VectisSaint

I guess the MLS has dispensed with the offside law if that's the case.

This. The press and many others fall into the trap that we lost the core of our team. But this is patently not the case. SRL is the only one who left initially that would really be considered "core", and to be fair he was probably near the end of his career anyway, as Liverhampton now know. We did well to find a great replacement (Pelle). The fact is that we retained the core/the spine of the team, Schneiderlin, Wanyama, Cork, Davis and critically Fonte. I would have included Boruc, but most hacks seem to not have cottoned on that he is no longer playing for us (and probably never will again). Keeping the core was crucial (throw in Clyne as well but I don't consider FBs as core/spine) and we are really only evolving from last season. RK has moved on from Poch's style and made us more of an attacking side while maintaining/improving the great defensive qualities. Steve Davis has been transformed by Ron's style and is now crucial to our attacking style, he has also enabled Schneiderlin or Wanyama or Cork (depending who is playing) to have more freedom to get forward and as a result has added to our goal threat from players who previously were not goal threats at all. Bring in Tadic for Lallana and to be honest the former is more creative than our erstwhile skipper, a very good find by Ron. We were almost equally successful last season with Poch until the injury/suspension crisis hit in November last season, whether we will turn out to be better this season depends to some extent on whether we get a similar crisis again this season. If we can avoid then we can prove to be quite a lot better than last term. But our achilles heal will continue to be our small squad. Interesting that many people are still praising the academy (rightly) but don't seem to have noticed that we don't have any academy players playing any more (OK, JWP is injured), and no-one 21 or younger!! Reed and Targett are obviously on the fringes, but currently that is the extent of the academy input.

Wear a Santa hat as well, for Turkish' sake.

Would just sing "Toby".

Oh no, don't get him started. Surprised Edgar Davids was not booked every game.

Would be a problem if Alderweireld scores. Also Own Goal would be a bit odd and get tedious if we sing it too much.

I seem to recall you mentioning the Lavern bro as well. Its probably worth taking a look back through your old posts to see if the specific one can be found.

Seems to have made things much worse, the first line no longer makes any sense and the 3rd line only scans if you have a speech impediment. The 7th line could be changed to "Yeahh and his brother's his mate" (rhymes better and has slight overtones of amusement, but nothing too embarrassing)

Law 12 interpretation (from the FA): Celebration of a goal While it is permissible for a player to demonstrate his joy when a goal has been scored, the celebration must not be excessive. Reasonable celebrations are allowed, but the practice of choreographed celebrations is not to be encouraged when it results in excessive time-wasting and referees are instructed to intervene in such cases. A player must be cautioned if: • in the opinion of the referee, he makes gestures which are provocative, derisory or inflammatory • he climbs on to a perimeter fence to celebrate a goal being scored • he removes his shirt or covers his head with his shirt • he covers his head or face with a mask or other similar item Leaving the field of play to celebrate a goal is not a cautionable offence in itself but it is essential that players return to the fi eld of play as soon as possible. Referees are expected to act in a preventative manner and to exercise common sense in dealing with the celebration of a goal. So the Lone Ranger would be booked if he played. Didn't know about that one Tonto.

For historical research reasons I assume, much like mine

The last time the top 6 were the same 2 seasons running was 2008/09 and 2007/08 (Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Everton, Man U and Villa, not necessarily in that order)). Only 2 teams, Chelsea and Arsenal have figured in the top 6 consistently over the last 8 seasons.

Merson has never made any sense, never ever. In fact compared to Merson the Slug Balancer is like the head of Mensa.

However, because you are of a certain age (somewhere between 1-100), she almost certainly wouldn't...

All the reasons why a loss or draw is the most likely outcome. Its football, that's how it works.

No no no no no. he cannot play there. he has played there and shown that he cannot cover that position. LB yes, RB big no no.

Would be mad to drop Davis. He is fast becoming first name on the team sheet. His work, industry , running and vision arereally making us tick right now. His build up fof 2nd v Stoke was brilliant, ang great delivery for 3rd. I know the goal scorers deem to get motm but for me SD was equally deserving.

He looks a very different player than the one we saw before who looked very lightweight. He has definitely bulked up over the last year and looks much more physically able to cope with the PL than before. He may yet turn out to be a good player, depite how he has looked in the past.

Subs: Davis K, Yoshida, Alderwiedhersein (Toby), Cork, Bertrand, Mayuka, Reed Is Mane injured?

Oh dear, local hack does not respond to Unbelievable Jeff. Bummer. Of course Blackmore should have interviewed the Unbelievable one and got the low down on what was happening from the insightful one. Talk about being full of **** and self importance. Really surprised that the Unbelievable one has not demanded an apology from some of the players who allegedly may have thought there were some problems at the Club this summer, they should come out with personal apologies addressed directly to the Unbelievable one, and made to wear sackcloth for the rest of the season. It was clear to everyone that everything was perfect during the summer and Unbelievable Jeff is the prescient one who is all knowing and we should all have listened and then we who are not worthy would have known that all was well.

Is it Eastleigh's turn next week? Hopefully the Skates will be on the other end of an 8-0 drubbing to complete the set. Good for them anyway, its still a great achievement scoring 8 away from home and saving a penalty as well, and no own goals. Must admit I was struggling to realise what was going on when i got back to the car on Saturday and heard Solent talking about 8-0, thought there had been a time warp or something. I heard one family managed to go to see Bournemouth the week we won 8-0 and went to Saints last Saturday, thus missing 8 goal drubbings in successive weeks.

This, good to see that someone else sees the situation like this as well. Because we have been doing very well, people have continued to overlook the elephant in the room, the same problem as last season. We shipped out was it 18 or even 19 players in the summer in total (think it was 18 before we found out about Ramirez on deadline day), yet people seem to think we have more depth to the squad. We do admittedly have slightly stronger backups than we had, and its good to see that we probably have 16 players capable of coming into the team without serious disruption. But we already have 3 injuries (J-Rod, JWP and Gallagher), a few more to key players, especially GK and we would be fecked again.

Really don't care any more about Poch. If he hadn't left we wouldn't now have Koeman. The football that RK is serving up is so much more exciting than Poch's style ever allowed. At the time I thought Poch was going to be a big loss, he did well for us, and instilled a way of playing that was successful, but now you have to wonder whether RK could have achieved more with the same set of players. I still enjoy seeing Poch lose, but its as much about my dislike of Spurs as about him now.

Depends on where we are come January. Assuming Boruc will be available for transfer out then a backup keeper would be useful. Otherwise options in any positions, especially attacking would be helpful to cover injuries/suspensions. One or two more to give depth and provide real competition is the order of the day really. No desparate need, but an injury crisis could leave us struggling.

Voting for MOTM Poll is supposed to be a bit of fun, like the rest of this forum is supposed to be. I didn't vote for either, nor did I vote for Fraser Forster who had almost nothing to do, but so what? Why do some people on here just have to have a pop rather than posting something interesting or constructive or even amusing. Its not (meant to be) rocket science.

Looks very similar to what I posted. Good that we both have found the same data.