VectisSaint

You mean the £2 million a place nothing games? You would rather throw Alfie Jones in against Sanchez, Rooney, Origi etc.

"Form is temporary, class is permanent". We didn't pick him up on a free because he "is the dregs", we picked him up on a free because he had been recovering from injury and was without a club. Other clubs were also sniffing around (so not true that no-one else wanted him) but it was unlikely that clubs who didn't have an emergency situation, as we did, would take the chance mid season.

We had updates this week. Targett was back in training beginning of last week. Austin back in training Thursday. Virgil (via Instagram) is back running. Gardos played for the u23s, not injured. Pied not injured he was on the bench last week. McCarthy is now appearing in the West End in a stage production of the Invisible Man. Tadic likely to be out for weeks due to nearly breaking sweat.

Possibly something to do with playing nearly 70 times for Uruguay, and his club record for Juve, Sevilla and Barcelona, his 5 Serie A titles, Champions League and La Liga titles. Whether he can find his class again is open to question, but if you think he has achieved what he has without being class then clearly you have no idea, and also presumably have never seen him play.

We've been safe for a while, but is a sad indictment of our season that we will go into May still not mathematically safe. No-one can really dress this season up as a success in any way, shape or form.

Not true. When Cedric was injured the immediate reaction was to send JWP out to warm up. It was quite a while late rthat Caceres started warming up. The memory of JWP's last (?) appearance at RB came flooding back when it looked like Cedric might not continue. Martina will not be here next season (McCarthy will be 3rd choice), Pied will be backup as he already is, hopefully Caceres will be offered a contract next season, as he is clearly a class player and Stephens is fast developing into a top class CB, now showing to be the better half of the current CB partnership. Puel cannot just slot caceres in to replace Stephens (or Yoshida), they are both performing perfectly well (except yesterday for Yoshida).

Could add to our growing list of Champions League winners.

Looked class in the u23 games. I know that's not a great test but its clear that he is still at least capable of playing to a decent standard after his bad injury. I hope he gets a chance before the end of the season, but if he does it will only be because Stephens or Yoshida are injured or suspended because they are not doing anything to warrant them being dropped. Personally hope we offer him a contract for next season as well, he is clearly a top class defender.

Good to see someone talking sense. Stephens is as good as Maguire, and is a year younger. I really think some people here don't realise how good a player we have in Stephens. In another year or so he should be a very good centre back, and if he gets to play alongside VvD next season he will show his quality. He needs to improve his final ball when he plays out of defence, for sure, and he needs to add goals, but otherwise we realy have not lost anything over Fonte (maybe one goal) since Jack came in to take his place. With someone better alongside him than Yoshida he will develop. Clearly the reason why Caceres has not got a game, Stephens has proved to be more than competent, which to be fair Saints could not be sure of when Caceres was signed.

You mean like Boufal, Pied and Hassen.

I see the Beeb still think we play in the green (blue sash) away shirt of last year according to their build up. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/football/39330493 Adam Blackmore speculating that it was Redmond who had the bust up with Puel, either that he was injured in training (unlikely as he is on the bench). Very odd decision, but I guess at some point it has to be done.

He posted today on Instagram showing him doing ball work, so progressed on from the running in the gym, but clearly still a few weeks away from returning to full training.

Nope, Redmond and Boufal. Apparently Tadic is not as good as Gaston. But what is a "dribble"? What is an attempted dribble and how are dribbles defined as successful or not. Seems an odd one to me. I mean I know what dribbling is, but how do you measure a dribble and its quality? Does it just mean beating one player, or multiple?

He's not jumping to conclusions, just considering a real possibility, one that the Club themselves clearly consider to be a possibility, maybe even a probability, given the importance they put on the Derby game. Derby's remaining game is against Chelsea who are very mid table in this League, whereas we have Man City (who Derby recently beat but who are far and away one of the best two teams). Then you have Leicester and Reading below us each with a game in hand, the first of which they play each other. If Leicester win they will go above us and still have a game to play (if Reading win they will be level with us on points with a game to play), a draw would be handy for us. If both Saints and Derby lose the last game it will be down to goal difference, currently ours is better by 2, but with us playing City who knows what will happen. Relegation is still a very distinct possibility, but we can of course avoid it. But should we be scrabbling around on the last game of the season to try to avoid the drop, no of course we shouldn't.

For individual games agreed, but over the course of the season, 22 games this shouldn't be a factor. We played overage players last night in defence, but if anything Martina and Gardos just made things worse. Dropping to Div 2 will have serious impact on our development, because our lads will be competing against poorer sides. It's not all about winning here but it is about ensuring we maximise the development opportunities. Our play had been poor in terms of incisive news which is the aim of the game and with poorer quality competition next season that will of get worse. Hunter and Fleming need to be replaced, maybe Jahdi as well. The Academy structure needs to be examined and action taken.

It is nonsense, in as much as it is plainly wrong. Forget JWP he has been an established first-teamer for a few years now and I don't think Ronald was referring to him. But Jack Stephens has been a regular now for best part of half a season. Sam McQueen has played quite often including recently when Bertrand was injured. Matt Targett was a regular until his injury. Josh Sims has been in the team quite often. So his statement is nonsense. BUT, he is also right that our Academy is not producing good enough players. On the evidence of last night and a few other games there is not much coming through and the teams are not performing well. Slattery looks a good prospect, as does Valery (though he was injured last night), and Alfie Jones will be good enough in a few years. The new kid Tella looked very promising, but otherwise difficult to see any new prospects (and I include Reed here who really is not showing evidence of progressing, might be controversial view on here). It is time that Saints looked hard at the Academy and stopped resting on our laurels, we are not finding and developing the players like we used to under Prost, and it is probably time to move on from the current u23 and u18 management teams, specifically Hunter and Fleming. There was evidence last season that they were not good enough and this season we seem to have regressed further. Its hard to imagine that our famed Academy (u23 side) could be relegated to the 2nd division next season, we should have players and a team capable of mixing it with the elite group.

Not good result for the u23s tonight. Need to get something against Man City on the last day to avoid relegation. Better team, no cutting edge. Gardos and Martina showing why they need to be moved on in the Summer. New lad Tella looked very good when he came on 2nd half, but otherwise not much positive to report.

It goes way back before then. When I first started going to games (1967) Spurs were our "rivals" (I know some people have a problem with that term but they were proper rivals in the footballing sense, not because they were local). I always assumed it went back to the Southen League days but as I am not quite that old I can't be sure. The dislike for Spurs goes much deeper than what came later with Pompey, we used to quite like Pompey (though we did always stand in the away end at Nottarf Krap). So those who think it would be a good thing to have Spurs beat Chelsea under any circumstances is really quite difficult to stomach for those of us with a bit more history. Mind you we used to dislike Chelsea as well.

Tom Jenkins used to get a lot of abuse as well. Even Mick Channon did in his early days. McCann wasn't the worst by a long way, should have been decent, he was good before he joined, just didn't work out.

Excellent, another non-scoring midfielder.

Except you missed Exeter.

That would be the same Sam G who was described by a Rovers supporter on Twitter as the one who has not won a header in 6 months. Sam did well in the early part of the season but has not done much this year until today.

Unless he actually scored a goal as well, that's not possible.

Not much in there actually written by Crook, most of the article appears to be quotes attributed to Cedric.

It really isn't something to argue about o rdiscuss. It is a fact that Academy includes under 18s, and Jack played for us in the u18s (he was 17 when he signed), ergo he is a product of our academy. He is also a product of Plymouth's academy. These are facts. Theo was a product of Swindon's youth system (academy) as well as ours, and yes he was also an under 18 at Arsenal (not sure if he actually ever appeared for Arsenal at youth level). Bale joined Spurs shortly before his 18th birthday, he is a product of our Academy (specifically the Bath Satellite) and no-one else's.