Professor

Can't see that a bad result immediately means that new players are needed. True that long shots by Cork aren't much point and that Gallagher wasn't able to put away the chance that came to him. Also, that the crosses were rarely met by effective headers. But the squad does have excellent players and consistently keeps the ball for most of the time, regardless of who is the opposition. Yesterday's team was good enough to beat Cardif but failed because we all know that possession wasn't converted into goals. Surely that isn't because Saints lack individually brilliant players, because they don't. Seeems more likely it's down to tactics, which ultimately is a matter for the coaches. Responsibility for recent results, including yesterday's, should lie with MP and his coaching staff. If they can work out what they are doing wrong in the instructions they are giving the players, its likely we already have the players to do the job with just 2 or, maybe 3, in close season to improve the weaker spots. Verdict on MP: great manager but can still do better and needs to.

The OS is referring to "an offside-looking goal at the start of first-half stoppage time...". If a player looks offside when the ball is played to him, its because he IS offside. Is the OS afraid of pointing out a referee's mistake? Glad to see MP wasn't afraid of saying what he thought about that and about the unjustified penalty decision. But the real fault lies with the FA which allows bad refereeing to go unchallenged, cheating players to continue to cheat, and which tries to gag criticism by fining managers for pointing out the mistakes. For the penalty, regardless of whether Fonte should have anticipated the Man City forward would dive, the fact is Fonte did not commit a foul and the player cheated. The cheating continued through the game with eventually a Man City player being "warned" with a yellow card. In most other sports, cheats are severely punished and are banned from competing. Snooker and Cycling are just two examples. As long as cheats can get away with cheating in football, it will carry on. There is a sickness in this game and its cause is money.

If defenders are supposed to know that strikers will dive and alter their play to allow for anticipated cheating, isn't it also within the wit of referees that they might also look for cheating and not allow themselves to be conned.

Maybe you've heard too many commentators saying that contact plus falling down = penalty. That is not what the laws of the game say. Fonte lifted his foot, but he didn't actually commit a foul and anywhere else on the pitch, play would have gone on. Being in the area makes no difference if a foul is not committed.

As it happens, the result didn't matter to us and you can't feel too bad about your team losing to cheats.

The penalty given to Man City for the dive was disgusting as was the offside goal. These match officials are paid professionals but they display incompetence that would lose a person their job in any other walk of life. Wait for the apologies from the Professional Referees body, but don't hold your breath...../

Diving in the penalty area has been the scourge of football for at least 40 years and yet the administrators and the referees allow it to continue. Yet another game ruined by a bad referee decision. But when you hear commentators like Michael Owen, who should know better, suggesting penalties depend on (a) contact and (b) the player 'going down', it seems the game has lost sight of what is and what is not a foul. Contact is NOT a foul as contact involves BOTH players.

Are we really so desperate that we want points by any means, including technicalities. It was a fair game and the player was employed by Sunderland. The need for international clearance when one of your own players comes back from a loan seems bizarre but it is a rule and Sunderland have been punished for the oversight. Let's leave the arguing about technicalities to people like Mourinho who don't really care about a fair game at all.

It is worrying that after all this time, too many people still believe the fiction that masquerades as 'news' in the propaganda sheets that masquerade as newspapers. The only role of so-called sports reports in papers such as The Mail, The Sun, etc., and on pay-to-view TV channels, is to attract readers or subscribers who might then happen to see some of the other biased rubbish that is there to try to influence public opinion towards the prejudiced views of their wealthy owners. If you are going to publish propaganda you have to get people to read the propaganda sheet and that is the role of the sports pages, celeb lifestyles and salacious sex stories. Cynical? Moi? Shaw is on a long contract and has repeatedly said he intends to stay at Southampton for the foreseeable future. The stories to the contrary are intended to attract attention and readers, but the writers are careful not to quote any foundation or any source. They can't because there isn't any.

Sad to see so many pessimistic posts over the Man C game. It is natural to worry that your team won't win - you can see similar worries on the Man City message board but being realistic, we have a very capable, very fit and very motivated set of players who have been coached to play at a high standard. It's hard to imagine City being any faster or more technically adept than were Spurs in last week's game but against that play, Saints went 2-0 up and lost mainly due to a fortunate goal for Spurs that changed the game. A push on Lovren and a missed kick by Clyne were the cause then, and of course similar things can happen on Saturday, but equally they can happen to the opposition. With two very good teams, which both Man C and Saints are, the result can go either way, but this is a winnable game if only because they will be under the greater pressure.

