VectisSaint

Claus was the same, but never stopped him being played. I hate smoking and agree no professional sportsman should smoke, but in reality it makes little difference at his age, and is of less consequence to a goalkeeper than an outfield player. Many footballers smoke, they also drink heavily, not good but really should not be a factor for a fit young (compared with me) footballer.

Can only assume you mean Mr Mark Chamberlain, if so I could live with that, assuming he is at the game. Booing Mr Oxlade-Chamberlain would be a different matter, no reason to boo him, just because he was ill-advised by his Skate dad.

Wow, one of Gazza's biggest pluses over KD is his distribution. The fact that he actually gives it to one of our players and doesn't kick into touch like KD usually does for a start. KD used to have one strong point, his shot stopping. Well, I think even that is now a bit suspect, 2nd goal yesterday was a dolly and he let it squirm through his hands (sorry don't buy the unsighted argument, if he was unsighted why did h get his hands round the ball).

Happy New Year Alpine. Thank you for one of the funniest posts I have ever seen. Sorry I was a bit late getting to it. Love it.

Glad someone else noticed it. I'm not 100% convinced, very difficult to tell, but the more I see it the more I think he controlled it with his right arm. Still what goes around comes around, Fonte's handball was nailed on, and he would have been red carded. Yoshi's was so straight forward, not deliberate imo. Davis is awful, flapping again, lets hope his little injury is not too insignificant and NA has to choose Artur.

Unless you were one who said this, I don't know why you even care. Did you say this? Have you been back and edited your post to try to cover your embarrassment? Lighten up, its Christmas. Perhaps you get embarrassed about people wearing Santa costumes as well, or cringe when Sammy Saint does the Gangnam Style thing. Happy New Year.

The Lambert out movement is a figment of your imagination, a bit like the Cult of Cortese. Doesn't get away from the fact that a number of people were seriously suggesting that Lambert was past it, too slow and should be dropped, especially for the Stoke game.

6-3 now. & would make their goal diff the same as ours, and also equal our goals conceded. They are deffo being sucked in.

Unlikely that they will have changed things much by 12th January, most January business is done on the 31st.

38 or 39 should be enough this season, because of the way the bottom few teams have played so far (including us). Shame we didn't get 3 today as that would have put us exactly half way there. We just need to improve on our first half season haul by 4 points and we will be OK. Despite some disappointment today we are back in touching distance of everyone up to 12th, just need the Arse to do the business against Newcastle today, shame Ba just equalised.

Feck me I wish people would understand it is "top drawer" (sorry Trousers not aimed at you but the Solentsport tweety ****).

Bonus point, we really should not have expected anything today, shame we did not hold on to lead, but if you had asked me before the game I would have taken a point. There was at least one poster predicting 0 points from this and the following 4 games. Scoring 3 at Stoke, when they had only conceded 4 in previous 11 is fecking amazing, just a shame I have the Stoke keeper in my Sun Dream Team.

There were some who were saying it, for sure. They are probably editing their posts right now LOL

And there were quite a few on here who suggested he was crap and should be dropped.

Might be something to do with the 4 goals conceded all season at home. I guess we could expect a 0-0, but then we don't keep a clean sheet too often.

Nothing to do with Adkins. There has nearly always been a preference for the side CBs play, Claus and Killer for instance. Still I gather than Yoshi is able to play on the right as well, although based on his right foot kicking I would be a bit concerned.

Well that's good to know, although he seems not to be able to kick the ball too well with his right foot.

True, much like Adkins has a great eye for a keeper.

Sounds good, but this would mean we would end up with 4 left sided CBs (counting Seaborne) and 1 right-sided. I think Fonte has been very good this season after the first couple of games, but it concerns me what would happen if he was injured or suspended. We would have to play one of our left-sided CBs out of position - it might work but seems a big risk. Without Martin as backup we are very exposed in this position.

How is Boruc more experienced than KD? 295 apps cf 560 for KD, and half of Boruc's apps were for Celtic in the Noddy League. That said I would rather he played than KD who makes me nervous every time the ball gets near him, and whose kicking is woeful.

He lost all credibility a long time ago, he is a troll and has hooked good and proper. The sooner he is banned the better. His references to the m**gboard are still as offensive as ever, even though he is top m**g, yet little is done.

8 seasons, 320 games in the top flight, that's 40 per season. Matt may have played in 16 seasons in the top flight but he only made just over a hundred more appearances (443), about 27 a year. In Paine's 18 seasons playing for Saints he played more than 40 times in 15 of those seasons, and apart from his first season when he played 9 times he never played less than 36 in a season. When you consider the way the game was played in those days that is phenomenal. Matt was a great player, but he could have been so much more if he had looked after himself properly. As I said before our best ever signing was Ted Bates. Without him signing from Norwich as a player, nothing that has happened since would have happened and we may never hav made it to the top flight.

Williamson not turned out any good? Well he may not be the best but seems well able to cut it in the PL for Newcastle, even if not really their first choice, and still only just 29. I would suggest he has another 3 years in him at this level. In any case he was not really Academy, having joined us at the age of 18. Lancashire and Mills were both thrown in too early (in my opinion) when we were struggling and their confidence was destroyed as a result, but both make a decent living as lower league pros. Gary Monk joined us when he was 17, also from Torquay, so can be considered an Academy product (like McGoldrick etc). Over 200 apps for Swansea, he has proved he is a decent CB, though not too many of his games have been in the PL. On the question of keepers, Michael Poke and Scott Bevan were both products of the Academy and both seem to have found their level in L2, at Torquay and Bristol Rovers respectively, both having played for both clubs recently. Our connections with Torquay seem to be many and various. Problem with CBs and keepers, is that they both depend on maturity/experience and it helps in both cases if they are physically suited to the job (i.e. tall and built strongly). Very hard, if not impossible to spot this in young teenagers that would be right for the Academy. Its one reason why the Academy system does not work for everyone, it would be better if they allowed slightly older players to be part of the Academy system for these 2 positions (you could possibly make an argument for centre forward types as well).

Sorry, but completely disagree with this. There is no evidence that he is not as good as he was. He has stepped up and is clearly showing thet he is better than he was, or than anyone thought. The problem at the moment is that he is suffering from a lack of supply due to change of formation, and apparenelty less mobility, but I feel this is due to 2 factrs (1) heavy pitches and (2) speed of the ball off the wet surfaces. Big men always suffer a bit with these conditions, he is not slower, but is being made to look slower. I suspect if he was measure that you would actually find that he had improved his fitness and speed this season. That said, we desparately need a good alternative, J-Rod has been very disappointing as has Mayuka and Chung does not seem to have recovered from his injuries as I hoped and expected. With a midfield that lacks goals (Cork needs to start scoring a few) we do rely on Rickie more than is healthy.

Stoke actually play a lot of good football. They have developed quite a lot from the old hoofball days, but they are still a threat from corners and throws (even without Delap). But people should understand that there is a lot more to their game than the general concensus would have us believe based on the past 2 or 3 seasons.