VectisSaint

LOL, usual suspect, no attention to the game, just showing your usual personal issues. Why am I not surprised?

I was pleasantly surprised as well that he gave free kicks for the annoying nudges in the back that our referees never seem to give. He was particularly good but did let himself down a bit with the time wasting, should have cracked down on it earlier, and also he booked the wrong player at the end when he finally did do something, he should have booked their No 2, the knob with the bob, who had been doing his best to waste time all game, and caused the incident when the booking was made. But i would gladly have him as a ref every week. So much better than anything we see in the PL. Who was he by the way?

There was little or no optimism this time last season, though it turned out well soon afterwards. When was our last PL win, well it was 16 May 2015, matchday 37, when we won 6-1. There have only been 3 PL games since.

Come on Whitey, expect better of you. I never said that.

Meanwhile in Never Never Land...

The bit about us signing VVD or the bit about replacing Mane with 'dros Townsend? How can anyone believe the first part when the second part also goes against everything we are lead to believe from the club about players not leaving. Cake and eating it?

This. He was definitely ok on Thursday. Think some people see something one game and imagine it in others. He did bottle a challenge or two against Everton but only after he was booked, it was to do with ensuring he did not get sent off. Actually he was better attacking as well, some decent balls into the box. He gets compared to Shaw who never managed a goal or assist as far as I recall.

No, staying at Saints, seems you get more time off here if you are old and decrepid like me, Jose and Graziano

Maybe, I don't have an issue, and its not a warm-up session its a recover session the the day after the game. Its just funny when people scrabble around to try to justify something that really isn't very important and come up with new excuses. I have never ever seen Saints rest their "old" players from a recovery training session. All I did was point out that these 2 players were not training, s-clarke then implied that I was lying in even suggesting the team had trained (despite evidence that showed they did), then tried to change his argument that only the 2 of them were not training, then No9 chimes in with it being because they are so old and knackered that they probably got excused from the recovery session. My own view is that Pelle was probably at the hairdressers getting another layer of gel applied and Fonte was house hunting in Birmingham or looking for a care home vacancy because he is so old If its the latter I can probably help him, there is a room next to mine that is vacant.

LOL. You don't give up do you. I'm sure both will play tomorrow but its quite funny when people find any excuse to avoid seeing that there might (just might) be a problem. It maybe that Pelle just had a previous appointment with the hairdresser to apply more gel.

Could be. Possible excuses why Fonte and Pelle might have missed training. Hasn't Vic played every minute as well? Yesterday's session was all about recovery.

Everybody is a Manchester United target. I got a call yesterday, it was probably from them, though in the end I put the phone down before anyone their end spoke, but I'm almost certain it was Woodward.

So why did everyone else train? No-one has said they are injured or unavailable, just merely pointing out that 2 players apparently missed training yesterday. Why specifically would Fonte and Pelle not train, if anyone I would have not been suprised at Yoshida, he was knackered with all the running he did on Thursday playing at RB instead of CB.

Well they did. It wasn't a discussion point. Gallery on os/twitter.

Fonte and Pelle appear to have missed training today. Cedric clearly has a very minor leg injury. Only 16 outfield players training, including Gaston. No youngsters other than JWP, Targett and Reed. I'm not reading anything into this, just saying.

BUt he's not slagging us or anyone off. Have you actually read what he has written? If so do you comprehend it? Seems like you're the fruitloop if you think anything in either of those pieces is "slagging off". You just saw it was by someone who you have a problem with and assumed it would be what you wanted it to be. Its not, get over it. Move on and look for something else that suits your agenda.

Not much evidence of Crook talking ****e in those articles. Seems a fairly decent assessment of the Mane and Reed situations. In fact its quite refreshing to read this sort of tripe by someone who at least has done some basic research

He's at ManU now, he will be. You underestimate the man.

Cedric for Yoshida, Yoshida for Caulker and Davis for JWP and that's the team. Bringing Davis back in to the advanced midfield role should give us the energy that we missed last night with JWP (who had a surprisingly good game defensively, winning several tackles and headers). It might be good to give Juanmi a start though, but that would be at the expense of JRod, think we need JRod.

He actually probably added about 3.5 minutes for it (6 minutes on the board, but he would also have added 2.5 for the subs) and then added another minute during stoppage time. He added zero for it in the first half, despite them time wasting from the start. Ref gave us lots last night, but he didn't take control of the time wasting which was awful, especially the injury feigning to break up play as well). He also failed to book #2 Kian Hansen (the knob with the bob) who was the worst offender.

This. There was no other valid reason. He did OK really, but we do miss the overlapping runs of a proper RB. However, he was at fault with others (Rodriguez and Fonte) for our goal. Although I could see the logic of not playing Cedric, why not play Martina instead, he could have provided the attacking option and also helped with the aerial threat.

Romeu was probably our best player last night. He also changed things massively on Saturday when he came on. Not bad for someone straight in the team. He will probably never completely replace Morgan, people need to understand that Morgan is really a world class player, there are not many of his standard around so how can you replace, but Romeu is not too shabby. Only down side is that he has picked up 2 yellows already, though to be fair neither were warranted. Picking up a yellow early in a game does have a detrimental effect, having to play with a bit of caution subsequently. Will be good to see him play without a card hanging over his head. That said Morgan was not exactly unfamiliar with cards of various colours. It goes with the territory.

Don't think you really understand do you. Romeu looks very good (better than expected when replacing a top class player who has left), and he and Clasie will both (eventually) be in the team.

After the international break.

Hate to break this to you but we have already signed Morgan's replacement. He also looks half decent.