The Kraken

"Benefit of the doubt" is the direction that assistant referees and referees have been given when it comes to flagging for offences. This is absolutely daft. I'm fairly sure you know yourself that it wasnt a clear cut offside and therefore shouldn't have been given. even if you don't you're welcome to carry on with your silly charade. It wasn't offside, it was proved by replays, and the lino was incorrect to flag. Any denial of that is churlish.

If the linesman thought he was clearly offside, he was wrong. Replays proved this. The linesman may have thought he was right to flag; he wasn't. There is no situation you can say that Rodriguez was without doubt offside. Therefore the benefit of doubt should have gone to the attacking player. The linesman got it wrong, plain and simple. i admire your dedication to refuse to accept that though, its quite impressive.

The linesman has to believe that the player is clearly offside to give it; if he is in any doubt at all, then it is not offside and he should not flag. Would you agree with that?

We'll be one of those pretty soon, so I wouldn't worry too much about that.

Christ, this one really is simple. 1) Rodriguez was onside according to televisual evidence. 2) According to the rules an attacking player has to be clearly offside to be flagged; the benefit of the doubt goes to the attacker. 3) The linesman simply could not "have got it right" if he thought the attacker was clearly offside (which is what he must have thought to have flagged). According to the replays, it is a debatable issue at best; in most people's eyes it was clearly onside. 4) Given that the player was either onside or it was in doubt, the correct decision by the linesman would have been to give the benefit of the doubt and play on. This didn't happen. Therefore it was the wrong decision. So, unless derry and WG are saying that Rodriguez was clearly, without any doubt at all, offside when the ball was kicked; the linesman made the wrong decision.

Where are you getting this from? Against QPR we had 47% of posession. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20278600 Against Newcastle we had 50% of posession. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20383440 The game where we dominated posession (against Swansea, 60%), we drew.

Puncheon seems to have really gone up a level and is turning out some decent, consistent performances. As the build up to the first goal showed he's starting to get more success at getting beyond the last man rather than cutting inside onto his left all the time. I'd still like one more player to provide backup/competion to Puncheon and Lallana, it doesn't look like Mayuka is going to step up to the plate (although to be fair he's not really being given a chance yet). Ramirez puts in a decent shift, and the interplay between all four "forwards" with them all able to switch positions will be a great asset.

I haven't a clue. I don't even recall who said what and when about Jos when we signed him, other than it was a desperately late roll of the dice. You seem particularly bothered by some comments from over a year ago, which is ok I guess. I just don't know what its got to do with Jos Hooiveld clearly not being good enough for the Premier League, which was the original point.

That doesn't seem to have too much to do with the prediction, from the manager and some fans, that he might not be good enough for the Premier League.

A few, I'd have thought. Including the manager. Lets not try to rewrite history and suggest our defensive frailties were a shock; some took the manager at his word when he suggested one or two centre backs were a vital addition.

You've said it for me. We prioritised an early identification and purchase of a reserve striker. Yet we spent less money on 2 keepers, one centre back, one right back and one defensive midfielder combined. Rodriguez may have been targetted for a while; did we put in the same effort to bring in two centre backs? I somehow doubt it, but we needed to IMO.

It should be a condition of entry. Tinsel wig? Jog on. Seriously, what type of complete cockwomble leaves the house wearing a tinsel f*cking wig?

Who was the gimp in the wig that got himself on MOTD2. I mean, FFS?

I don't think the figure for a 23 year old up and coming English striker is the factor. Its that a newly promoted club spent that much money on a player that isn't first choice, when we need to consolidate our place in this division first and foremost. He shouldn't have been one of our top priorities, which he clearly was.

You sounds like a woman. Are you a woman? You sound like one.

That's why I said often. Not always.

Actually, it often is. There's pretty specific rules to define it; most of the time it isn't down to interpretation.

Jos Hooiveld?

Anyway, it matters little. It was onside, as replays have proven and should have been given but wasn't.

3-1 against Man United, it was the shirts. And thus it has always been when Saints beat higher ranked sides.

Do people think that? The idea of a transfer committee is, I thought a well respected and good one. Certainly is in my opinion. I have a friend who works as head of player recruitment for a Championship side and have seen first hand on numerous occasions how this works within a club, and how it is far removed from the manage r running 100% of the club. And how it is a far better system. That said, the manager should IMO still have the final say when it comes to playing matters. i can accept that chairmen may make their own signings; Lowe did this with Delgado, Niemi, Crouch etc, Cortese I'm sure has done it with Papa Waigo, Guly and Ramirez. But in selection matters, the manager should of course be open to advice and counsel from his committee but should retain overall control. Sorry, but I don't believe that happened, I truly believe Nigel was influenced against his true will in a minority of decisions. he also made mistakes himself, so you'll notice I'm not absolving him of all blame. Indeed I've always conceded that the "blame" for our disastrous start should have been equally atributed to Cortese, Reed, Adkins and the players, with a nod to injuries too.

Yes, I'm sure that was very high on his list of priorities from today.

Frank, if that's what you want to believe then you're welcome to it. You'll notice that my discussion with Dig Dig respected his right to think what he did, while he also accepted that I think differently. Nothing wrong with having an opinion (mine is clearly the correct one though, obviously........). I've heard things from a few sources which i feel backs up my opinion that pressure was being brought to bear, and I'm happy to stand by that opinion. If others wish to believe otherwise then they're of course welcome, I just disagree. I don't see the problem with that, really.

Fair enough; and to be honest it doesn't matter. Whether it was pressure or whether it was NA; the decision has been made that it wasn't working and we've moved on from it. I'd still like to see us have a genuine replacement/option for Puncheon and Lallana. I hoped it could be Mayuka but for one reason or another he's not being given much chance to prove its him. And we shouldn't gloss over where we are and think we've solved it all, I still think we need to strengthen with one or two players in January. If Shaw can step it up and show the consistency needed, that'll be great, but I maintain its still a hell of an ask for a fairly recently turned 17 year old to play at the highest level required game in game out for a whole season.

Read it again Digbury, I mentioned that some of it was down to injury. But I also think there was pressure put to bear on playing JRod more than he should have been, and that came from either having to have him out of position, or up front with Lambert which then negated RL's effectiveness somewhat. There are also other reasons, of course there are; and having a settled back 5 is certainly one of them. But I do believe the shoehorning in was also a big factor.