Amusing to see Man City 'fans' picking their preferred eleven and hardly noticing the irony of not a single Manchester player amongst them. Joe Hart, from Shrewsbury is likely to be the only English player in a team turning out in the shirts of what used to be an English football club and hardly even bothering to pretend that it still is. Message to Man City fans - you are supporting a foreign club with a foreign team, so why do its the results matter.....?.

Never been a Lineker fan with his scripted one-liners and his attempts at clowning on crisps adverts but he was a very good footballer in his day and as a Saints' fan I do admire the amount of praise he gives our club.

The name MOTD should have been updated years ago. It is a Premier League 'Highlights' programme, whereas at one time it just concentrated on one game and little else. These days, showing all the games, it must focus on matches where the outcome has maximum meaning. So, the crucial game for 8th place in the table, a genuine 6-pointer, should have been one of the first matches most viewers would be looking out for...

Depressing to see Alan Pardew presiding over a team with more than its fair share of thugs.

Going from 2-0 to 2-1 was due to (a) Lovren being pushed off the ball. Ref decided it wasn't a foul but that was hardly a failure by Lovren, or the defence as a whole. Then (b), as the cross went through the area, Clyne missed his kick, which allowed the ball to reach Eriksen who scored an easy goal. That goal changed the game but it doesn't mean the team or the coaches were at fault, only that if those two incidents hadn't happened, neither would the goal. Tottenham played most of that game at 100 miles an hour and Saints did exceptionally well to compete with them. The result could have gone either way, and if Shaw had scored when he had a chance from the edge of the area in the way that Sigurdsson did later, it could have been 3-2 to us. Maybe there was also an element of Tottenham having something to play for, whereas for us, the season has been effectively over for some weeks, with the only question being whether we finish 9th or 8th. Not a lot of incentive about that.

One proud fact about the present Saints' squad is that we have no player who has played in the Prem for anyone other that Southampton. Let's keep it like that. Players brought into the first team this year will be further improved by next season and we have several more potential additions to the first team squad from the Development squad. If that does leave a need for a specialist position, such as CB or striker, I'd rather see us go outside England for quality recruits keen to come to the Prem.

Wasn't the CEO appointment just to hold the position until the chosen candidate works his notice?

The widely held view in the Prem League does seem to be that the FA Cup is lower priority. Understandable if your club is competing for a place in the Champions League or is at risk of losing its Prem status with all the money that goes with that, so for Pochettino to use the cup as a staff development project by handing it over to Jesus Perez was understandable, as was the resting of some first choice regular players. But, BUT, that should have changed come the Sunderland tie. Southampton fans could see that the picture had changed with the secure league position and that the Cup was now the chance for a glory season but Poch wasn't able to adjust. For the first time, his inability to speak to the fans in English, so that we can hear first hand what he was thinking about has been a real disadvantage, both for him and for us. Message to Poch? Start an intensive course on the language because we need to hear from you properly come your third season here.

The midfield was certainly one weak point with too many passes going astray. I need to see the vid of the game again to be sure, but I thought it was Wanyama who missed a tackle or lost the ball, that led to the Sunderland goal. Up front, we seemed to have our usual problem creating goal-scoring chances out of possession. Added to that were Rickie's misses and after missing two at Hull, this is a worry that suggests we need to fill the hole left by Osvaldo. My impression is that if Cork, Schneiderlin and Rodriguez had played from the start, we would still be in the competition.

Not that big a deal by Lawrenson. He predicts we might get to the semi-finals but only if Poyet doesn't play his best team and we get a favourable draw in the next round

I thought it was unlikely we would make up the 5 points gap on Newcastle but there we are now 2 points ahead of them, so catching Man U depends on if they keep on slipping up, which seems entirely likely. If we haven't caught them before the last Sunday, I'd be quite happy with a win that day to take us above them. "Happy"? I'd be delirious. I agree with NickG that this season is far from ordinary and with so many young players and so much promise in the squad, there's every reason to think things can only get better.

Once again this game showed that we can usually keep the majority of possession but the there is problem in the back four when Lovren is out and possession doesn't turn into enough goals. If we don't add to the CB stock in the summer the back four problem will continue. Up front IMKO we need a winger who can change a game. Tom Ince going on loan from Blackpool to CP may turn out to be a missed opportunity.

Want him to do well enough at Juve for the permanent sale to go through but got better things to do than to check on him.

Great player with many strengths that Cork doesn't have, but Cork has strengths Victor doesn't have. Overall, I'd agree with the widely held view that Cork and Schneiderlin are the better partnership.

Unlikely any players will go who have not already played for England.