VectisSaint

And you remember reading this in his contract do you? Grow up, this doesn't happen in the real world.

Don't believe that is true for one second. If it was it would be an absolute disgrace and Les should be dismissed. He is simply rubbish, it is no longer a form thing, he has been like this now for best part of 2 seasons, he has lost his confidence, lost his agility. Not even considered in the top 3 England keepers any more, not that that is a sign of a good keeper when Joe Hart is considered #1. Trouble is it looks like McCarthy really isn't good enough either.

Though Nathan Dyer was arguably as good if not better on the odd occasion when he played there for us.

Efficient and hardworking but not dull. The team were so fit, kept going to the final whistle at full pelt and often nicked a result. But dull. Direct maybe, but none of the backward passing typical of Puel and MP. Yes, Wembley was more exciting than Cardiff, but that was down to the opposition in large parts.

Trouble is that was when Tadic was good. He continues to live on that performance E and a few others that season. He has seldom delivered since and together with Redmond (and Forster) is the main cause of our current problems. We were also complete site in the first half of that game, completely outplayed by Sunderland. Second half of course we destroyed them.

So, we can't drop Forster because our reserve keeper dropped a clanger playing for the u23s. Not much point having a reserve keeper then if he is not going to have an opportunity when our first choice keeper is crap. McCarthy needs to be given a chance in the first team, he can't actually be any worse than Forster, he might be as bad, but will never know unless we try.

Apart from the 2 away games in Manchester, don't really see much to worry about with that set of fixtures based on current form of those teams. Liverpool are poor, Everton are rubbish, Bournemouth poor, Arsenal poor, Leicester poor, Spurs at Wembley struggling (but we will probably lose), even Chelsea are quite beatable at the moment. Of course things may and probably will change before then, Koeman will probably have been sacked for example. But four of those 9 teams are currently below us in the League. Lining that up as a "lose 9 games" sequence at the moment is frankly laughable.

Branfoot got us to a cup final, having played more games and against higher ranking opposition than in the LC last season. You will of course claim it wasn't a proper cup final because it suits your argument but it shows that getting to and losing a cup final is not really a good measure of a good manager.

Nice Rafa Benitez press conference from Staplewood this afternoon.

Did he? Really. Evidence suggests otherwise, his cross was deflected, it probably would not have lead to a goal if it had gone where he intended. But hey, lets pretend that Boufal is the greatest goal creator since sliced bread, based on one game where he was more influential than most of his other games. Hope he proves me wrong, but on evidence so far he looks like developing into one of our most disappointing signings.

You mean the cross that deflected off the defender back to Long who then set up Yoshida's volley. Hardly the greatest goal set up was it.

Complete freak result. Luxembourg are and always have been whipping boys. Everyone knows it.

But pretty much as anyone with even a passing interest in football would have expected.

Oriol Romeu, 24 when he joined us, Ryan Bertrand, 24 when he joined us. That's our policy. Theo Walcott, 28 going on 29. Reasonably certain it won't happen. Luke Shaw is a different matter, however we have Bertrand, McQueen and Targett, so again unlikely.

Always liked Walcott, but he's been at Arsenal 10 years, never fulfilled his potential, not good enough for them any more it seems, his main asset was his pace but at 28 that will be the first thing to go. Does not fit our profile. Can't see why we would sign him and really would prefer it if we didn't. Yes we need someone better than Redmond, and poor as he is not really sure that Theo is enough of a step up to make up for the negatives. It's a no from me.

Pied missing...

Proposal for change rejected, for now at least.

Would join as part of new PL2 which has been mooted for a while. No way they would join at any other lower level.

Can you be booked for dreadful play? If so surprised we haven't had more yellows this season.

Is it really his first visit? To a match perhaps but surely he has been to Southampton before, what sort would make such an investment without some first hand knowledge. Probably last year but still.

Really don't get why he wants 4 keepers. Never really understood the need for 3 for 2 matches.

The UI poster richargr001 sums it up perfectly in my opinion in his reply to the van Dijk article over there. People reading too much into the comments, which were made before last nights games (I believe). Based on the draws for the groups I think I might have said the same, Liverpool and Man City are most likely to progress furthest, maybe. Nothing to see here other than spin by the Bin Dippers Echo.

Headline doesn't really tally with the content of the report. He was actually asked which teams will go furthest and he said Liverpool and Man City, maybe. Nothing about glory, he is not prediciting they are going to win or anything. Probably thinks like most that English teams will probably get knocked out in the last 16. Man City seems like a reasonable shout.

May also be down to the server error problems. I may or may not have signed, no idea. Bloody useless server error by change.org, but good to know they are "working hard to fix it" (********). [Looks like I have signed after all]

No they haven't. Youth Cup runners up, League Cup winners, used to be consistently top half of their league. Only in last 3 seasons the standards have plummeted, so that we are now not even average.