair statement.

A somewhat pessimistic set of forecasts after the first three in the list but entirely understandable for a Saints' fan. The encouraging thing is that even these results would mean that at the halfway point of the season we would be halfway to 70 points. Last year that would have been 6th place. Whilst 6th place would be very creditable, I feel we can do better than that but also, we do need to win against one or two of the 'big clubs' as we did against Liverpool last year, before the football world will see us as anything more than just a decent second category side.

Even Rupert would be proud of the PR. Excellent video and very nice to see MLT talking about 'our' club.

Looks very good to me. When he played against us he always stood out as a threat and I much prefer him on our side. A good acquisition IMHO.

The assumption by Saint Lindford, that we will lose to Arsenal, Man City and Chelsea would be shared by a lot of people but lets look at how these three teams have done so far. Arsenal have only lost once, to Chelsea, but they have drawn 5 games - with Hull, Man City, Spurs, Everton and even Leicester. They also lost to us in the League Cup. So no certainty Saints should lose that one. Man City have drawn 2 and lost 2. Their defeats were to Stoke at home and West Ham away. So again, not a cert loss for Saints. Chelsea haven't lost to anyone, and only the two Manchester clu8bs have managed to get a draw. So the toughest game but we do have home advantage so at least a draw is not impossible. Three points out of those three games would be quite an achievement, whether by winning one or drawing all three, but if so, the table will look very encouraging. As long as we do beat the lower clubs that mustn't be taken for granted.

Hadn't realised what an important person Chubby Crooks has become. Wanyama "deserved some recognition" for his goal against Hull. What an incredible honour, to be recognised by Chubby. Big Vic will be able to tell his grandchildren about it.

It's true that losing key players at various time is severe test but we do have strength in depth that wasn't there last year, especially in midfield and defence. Even with Gallagher injured, we have Long able to cover as striker. If Pelle gets another card in the next few weeks he will be out for one game, so not a total disaster, and if he can get to 31 Dec without another yellow, the threat of suspension is then lifted unless he gets up to 10 cautions by mid-April. Goalkeeper seems to be the main problem because although we have the same reserve keepers as last year, Kelvin Davis is a year older and might struggle against Premier League forwards.

We have got to second spot by Koeman making minimal changes to the side. New signings could disrupt that so he may want to stick with what he's got, especially with JRod and JWP to come back. The problem is though, that we don't know how good the team is compared to the so-called 'top sides'. We have beaten West Ham and Swansea, who are currently in the top six and we beat a depleted Arsenal in the League Cup but the real test is the 'Big' five in the League: - Chelsea, Man City, Arsenal, Liverpool and Man Utd. Some might add Tottenham to that list. So far, we only have the away defeats at Liverpool and Tottenham to go on, and its possible to see both of those being turned around in the home games. We all know the test isn't far away with those 3 games in 8 days coming up soon. If we aren't on a par with the Big Five (or Six) we won't stay in the top six to the end of the season but until we have more evidence, we simply don't know.

Its been said that the 'dream' of the three deserters who went to Liverpool was to play for a top team. Liverpool only needed to improve on last year's performance by one place in the table, to win the championship, whereas poor little Southampton had no ambition, and if the deserters went, Saints would be losing their best three players anyway. Since then, there is a widely held view that the three Liverpool deserters have been replaced at Southampton by better ones, the evidence being Saints' performances so far this season. But there is another side to this coin, which is that regardless of how well Southampton are doing, Liverpool are not as good as they were last year. Maybe that is just down to the loss of one player, but there is another possibility, that the three defectors might have made Liverpool a less effective team. On the other hand, that theory is undermined because 2 of the 3 get very little game time to the extent that you wonder why Liverpool bought them in the first place. Good thing for Southampton that they did though.

One other factor to show where Lawrenson's focus lies: His word count for games this week included Man City/Man U - 419 words; Newcastle/Liverpool 364 words; Arsenal/Burnley 266 words. Hull v Saints got just 92 words so it does appear that a judgement was made about which clubs the public want to read about and Southampton didn't rate very high. It is true that the Chelsea/QPR fixture rated even less, at 81 words, but perhaps there isn't much to say if a game is considered a foregone conclusion.

So far, the team has done pretty much as well as last year's team had done at this point in the season. Last year, 9 games played, one defeat and 18 points. This year, 9 games, 2 defeats and 19 points. But last year we then hit a very bad patch where we only won 2 games out of the next 10. This year we have the run of hard games coming up but for most of us, the expectation is that we won't do as badly as last Nov and Dec, when we lost 5 of the 10 games. So you could argue that it's still too early to judge Koeman's team against Pochettino's on results, but that we will be able to do so over the next few weeks. We have, of course, played Pochettino's team this year, at Tottenham, when we lost 1-0. Tottenham began by playing at 100 mph and you wondered how Saints could live with it, but they did, conceding just one goal before half time and they could easily have had an equaliser in the second half. It was a reminder that the Pochettino way is all about lots of effort with small rewards and that possession doesn't provide his teams with many goals. Koeman's comments do seem to be a bit of a dig at the Pochettino way and if we do get through these next few weeks with some decent results, he will be entitled to take the credit.

It was indeed and the inquest is currently examining police failings, but it also raised important health and safety issues in football grounds that need to be supported, not undermined. Many fans are young, inexperienced and easily carried away by the atmosphere so that their protection is crucial.

Adrian, 96 people died at Hillsborough in 1989, men women and children who had simply gone to watch a game of football. Football fans need to be protected, even the ones who don't understand how important it is until something awful happens to them.

