The Kraken

Would have liked to have seen what happened had we been able to play JRod from the start. He was outstanding when he came on and made a real difference. Decent performance but a bit toothless up top. Gaston got the goal but did little else other than woeful dead ball deliveries. Very subdued game from Lallana too. Jack Cork was immense, my MOTM for a brilliant performance and goal saving header in defence. We were the better side but West Ham are extremely solid and held out quite comfortably in the end. Can't complain really, and its another point on the board.

JRod for Ramirez please......

:lol:

Same old, for me. Some good things, some needless silly mistakes. Dead ball delivery needs work, too.

On that showing, neither, to be fair.

Not sure what 5'7" Lallana was doing squaring up to Nolan there; a bit of a mismatch! Good half from Saints; missing JRod's channel running though, Lambert has looked a bit isolated at times. Playing some nice stuff given the conditions, and an immense save from Jaaskelainen to keep it level.

Jack Cork has been immense so far.

He's had some good games, but he's also punctuated a lot of them with significant errors. Like giving Terry a free header from 6 yards out against Chelsea. He never seems to far away from a ricket, to me. That said we need someone with a bit of physicality to stand up against Carroll (and not pull his hair FFS) so its probably a wise choice today.

I'm having faith in Fox today. He gets a lot of stick on here (some justified, some over the top) but despite his limitations he's the best available LB we've got. C'mon Danny Boy, time to step up.

If he can't come in and play 90 minutes at full back then there's something wrong. He may not be sharp (what's new) but fitness really shouldn't be a problem for a left back.

Subs: K. Davis, Fonte, Rodriguez, Ward-Prowse, Guly, Puncheon, Mayuka. We really have very few defensive options in the squad right now. One keeper, one defender, one midfielder and 4 attacking players in reserve.

Assuming Shaw and JRod aren't fit enough for the first team, that's the best team I would have hoped for.

That's exactly what I was thinking! And not just complaining; that email reply seems to suggest the complaint was asking for Lawrenson to be removed from his job!

What did you vote for, troozers?

Spot on. Still, they seem to want to have their day in the sun for some strange reason.

Yep, and I think this is exactly why we've taken a long term punt on him.

Very covert. Who told you what? Or is it all secret squirrel talking in codes

Go you.

True. Dreaming that he might be on the bench might be a good start.

My point was illustrated above so that should point it out for you. Not sure why you're getting so stroppy with a genuine question though.

Thank you young Charles. As I said to the other chap I can only remember their last goal. While I don't think West Ham are anywhere near as bad a long ball team as others on here are conviced of, against us its probably their best plan. Even against Reading last week our defence looked most troubled with balls into the box. Chuck Andy Carroll and/or Carlton Cole into the mix and its the area I'd be most worried about, especially from corners.

I don't know, I can't remember, it was a genuine question. I can only remember their last goal.

How many of West Ham's 4 goals against us at their place were from hoofball, by the way?

I've seen little of him since pre-season, but it was clear then that he had a long, long way to go before he could be considered for first team games. Against Wolves especially he was well out of his depth and really struggled, and it was clear that to be a CB he would need to fill out a bit and get a bit more strength. I also watched him in the U21 game at St. Mary's and while he had little to do to stand out, he had a fairly quiet game and I saw little to make him stand out from the crowd. Still, he's definitely being seen as one for the future and I doubt we're shelling out much on him so its of course a gamble worth taking; and we'll see how he develops in the next year or two.

Its probably a good idea if your intention is to be patronising and glib to actually read the original post that people are responding to, before acting the goon. Otherwise you end up looking a bit daft, and wading into a thread just for the sake of an argument. The only person that mentioned Jack Stephens was, erm, you. Just saying.