VectisSaint

He's been training since about July last year (he posted on Twitter). Ball work or serious running is most likely the issue. Think you#ll find in most other aspects he is as fit as a butcher's dog (fitter than me f'sure).

We may be 7th in that table (as of Feb 6) but the gap between 1st and 7th is 4.75 points. 6 Feb includes Bertrand's red card I believe. 3 of the teams above us will likely finish above us in the League. Just hope and pray that we don't qualify this way, it means starting a qualifying campaign in July with juicy trips to the Faroes or Moldova or Wales.

Strange game last night, but great to get a goal and 3 points. Thankfully traffic on way down was OK and arrived really early unlike West Ham game, so things were looking good. Even the weather was a great improvement. Team seemed anxious, nervous even, snatching at things in the first half, and making uncharacteristic errors. Yoshida (I am a big supporter of him) proceeded to have his worst game for a long time, perhaps realising that this place is in jeopardy with the return to fitness of Toby. His miss in the 2nd half was typical of the issue we have scoring at the moment. Forster displayed his apparent lack of confidence with the fumble, but more than made up for this with a couple of very good saves, uncharacteristic that he actually had a few shots on target to save. Clyne played well but did have to concentrate more on his defensive duties, and there were a few occassions when it seemed like he and Jose had never even met before, strange to see these two having misunderstandings. Bertrand was not very effective, especially in the first half, most of our good stuff coming down our right. He was perhaps not helped by Elia having a very poor first half. In the second half Elia just seemed to be getting into his stride when he was hauled off by Ron. Schneiderlin was back almost to his peerless best, he was immense last night. His tenacity and workrate were superb. I say almost back, he did give two silly balls away, but on both occassions he fought like hell to redeem his mistake and won the ball back. Corners were also pretty good, just not sure I want to see Morgan taing corners when he is also good in the box. His mate Vic was also superb as well, he really is so good at spoiling anything that the opponent tries in the middle and he was getting forward much more and effectively. Thought Filip was also very good at least early on, but he is a bit lightweight, would like to see him "muscle up" a bit, he is clearly very talented, but pushed off the ball a bit too easily at the moment. Mane was excellent, and won us a lot of free kicks with his running. Graziano was actually having one of his best games for a long time - for the first time recently he was winning headers regularly and some of his lay-offs were sublime, but still he was snatching at chances rather than showing some composure, and he does seem very slow nowadays (though looks can be deceptive for big guys). But the change taking him off worked perfectly, Long stretching the Palace defence was exactly what was needed. Really didn't see much of any worth by Tadic. Leaves us with JWP, of course he will be given credit for making the winning goal, and fair play his direct running and making space was good, his shot was absolutley woeful, thankfully Speroni was presumably expecting something better and uncharacteristically spilled the shot which gave Mane the chance that we had been waiting for. Sadly JWP then proceeded to have a complete nightmare with everything he did in open play putting us into some degree of trouble. We looked really awful in those last few minutes, sitting back and inviting Palace to try to score, instead of doing what we were doing well and pushing for a second without leaving us exposed at the back. So great to get back to winning ways, and even the traffic getting out was great, back home before 11.30, despite a a French **** trying to take me out on the M3 and then another complete bozo in one of those toy cars (Chevrolet Maritz?) virtually stopping in the middle lane right in front of me and then travelling at 30 mph for the next mile and causing all sorts of danger to other road users. How some people are allowed to be on the roads is mystifying to me at times. Good night all in all, not the greatest game, but home with a smile on our face again.

Surprising he wasn't spotted in Skatesville Harbour in that case.

Agreed on this one, clearly it was nonsense to expect us to give the ball back to Palace in this case. Agreed also on the advantage. To be fair though, Atkinson actually had a good game last night, one of the better referee performances seen this season (though that's not a great compliment). Given his abject performances of late it was good to see.

Let's hope Bert is "good".

