trousers

I'm as perplexed as the next man re: the starting line up, but I'll reserve judgement until I know the outcome. Call me old fashioned....

Why not wait until after the game before getting angry? At least then your observation would be based on reality rather than a possible reality.... Unless you've got your "told you so" and "glad I was proven wrong" cards lined up to play later on....?

Greetings from St Mary's Has to be said, that's a fairly perplexing line up. Either Pied is Cedric's understudy or he isn't. Why shuffle he defence more than you need to just because one player is injured? And the absence of Lemina is a bit of a mystery. The only logical explanation is that he's still not 100% fit after his injury so we're eating him back into the squad....? Oh well, it's 11 v 11 so you never know....

I knew it was a Sunday match but hadn't noticed that it was such an early kick off! Any recommendations for breakfast venues in or around the city centre? Cheers!

This

Away to Fulham

I'd go with with 3 CBs for this one.... ---------------------- Forster ----------------------- ------ Yoshida -------- VvD --------- Hoedt ------- Cedric ------------------------------------ Bertrand --------------Romeu ------- Lemina --------------- ------- Tadic ---------------------- Boufal --------- ---------------------- Austin ----------------------- Subs: McCarthy, Hojbjerg, Davis, JWP, Redmond, Gabbiadini, Long (yes, I know I've not put any defenders on the bench..... but with 5 defenders in the starting 11 it's difficult to sacrifice one of Hojbjerg, Davis or JWP to accommodate a 6th defender in the match day squad. If one of our defenders were to get injured we can always revert to a back 4 or JWP could fill in)

We will get an uninspiring game vs a mid-table premier league or mid-table championship team.

And the Group G runners up (aka England) then meet Germany in the QF....

A quarter final vs Germany beckons if we qualify from the group as runners up. That'll be that then....

Forster Cedric/Pied - VvD - Hoedt - Bertrand Romeu - Lemina - Hojbjerg Boufal - Tadic Austin Subs: McCarthy, Yoshida, Davis, JWP, Redmond, Long, Gabbiadini

I don't think its unreasonable to surmise that Redmond would become an improved player if he was being managed by someone of Guardiola's calibre. You only have to look at what he's achieved with Stirling to come to that conclusion.

The pundits on MotD2 were guessing that Redmond was saying back: "yeah, but I've been told to play this way" Is the there a chance that people might be over criticising Redmond's play? Remember how Pep seemed to get the best out of Sterling when he joined City... gave him more freedom to express himself. Perhaps Redmond is the kind of player that needs to be given the same kind of freedom rather than pigeon holed into a rigid formation. If Pep can see something in Redmond perhaps it's more about man management than the player himself per se. Just thinking out loud.

A bit like most teams that have come to St Mary's so far this season then...

Part of me suspected at the time that it might have been part of a winding time down ploy. He seemed to get a kick on the elbow after he went down and didn't look too serious to me.

I know it's only two decent games but its enough to pull me back from stepping my toes in the "Pellegrino Out" pool. I should've trusted my usual instinct to give new managers more time than a dozen games.

FFS... We deserved a point there. Goal came 5 seconds after the 5 minutes added time. Why do refs wait for a move to break down before blowing up. Gutted. I might go into a dark room and have a little cry Well played Pellegrino.

Poop. 2-1 Inevitable

Get in!!!!!!!!!

Whatever the result this can go down as a good game for the manager. Can't blame Pellegrino for our CBs missing 3 golden chances.

Van Dyke free header! Over the bar

Boufal coming on... for Hojbjerg..

Oops. P.s. why was that a free kick in the first place? Looked like a decent tackle to me

There is a train of thought that says had we scored early doors then Man City would have gone ultra attacking and it would have ended up being a consolation goal. The longer it stays 0-0 the better IMO, perverse as that 'logic' may seem... Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

Slagging the manager off before the game starts is a win-win for the doom and gloom brigade... If we lose they can play their "told you so" card and if we win they can play their "glad I was proven wrong in hindsight" card. Failing that, they can always resort to a round or two of golf. Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk