VectisSaint

Maybe I will be way off, but I'm thinking that MP won't change much at all. He seems to be one who makes small, incremental changes. We hardly need to rest players, OK we have another game on Saturday, but then a fortnight off. We got used to rotation last season, but to me its more important to develop some understandings in the team. Perhaps put some of the unused players on the bench. Would be good to give McCarthy a game (but then I would like to drop Forster period), maybe McQueen or Targett instead of Bertrand and Boufal instead of Tadic, not much else. Then again maybe he will make 11 changes.

Mason still gave the free kick to them at the spot where Noble clattered Lamina. He must have thought (clearly wrongly) that Lamina fouled Noble.

He was quite poor yesterday, no doubt. Maybe it was partly due to the injury he picked up against Swansea, though you would wonder why he played if he was still feeling the effects, McQueen or Targett could have ably deputised. But why he switched off completely for their goal is hard to understand.

Exactly as expected. The only decision really was Tadic or Boufal.

5d=2p (roughly). Maybe you meant 5s. or 5/-, that would be 25p.

Just means that we won't have to change both CBs the same year, we can move Hoedt on a year earlier than van Dijk.

You think wrong , Sam is not an u21 any longer (he will be 22 next month).

Hard to believe we would let him go on loan to Birmingham. His development would be seriously harmed by the "coaching" of 'Arry.

So actually its not a recurrence, its the other knee. That really is **** bad luck.

Seriously doubt Cedric would agree to a move to Chelsea when it is known that Barca are interested. We won't sell now anyway, so its a moot point.

If he is withdrawing his labour completely he is on strike, strikes do not have to be made by a group, or at least the size of the group can be one. If a player refuses to do anything that is reasonably expected of him under the terms of his contract, which would include training at the club training ground and other PR duties, not just playing, then he is on strike. I doubt that Coutinho is actually doing all of this, just the playing part. Why would he stop training? Unless of course the Club have banned him from the training ground/facility, which would be very odd given that they want to keep him.

You're right, sorry, he was 21 on 1st January, I think, I was thinking it was 21 or under on 1st Jan that season starts. Makes it all the stranger in that case. We now have 2 players over and above the 25 player limit, and both keepers. Clearly just here for the PL2/u23s/FLT in that case. Bizarre.

Just to be pedantic, 8 years and 37 days actually, 8th July 2009. You should never forget that date, its Double VD's birthday (and mine as well).

I think he qualifies as u21 (born 31 Jan 1995) so can provide cover, assumes Gazza is going, as he hasn't been given a squad number. It looks like they have been hanging on until McCarthy is proven fit again. We certainly needed a keeper for the U23s.

If he was desparate to be involved in the Dutch squad he would be playing (for us) right now. He won't be involved in the Dutch games at the end of August, and after these games the likelihood is that the Dutch will be unable or very unlikely to qualify. Quite honestly all this stuff about him being desparate to play in the WC is rubbish - he knows that he won't be playing there whatever happens. The Dutch will (probably) not qualify.

One of the troubles with this particular "stat". We had several attempts that looked on target but were deflected away by defenders, they count as "off target", we also hit the crossbar, which is also "off target". We were so much better today than in most of Puel's games last season (there were a few exceptions, didn't we have 34 attempts against Hull or something stupid?), MP just needs to find a way to get Gabbi more involved, it needs someone playing closer to him (in my opinion). One of the most one-sided 0-0s you will see, nevertheless Tammy Abrahams should have buried us in the first half but fluffed his lines.

We got behind them many times actually, just couldn't do anything with it when we did.

Its not what I'm saying, its what linguistic experts say. Me, I couldn't tell a Portuguese from a Brazilian (linguistically). You don't really think I made that up do you? I checked it out factually and posted it. Anyway we all know now that Mario is Gabonese and speaks French. Don't know about Luigi. Think the laugh is on you really mate

Usually we wait two or three seasons and sign players who have won the Champions League (Bertrand, Hojbjerg, Romeu, Caceres), getting a runner-up may be a first.

Super.

Although Argentina's official language is Spanish, Argentinian Spanish is different from the Spanish spoken in Spain. In some ways it sounds more like Italian than Spanish. :mcinnes:

You'll wait a long time, we stopped the watch business 2 or 3 years ago. Eterna? are not sponsors these days.

That was a bit worrying, it should actually read (froim the English page of the same site) "His father will arrive from Gabon today and by tomorrow the deal will be official." http://gianlucadimarzio.com/en/juventus-lemina-having-his-medicals-with-southampton-the-figures

Not exactly the worst team we ever put out. Jesus, Surman, Saga and Rasiak were decent on their day (depending whether Saga was due a new deal or not). Viafara was OK at times as well. OK some of the others were dire, but sure there were many worse line-ups.

Do the u23s have any pre-season friendlies? Unable to find anything on the OS or elsewhere.