Interesting that Forster was time wasting in the last few minutes. 4 minutes of added time could only have been to compensate for the time wasting by Speroni (and others) in the first half. So although I don't condone time wasting by anyone it was karma last night. Speroni's tactics fr time wasting were very devious, making sure it looked like he was getting on with it when the ref was looking and waiting for the ref to look the other way. To be fair to Speroni he is not the worst culprit seen, but indicative of the issue these days.

FA Suspensions site: http://www.thefa.com/football-rules-governance/suspensions

whoosh!! Apparently there was no-one available, I know because some clever people on here have said that unless strikers available can be named by us then it means no-one was available and therefore we were not able to sign anyone. The people on this forum to whom I refer are so all-knowing that I cannot believe this is incorrect. Sounds like you think like me that that is bull****.

If you could read the OP he was asking for someone "It's an art to strike and ball or to have an eye for goal." Sorry but if Ron doesn't know how to coach someone to strike a ball and have an eye for goal then really there aren't many other candidates that could. So its not bull. the only thing that is bull around here is your posts, as always.

Yep, just put it down to some of our players having "a bit of a dip in form" and wait for the next game and the next one and the next one ad nauseum. Sadly we don't have many options anyway because of the lack of action in January, but then we all know as well that is because no-one can name a striker that could have been brought in to help out.

Ronald scored 193 first class goals in his career, about 30 more than Matt. Generally regarded as one of the best strikers of a ball ever, even MLT has acknowledged that. Really think you would be hard pushed to find an attacking coach who could provide better guidance than Ron himself. Even then Erwin was a fine attacking midfielder who scored a lot of goals, even Sammy lee weighed in with a few in his time (not sure about Jan Kleitenburg whose footballing career was cut short by injury, don't know where he used to play). Really don't think an attacking coach is a real need, considering Ronald as a defensive coach is really a bit of an insult.

Oh do give over with this pathetic drivel. Every time, its "what striker did we miss out on then". Pathetic. Of course we all knew about Pelle before the end of last season didn't we? No hardly anyone had heard of him, except for Mystic Meg. Do you think that our scouts/black box could not identify one striker who we may have brought in? It didn't have to be anyone who is currently a top 6 PL striker. It could have been someone playing in another league somewhere, you know somewhere like Holland perhaps. This is surely what our club and management team are so good at, so some continue to tell us ad nauseum.

Correct, its not sudden, they have been **** for a long time now. Unlucky. Really does make you wonder sometimes about what people see and how they react, it is not unlucky, it is because we have regressed and become clueless in the attacking third, and really it is nothing to do with the opponents parking the bus, our players and our coaches have forgotten what they used to do well. But hey ho lets just get behind the boys again because that's all that is needed. What's needed is to try something different, and drop the players who currently are not doing their job.

Think I may have solved the problem. From the BBC site (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/31562857): "Southampton responded with some tidy football but failed to test goalkeeper Fraser Forster" If only we would attack the opponents' goal instead of our own.

Oh do **** off with this bloody PC claptrap. Player(s) not good enough, need to stop sticking up for players who are living on their reputation.

Bloody hell, still 13 minutes to go as well.

You typed faster than me

We don't create any chances, that's why Pelle doesn't score. ******. He's just forgotten how to do the simple stuff.

Its a bloody big patch, he has been **** since November. Before that he was good, but like Pelle he got found out and believed the hype.

No...

Clyne had a meeting with his agent to discuss which club to join in the summer.

Note that Toby is featured prominently in today's training gallery headlined "final preparations for the Baggies" on the OS. Seems odd that he is heavily involved in "final preparations" given that Ron said he would not be ready. Guessing he may be on the bench after all (don't see any reason to risk him in place of Yoshida).

I agree about Les, and maybe Ronald as well. But if that little list did leave it would give us a problem with home grown players and its impacts on possible squad size for next season.

We may be able to cash him in in exchange for 100 Green Shield Stamps. Maybe could offer a free Osvaldo with 4 gallons of petrol?