VectisSaint

According to Ronald, Ralph was giving the team a motivation speech yesterday, and today Mane turns up late (about 4.10, ). Ronald is fuming and is saying he can't manage the player. Maybe Sadio thinks the same about Ralph's motivational speeches as me

I really don't have a clue how many Sunderland might win, they are not really the issue. Can Newcastle win 3 more than us in the remainder of the season? You bet your life they can. They won 4 of their first 19, so if they win 4 of their last 19 and we win 1 then they could overtake us (simplistically speaking). Will they? Don't know, but that's all its down to now. Don't assume 40 will be safe this season, it is highly likely with the results so far that this will be one of those statistically unusual seasons when more than 40 is required.

Might have something to do with them not having lost 7 of their last 9 games. The only reason we are not currently in the relegation zone is because we picked up some points early on. That's fine and good that we did, but we show no signs of doing so on a regular basis in the near future without making some significant changes.

Exactly, well said. Precisely why I said significant parts of the dressing room. Two (at least) of our best, most influential players are no longer playing for him, and are treating him with huge disrespect.

Why? Is he going to play up front? Our problem really is not the keeper, or even the defence. Teams can concede one goal and still get points if they have the where with all to actually score. OK, if we keep a clean sheet we can get a point without scoring, but to be in a position where all the opposition have to do is score one for them to win the game is ridiculous. We have reverted to type, "Southampton Nil" is fast becoming our tag these days.

Been concerned for a while now, even before we started our long not winning streak, because we were playing badly for large parts of games that we still took something from (e.g. Leicester, Bournemouth). I still don't actually think we will get relegated, because I find it hard to believe that we cannot make changes and find 18 points before the end of the season. But changes are needed, and maybe that means Ronald. I really like him and he was terrific for us last season, but seems bereft of ideas now, and has lost significant parts of the dressing room. Just concerned that the Board are so weak that they will not take some sort of decisive action until it is too late.

Which this season will probably mean relegation. 40 points is the usual target I know, but it is so close this season that 40 will probably not be enough. Anyone who seriously still thinks that we are not heading towards possible relegation is simply kidding themselves. I still think it won't happen, but we need to start turning things around very soon an grinding out some results, a 0-0 today would have been acceptable against one of our potential rivals for the drop, losing against our rivals is a real problem.

Suspended

Did I say he was? You said until he makes Yoshida type mistakes, well he did.

First goal against West Ham? If you watch the game against Arsenal you will see that he makes Yoshida look positively world class when it comes to defending (which he isn't at RB). He was hopelessly out of position so many time, but Fonte got him out of a hole time and again in the first half. He has played 5 times now, hardly condemning his straight away.

He was injured mid December (pulled his hammy in training after the 2-2 draw with Brighton). Hasselbaink says he will be out for a few more weeks yet. He has already missed half of Rangers games this season due to injury. Do we really need another injured striker?

Yes and no. Clasie went off at 67, Jose scored at 69. JWP went off 71, Long scored 4th on 90+

David. Martina was awful, defensively. His goal and his attacking play were great, but really he is very poor at the defensive side of his game. The other thing is that Stephens is no longer at Boro, he has been back with us for a while. His loan will presumably be cancelled tomorrow (or whenever transfers can actually be made), until then he cannot play for us. You can see him quite clearly in training videos, he also travelled with the squad to West Ham earlier in the week. Hopefully he is going to be given a chance, although he made hardly any appearances for Boro he did show in the league cup against ManU that he is reasonably good..

But these weren't the only players that we moved on in the summer of 2015, we also stopped paying Cropper, Hooiveld, Mayuka, Osvaldo, Rowe, Sinclair and Johns.

It was also being reported that Palace are after him. Rangers want to sell him, and he wants a permanent move sorted out, unless Saints are prepared to convert him to a permanent then he is likely going to be out of here this month. Personally I would not want to sign him, if Gardos is expected back soon, we also have Jack Stephens back.

Can't drop Vic, because Romeu is suspended. Not that I think Ronald would drop him anyway.

Apart from Arsenal I don't actually recall him getting cramp before. Lallana always used to get subbed around 75 minutes. Shaw often got cramp.

Not exactly HCDAJFU but I see Caulker is being lined up for a permanent move to Palace. Probably not too big an issue if Gardos is close to a return and Jack Stephens is available (I see the OS said that Stephens was not involved for Boro, perhaps they could have mentioned it was because he is back with us). Caulker moving would also free up a loan space if there is any truth in the Chambers rumour.

Martina, Yoshida, de Ridder. I guess Pelle, Tadic and Clasie might not be considered cheap. Van Dijk and Stek via other clubs and not cheap.

I can't remember which game it was, but he was already tried at RB a couple of years ago, and was awful. He really has none of the attributes of a modern full back, can't tackle and is slow. Would be a terrible move. The days of playing your worst players at full back have long gone, thank goodness.

This is very true. In fact in a fight to avoid relegation it is much more important to beat the teams below you. Not losing against Norwich is important. The Arsenal win though was important , it means we now need only 16 points to stay up, though its possible 18th place could be more than 40 points this year. 16 points from 19 games would seem to be achievable. But does tend to indicate how poor we have been this season compared to the last 2 seasons. We have seriously regressed.

Played 90 minutes yesterday, including assist for 2nd goal. Is Waljer injured?

Assist was taken away when they changed the goal to an own goal. Tadic now has the assist. Bloody stupid but there you are.

He missed most of our pre-season, then came back and then got injured again. Effectively he had little or no worthwhile pre-season. You will not see the best of Claise now until next season. But he will still be effective in the games he does play as he was for 67 minutes on Saturday.