VectisSaint

Excellent, a season learning to play hoof-ball. Not quite as bad as Sam's loan to Arry last year but not far off. Another one who will be nearly 25 before he is given another chance to make it in the Saints first team. How long do we need to see if a player can develop enough? Ought to be in the squad, but unfortunately his strength is in a position that we are already strong. Still think he could have been a useful option in midfield.

Not shown as suspended on the FA site, so it seems it was served yesterday, pity no one looked yesterday to confirm.

Maybe he missed the bus.

Davis behind the striker, you mean his best position. Good at picking out the through balls. It's when he gets shoved in to defensive mid that he is a problem. More.on earned whether he is fully fit.

How about that Reed will be nearly 25 by the time he is given a chance again, he isn't actually in his early 20s, he's in his md 20s, the age when midfielders are coming into their prime (if not already in it). If he is to develop as a full back then he is probably past his prime. This "early 20s and see if they will develop further" argument is simply poppycock as well you know.

This, there is no other plausible explanation. If managers cannot see them playing in our very average, poor team they are clearly not good enough and should be sold, its only fair for their careers.

Don't know, that's why I posted what I read. It's ambiguous.

Cautions are now specific to the competition but red cards apply across all competitions.

Dawdling on the ball again, two mistakes from Wesley Hoedt (leads to Leicester's first shot on goal).

Hoedt giving Adam and Dave the colly-wobbles again, needs something to help him concentrate.

Don't see any reason why it won't be. It would have been last week if Jannik hadn't been ill, [people thinking we are going to switch back to a 4 are being a bit naive in my mind (but we will see). Stephens, Vestergaard, Yoshida, just hope Hughes realises how bad Hoedt currently is and that Yoshida is a far better option. Main issue for me is whether we stick with Romeu and Lemina in the middle, they are both good players but don't seem to be able play together, and together with Bertrand (and Hoedt) were the primary cause of our problems last week. IIt may be better to drop Lemina but its diffcult dropping your best players when they are simply out of form with no really good alternatives available (Hojbjerg is the best we have). Maybe Romeu and Armstrong in CM with Redmond, Gabbi and Ings up front. Would prefer Moi to Redmond but sounds like he is not fully fit.

Its called social awareness. Something sadly lacking in many parts of our society these days.

Stuart Taylor is evidently under consideration :-)

Only if they pay him in Bitcoin

Are they still partners with West Ham? They signed up with them in 2015 for 3 years but there is no sign of them on the Hammers site any more. Looks like fairly small scale commercial partnership. HQ Cyprus, mainly based out of Tel Aviv.

Not making your argument at all. You say that he moved to Arsenal and barely played, which you can see is clearly total nonsense. he moved to Arsenal and played a lot of games. 36 appearances in all competitions in 2014/15 season, how can you say he "barely played"? The three following seasons he played 22, 27 and 24 times, hardly a handful of games. I don't necessarily disgaree with your general point, but you cannot use Chambers as an argument to support it, the evidence is totally contrary to your view. Agree with you that Chambers kept Clyne out of the team, he was certainly considered equal to Clyne by Poch, often picked when Clyne was perfectly fit and available, what MLG says in his post is stuff and nonsense, surprised at him based on his usual pedantry.

No, its Monday, tomorrow is Tuesday.

This is my point, its all very well blaming the CBs, but the real problem Saturday was the left side of our midfield/defence, Lemina, Bertrand, Romeu and to some extent Redmond. Three free kicks that Sigurdsson (sp.) took were all dangerous but did not lead to goals, all were conceded in this same area by the same group of players together with Hoedt. The free kick for the 1st goal also came from the same area and group of players (Lemina forced Hoedt into a ridiculous tackle). They are putting enoromous pressure on our 2 CBs, Cedric and McCarthy, and it is all completely unneccessary, and needs to be cut out. This is the area that really needs to be addressed, stop the problems at source, no centre backs will deal with all of these issues, I don't care how good they are.

Stephens was marking Tosun, and was physically man-handling him preventing him coming in for the cross. Having seen to that Stephens then anticipates the cross to Richarlison, who was Cedric's man (yes, I can understand why people think these two were marking the wrong men but that's how it was) but it was too late to help out Cedric. Think you are being extremely harsh on Stephens for that goal. But then its harsh on cedric as well. As with the first ball, the fault is much further back and stems from poor play by our midfield and left sided defence. The free kick was given away by poor defending by Lemina and subsequently Hoedt. The second goal was gifted by a combination of Bertrand, Lemina and Redmond's total inability to deal with the long ball from I think Pickford. So many of our problems are blamed on our defenders, especially the CBs, but they are being let down time and again by our defensive midfield (Romeu and Lemina) and even dare I say it Bertrand. Our left side defensively is appalling at the moment, good players who are putting in shocking performances, way below the standard that we know they can achieve. I'm nt trying to defend Hoedt and Stephens, Hoedt in particular was abosuletly awful again on Saturday, but to be fair to them the plan had never been for them to play as CBs in a back 4, Hughes was clearly still hoping Jannik was going to play up to the last minute (he was not far away from being fit enough having travelled to the game, separately, and looked OK at the ground) so it was all a bit makeshift which doesn't help. Frankly I was expecting to lose by more than 1 goal/concede more than 2 so in the end it was not that bad, and if Ings shot had not been tipped on to the bar by Pickford things may have been very different. Still don't understand why Hughes picks Hoedt over Yoshida, buit in my view the biggest problem at the moment is getting the midfield and left sided defensive unit working properly, Romeu is completely off form and Lemina is a complete liability, Bertrand is also off form and having Redmond as the attacking midfielder on the left leaves us very exposed, because he provides nothing defensively (the one and only advantage Boufal had was that he was very good at helping out defensively on the left side, usually when he ha d given the ball away). I don't know what the answer is though, we don't have many alternatives, Hojbjerg really does not fill me with confidence, we simply have some players who are off form, and perhaps we have to live with it until they can rediscover their touch.

Not sure what team I would go for. Problem is that Romeu and Lemina are both horribly off form/off the pace and are offering no protection to our defence, and letting in attacks especially down our left side. Bertrand also is very poor defensively at the moment (and not offering much in attack). But who do you replace Romeu and Lemina with? Hojbjerg? Pssibly. Or do we continue to hope that Romeu and Lemina find their feet and start doing what we know they can do. I want to see Targett instead of Bertrand but can't see Hughes dropping Bertie as he is currently the skipper. He could play him left of the back 3 but prefer Yoshida there (why is he not playing? Is there something going on, he is infinitely better than Hoedt who continues to be a complete disaster - but he will improve and one day be good, I'm sure). Austin has to be benched. I would go with McCarthy, Stephens, Vestergaard, Yoshida, Cedric, Targett, Romeu, Armstong, Moi, Ings, Gabbi but I know that won't happen.

The deal, if there was one stalled long before Celtic's European demise.

4 strikers and Long surely. Don't know of any rule that says you can only have 4 strikers.

Assistant Coach September 85 to May 88. Played for the Skates and managed them for a short time after he left us. Died from a heart attack aged 56.

The comment by RedArmy was pretty stupid, I thought the same because I believed what Ralph said was true, but actually on checking Charlie Austin has never represented his country. He was called up for England once (May 2015) but did not play. As far as I can tell he has never represented England at any level. The only other player in the squad who has no international qualification is Jake Hesketh.

Surely Armstrong is a doubt as well if he only returned to training today. Great start, 50% of our new outfield players already injured.