VectisSaint

Good to see his evil twin turned up today. I think he did his talking on the pitch, good performance. I found myself pinching myself how many times I applauded what he was doing during the game.

Sweet, I'm sure she'll be pleased.

Great result and more importantly performance today. We were well on top even before the sending off but of course that helped (though it doesn't always fall that way). First 30 minutes we were so much better organised than against Everton, bakc to having a solid defensive midfield with a more forward midfielder in front to stop their attacks forming in the centre. Without Wanyama, Romeu really showed that he was class today, perhaps because for the first time he wasn't playing second fiddle to a longer standing player. He has been very good in all games he has played so far, but today he was outstanding. He also didn't pick up an early yellow (none of which so far have really been warranted) and it allowed him to play his game for 90 minutes. Special praise today for JWP, I have been like many others one of his critics, which has been deserving, but today he was like a different player, aggressive, passing and moving with purpose and playing some good balls, was it his twin brother? Still a couple of poor passes put our defence in trouble, and his so-called dead ball expertise is still a myth to some extent, but well done, and it was good to see, perhaps this is his better position. Davis was not having his best day, nor his worst, and with Naarwich down to 10 Ronald had the luxury of bring JRod on, hopefully today will start to get rid of some of his rustiness, but he was getting into great positions, but still some way to go before he is really back. Mane was very good, and two assists says a lot. Finally Tadic back to the player we saw a year ago, and two well taken and deserved goals. Great first goal from Pelle, still not as sharp as he could be and still very wasteful but a great improvement. Cedric was excellent today going forward, some really very good crosses and made the third goal (though no assist of course). Going forward he really is excellent, OK defensively not on Clyne's level but getting better as he gets used to the PL pace. Jose was Jose, back to his calm and collected marshalling of the defence. Yoshida had one glaring error in the first half, but otherwise was very reliable again. Matt Targett played one of his best games, some good crosses (and some iffy ones) and defensively looked much more relaxed. Apparently we also had a goal keeper today, back to the Forster days when the midfield and defence really stopped any danger getting to him and so he had very little to do, but really makes you feel confident. Well done Ronald, for the first time in a few games got the tactics right again. Thought he was going to wave to the crowd with his stick, would have been good. Feels a lot better going into the break with a comfortable win, just such a shame about what could have been. MOTM Romeu by a mile, but as so often people will give it for people who score or assist rather than for the player that allows others to shine by his excellence. I can see Romeu being the new Matt Oakley :-)

Nothing new here, it was rumoured in July. If we could get a replacement, would ok, he doesn't score enough in critical games and is very slow.

This. Same as VvD could have played for us if we had reached the group stage.

Apart from changing Vic for Romeu and Caulker for Yoshida this is the same team that were ripped apart by Everton. It didn't work then and it won't work tomorrow. Tadic, if he is fit, cannot play the AM role in front of 2 DMs. Assuming Vic doesn't play, it would be better to play Reed alongside Romeu with Davis in front. But don't hold your breath that Ronald will pick Reed. If you want to stick with your basic team then Ramirez would be better there than Tadic, but we all know that Ramirez is guilty of going missing and giving the ball away in dangerous positions, even if he is selected by Ronald (as he is clearly fit and has been for some time).

Pompey have made an offer?

He has been in several training picture galleries over the last couple of weeks. There is not much wrong with him, but doesn't get selected for the squad. Latest gallery from yesterday: http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/news/article/20150828-training-gallery-pre-norwich-city-home-2654431.aspx

Nor can I. Your point is?

I think you are just telling yourself that. I don't think anyone really "wouldn't be bothered" if we were bottom tomorrow. That would mean 4 games and 2 points. I know its early days, but to have played more than 10% of the available league games and picked up 2 points would be very concerning. We can't just fritter away games without picking up points and hope that everything comes right, the failure to win any of our first 4 games, against mediocre opposition would give some indication that we are not looking good. Long way to go I know but you can't just ignore these games. Anyway, I don't actually believe this is what will happen, just responding to Batman's post and commenting on his team's possible impact on our position. They drew 0-0 so its no longer relevant.

But is that really the issue? Of course we have alternatives, but with less than 72 hours until the window closes, signing one of the alternatives becomes less and less likely. We will probably end up with Ron Vlaar, since he is not window dependent (free agent) and is of course injured.

True-ish. Will you be happy with us bottom after 4 games? Of course if we are 10th as Batman suggested we could be then the table will still be meaningless.

Well **** me, thanks for stating the bleeding obvious. It is a possible indicator rhough that they have not started training with the squad yet. Players don't suddenly get well and fit Jeez.

On the other hand lose tomorrow and we will be 20th. Just saying. Unless of course your lot beat Spuds this evening.

Last update was "after the international break" but getting less and less likely, no sign of either in any training pictures, so they are not really close yet, with 2 weeks left before WBA.

Did he really say "if we don't it will be a disaster"? We can still sign Vlaar, even after Tuesday.

Victor looks OK in the training pictures. Will be disappointed if we start with JWP instead of Davis. Don't like Yoshida at LB, we have to play Targett, unless Martina could play there. Hopefully Bertrand will be back next game, though I'm not confident.

Guess he would have to get used to not receiving win bonuses nearly every week.

I'd somehow forgotten we had sold Jay Fulton for £200k in 2013/14. Perhaps it was because he never played for us or was signed by us or perhaps I am having a senior moment. Maybe Osvaldo never signed for us either.

LOL. Your favourite (only) subject. Obsessed.

On the other hand having a bug and passing it on to the rest of the team, or having suspected appendicitis (depending on who you are listening to) might stop you.

We would not have ended up in the group. If we had won last night we would have been in Pot 3 (we would have been 34th highest-ranked team). Midtjylland were in Pot 4 (46th ranked club). The draw would have been completely different. If you really want to think what might have been it would be better to use Augsburg fixtures as a guide as they ended up 34th ranked as a result of our demise, so that would have been Athletic Bilbao, AZ Alkmaar and Partizan Belgrade - that would have been interesting and 2nd place would have been well within our grasp. C'est la vie.

Exactly, and getting information like the bit about the u21s helps to piece together that there are issues behind the scenes. Ronald's disposition in the pre-match press conference in Denmark and in earlier ones and this little snippet that most of us wouldn't have seen (unless we were at the game), tells us a lot. There is some serious issue behind the scenes at the moment and while we may not like Ashton it is good that he is doing his job and reporting things that show all is not well as some have suspected for a little while.

Which CB do you think is 19? Stephens is already 21 (January) and Turnbull will be 21 in October. I know people don't like Ashton, but I guess part of that is that what he writes is accurate (while not being mind blowing) and does not fit the agenda of the ostriches on here who think the sun shines out of the arse of our current board and believe the hype spouted by our ice hockey coach.

WTF?