sandwichsaint

Wot no bell?

Yes every club should keep three starting level LBs in case they are drawn at HOME to flipping WATFORD in a fourth round FA Cup tie..... .

Argentinian Shane Long? I jest (I hope)

Bertrand/Bridge, both super-consistent, one of the first names on the team sheet, rarely go below a 7, can regularly give you an 8 or 9. Big fish = small pond. Loadsa money but (both) ultimately unfulfilled (if marrying a lingerie model can be said to be unfilled).

Apparently last away team to win at WHL too.

OK. Looks like 'everybody' is now entitled to have one free kick at an opponent, you don't have to be within playing distance of the ball, you don't have to even pretend to be playing for the ball, just boot the opponent when you have no intention or possibility of playing the ball, penalty.... yellow card. Really?

The revolution will be televised! ........ (bladders permitting).

I think we're all saying the same thing! 7 points from those 4 games was a challenging target but prob what we need to get us back on track. We got 1 from Watford, we now need another 6, if we get 1 from Spurs we would still need to win the other two to meet our target, in fact we would exceed it by one. Anything we get from Spurs is a bonus but ONLY IF we win the other two games. Hence my slightly tongue in cheek comment suggesting that we rotate this week and then go full on in the other two games.

And there's the rub, all of the sides posted up have more weaknesses than strengths, MP has been dealt a pretty average hand (and certainly hasn't helped himself with his selections/tactics/substitutions). I don't care who the manager is, Guardiola would struggle to give an in-form Spurs a game with what we've got. If we are serious about giving Spurs a game then we are short of a: GK/at least one CB/ a proper attacking mid/a striker and a wide player. Thankfully we don't play Spurs every week and on 'paper' we should be competing with the pretty mediocre sides in the bottom half of the league.

For some of us Kevin Keegan will forever be our record signing. For all the doom and gloom never forget the good times, following Saints will forever be a roller coaster, probably one with more downs than ups, but by jolly, we've had some ups along the way.

Doesn't compute, if we get a point on Sun we would still need to win both the other games in your scenario. Agree we need to target the winnable games, perhaps there will be some rotation this week with a view to putting out our best X1s in the following two games?

Desperately embaressing ... 'some big boys took our ball'.

Has it finished already?

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2018/jan/12/premier-league-10-things-to-look-out-for-this-weekend The Guardian has MP in the last chance saloon, 5 of the bottom 6 have changed managers this season. Looks like we genuinely can use the two most over-used words in football for this one, it's (another) 'must' 'win' game.

Crazy stuff in that programme, the kid with 6 clubs in 6 years. The cage football stuff was new to me and interesting. Good to see that West Ham lad finding some peace in the US and looking at going into coaching, the programme really rammed home (if we didn't know it already) that those that make it are the tiny, tiny tip of a vast pyramid and there are '000's chewed up along the way.

My nipper was at Chelsea a few years ago now, and they had an excellent way of managing parental expectations. The younger age groups were overseen by a real old school hardened ex-pro, asked one day by a parent how long his 11 year old was likely to remain with them he replied, 'Until I find someone better!'. Probably a message that ought to go out to all parents on day one.

Not really, taking one for the team usually consists of holding/pushing/smothering/checking the breaking player, not nice, not sporting, but 'everybody' does it; Schneiderlin was a master of it. Totally different to deliberately kicking a player with no intention of playing the ball. I wouldn't be averse to a 5 minute sin bin for 'unsporting' fouls, somewhere between a yellow and a red card.

I thought it was a red. Not sure it would have been given if Wolves hadn't already been down to ten men though. We only saw highlights, if there had been a series of tit for tat niggly deliberate fouls following the first red the ref is entitled to upgrade to try and gain control and prevent injury to players.

Not so much in modern times, apparently we were 17 from 18 before today's game so guess we have now beaten lower league opposition in the FA cup 18 of the last 19 times we've been asked to. That's a pretty decent record.

Beat me to it, print that one out and send it to Mr Jao (sic).

This has the makings of an attractive game, we have been pretty good last two home games, Leic are organised and counter attack with pace and precision. Can we create chances? Against their defence yes, can we take them? Maybe. Can we concentrate for 90 minutes and shut out quite a potent attack? Maybe if Forster and VVD are on it, will they be though? I've only been to one game this season and not really missing it but would quite like to have gone tonight (doh! tomorrow). Interesting possibilities all round, I'm going for an entertaining 2-2.

surprised we're 13th, West Ham, Sheff Wed, Villa, Sunderland, not in my top 12.

Blind answer, bigger than us on FB Celtic Rangers ManUtd Arsenal Spurs Chelsea Man City Lpool Everton Newcastle Wolves Leeds SFC (not in order) ??????

Has he got a book coming out or something? Just when we'd all forgotten about him and moved on, and found the football world keeps turning in a quite satisfactory fashion without him he crawls out from under his self-imposed rock with the biggest load of twaddle you are ever likely to hear. Of course he had a game plan, that’s not the problem; every referee who ever reffed a game has a game plan; I referee (umpire) at a pretty modest level and I have a game plan on a Saturday afternoon. Where he is clearly BS’ing is in coming out now and saying it was all in his game plan not to send anybody off; that’s not in his choice, the rules clearly state which offences attract which penalty and while he has (lots) of room for interpretation he can’t just make it up as he goes along. The reality is he allowed the pot to get hotter and hotter, which arguably is a ‘good thing’ for the neutral and the watching ‘000.000s (but as stated above, not to the point where his actions eg not sending off players, who should subsequently be banned etc starts to impact on the overall sporting integrity of the event he is supposed to be officiating at). He then found, too late, he couldn’t turn the flame back down and it was no thanks to him that a player didn’t suffer serious injury or his actions provoke serious crowd disorder. In reality he ‘lost it’ big time in what was one of the worst refereeing performances we have ever seen in top flight football. By his own admission he missed three red cards (and that was only the worst offences), there were probably another three if you analyse the yellow cards that were given or could have been given; there was also some pretty unseemly scenes with both teams' benches and cards should have gone there too. He was appointed to do a job of work and he failed spectacularly, to now claim that he had a game plan and he stage-managed the whole thing with some sort of parallel rule book and that he allowed Spurs to implode is surely a bit of a **** take to any sports fan.

Wolves;)