Recognition by the goal scorer that the chance was provided by the work of the team or by a particular assist always looks better than the personality cult that some players indulge in. Even a brilliant strike such as Pelle's first goal at Stoke was only possible because Matt Targett passed the ball to him in a central position instead of playing it out to a player free on the left. As Rob Brydon would say, "Its a team game" - Oh sorry, he says "It's not just a team game", anyway, you know what I mean....... I'd have rather seen Pelle going over to Targett than climbing into the crowd.

Its not the guessing that annoys me, its the BBC promoting him as their 'football expert' which implies that his predictions will be based on form and experience, not just on guesswork. As a so-called expert he should explain his predictions by linking them to the analysis of the competing teams. Instead he states something obvious that everyone already knows, and suggests a score-line on the basis that if you make 10 guesses, you will get lucky with some of them. This week he notes that Everton, having taken only 2 points from their first three home games, have won their last two games; (he doesn't mention that it was against struggling Villa and rock-bottom Burnley). Everton's opponents this week are Swansea who are in the top 6 level with Arsenal and Liverpool. Lawrenson states some of the known facts, omitting that Everton are down at 14th, only 2 points above the relegation zone, and then predicts a 2-0 win for Everton. Rachel Riley has predicted a 1-1 draw, which looks far more logical and allows for goal machine Bony to pop one in again, whereas the 'expert' simply makes another random guess which assume Bony will fail to score. My guess? He'll be wrong.

Its not a ridiculous rule at all. In cup games, one team is going to be knocked out so if yellow cards didn't count towards suspension for one team, what sanction would, there be? As for Pelle, like players who get booked for taking their shirts off, they all know the rules so why damage the team by acting so stupidly. To congratulate the player who has scored is one thing, but for the goal scorer to make an exhibition of himself, which has become an unwelcome feature of the modern game, is simply self-indulgence. We may lose points in a few weeks time as result of Pelle's booking, which will cast his behaviour at Stoke in a different light and could make a difference at the end of the season.

Seemed to me that both of Stoke's goals in the Cup game were down to failings by Forster. I thought their first goal was a fairly soft shot from a long way out that bounced at least once on its way towards the goal, but Forster simply didn't get to it quickly enough. The second happened because he failed to control his area allowing Stoke a ridiculous succession of corners. On about the third corner he came off his line but got nowhere near the ball and left the goal open. On the corner from which they scored, he was again indecisive. I'm sure Dave Watson will be giving him some advice at St George's Park but this is not the week to be praising him.

The Merson comment looks amateurish. The only way our main striker could not have scored any goals at all is if he hadn't been picked, and without Pelle's goals Saints would have a GD of +9, the same as Man City. That assumes whoever played in his place scored no goals at all either. It's complete nonsense. As for Lawrenson, hot off the back of 9 incorrect results out of 10 last week, he fails to produce any reason for his prediction except that a winning team must eventually lose and he "thinks" it will be this week. That isn't thinking, it's guessing but after last week's performance, maybe thinking makes his head hurt.....

I think Koeman said that if the FA instructed officials to crack down on it there could be 10 penalties a game, but he'll be interested to see if they do anything.

The same logic that Lawrenson has used to predict a Hull win - saying that Saint's run has to end sometime - although in Lawrenson's case he hasn't used the same logic for Chelsea. But results aren't decided on a ration basis. With our strongest defence restored, with Forster concentrating now after his nightmare at Stoke and with the quality and confidence in mid-field and up front, a win for Saints looks the most likely outcome. You can't guarantee it because this is football and we all know luck plays a part, but there is no such thing as 'being due' a certain result.

We are entitled to criticise when a keeper makes errors such as Forster did at Stoke, especially because he is supposed to be England's No.2 keeper and Southampton paid a lot of money for him. Shroppie refers to FF being rooted to his line, but for one of the corners, just before the second Stoke goal he came off his line and was flapping about like a demented jackdaw, without getting anywhere near the ball. Our best hope is Dave Watson, because that performance will not have gone unnoticed and I'm sure he will get some good advice. The question is - is he sensible enough to take it on board?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/foo...uthampton.html The suggestion that he might have any regrets about leaving Southampton clearly hit a nerve. To say he couldn't understand why the question was asked was transparent dishonesty. Sad in a way because he always appeared smart and confident when he was here but now he wouldn't look out of place selling the Big Issue.

All very true but it doesn't hide the fact that we seem to be weak in the Keeper department. Cropper may be better than we know or Gazzaniga may be overcoming his weaknesses but I wouldn't feel too confident with either of them facing top Prem teams. Boruk isn't available and in any case he's probably past his sell-by date. Davis, excellent pro that he is, must be losing the battle with Old Father Time. In hindsight one of the reserve keepers could have been given a game last night and couldn't have done any worse than Forster. Might as well play one of them against Sheff Utd to remind Forster that there is competition.

Good outcome, obviously, but a couple of worries: The slips by Gardos a real shame as it marred his first team opportunity. At CB, you simply can't afford unforced errors. I think it was Seaborne who slipped up against Peterborough and virtually ended his Saints' career, even before the night club assault. Different player, different manager, but you have to assume that Koeman won't have been impressed. Forster has no real challenge to his place in the team so maybe he's too complacent. For me, he was at fault for both Stoke's goals and deserves to be dropped but we have no adequate replacement. Given we have a top quality goal-keeping coach, I hope Forster gets a serious talking to. Stoke were a hard side, dirty really, but we are going to come up against teams who will play as hard and with more quality. If last night was a reminder about the need to maintain concentration the whole time, we might benefit from the scare.

Glad he was on our side and not Stoke's.