The Kraken

When will we ever wear the all-white away kit? It seems like its full appearance this season could be very limited indeed, and the home kit and yellow kit is potentially going to be more prominent (even MOTD3 did a feature on kits and thought the yellow was our away one). In its full incarnation, I think the full away kit could potentially only get worn against two sides; Liverpool and Norwich. All other teams seem to have significant amounts of white either in their shirts, shorts and/or socks that will either require a different kit or different socks/shorts to be worn with the away shirts: Arsenal: already worn yellow. Aston Villa: they wear white shorts. Chelsea: they wear white socks. Everton: already worn red. Fulham: they wear white shirts. Liverpool: they wear all red. Man Utd: they wear white shorts. Man City: already worn red. Newcastle: they wear black and white striped shirts. Norwich: they wear yellow and green. QPR: they wear blue and white hooped shirts with white socks and shorts.R Reading: they wear blue and white hooped shirts and white shorts. Stoke: they wear red and white striped shirts, with white shorts and socks. Sunderland: they wear red and white striped shirts. Swansea: they wear all white. Tottenham: they wear white shirts. West Brom: they wear blue and white striped shirts, plus white shorts and socks. West Ham: they wear white shorts. Wigan: they wear blue and white striped shirts. The two in bold, Liverpool and Norwich, are the only clubs that don't have any significant amount of white in their home kits. We may get away with the white kit against some sides like Newcastle, though its perhaps more likely that we'd either wear the home kit or they yellow. And against some sides such as West Ham we could wear the white shirt but with a change of shorts/socks. In conclusion; chances to see the full all-white kit in action this season could be very few and far between! I wonder if the marketing genius that came up with the idea of an all white change strip has fully realised the consequences just yet....

One of the few seems to get it.

Good point Bearface. This little image shows our players' average positions (we're the ones on the right).

I guess the question to ask is: based on Saturday, did we need a £6M striker playing wide midfield and a striker with some pace and trickery for the last 10 minutes more than we needed a decent left back, another decent centre back and an actual genuine wide player?

Again, it simply comes down to priorities; we clearly prioritised signing Rodriguez and had been chasing him for some time. By the same token, it is my opinion that we had a lesser priority to bring in a centre back of equal transfer fee to Rodriguez, and certainly there were no signs of extended interest in a top drawer CB as there was in JRod, or indeed as there was in Ramirez. I'm not saying that spending £6M or £7M on Rodriguez or £12M on Ramirez precluded us from doing that with other player positions, or distracted us from other targets, because I have no idea if its the case. But I am saying that the diversion of effort and funding could potentially have been better spent elsewhere. And with that I'm off to watch the golf. Come on Europe!!!

NA consistently said one or two CBs, and we got one. We also very clearly wanted a left back and didn't get one. Simply from that. If you want to call Rodriguez "competition" then I shan't argue; nevertheless it is my opinion (and do please note that's all I'm saying it is, I'm not saying I'm right or that you're wrong) that we would have been better served prioritising getting in two CBs and a quality LB rather than enhancing our attacking options with another striker. Even with Yoshida we only really have 3 likely first team CBs, and as comments on here will testify that's perhaps one short.

Well I disagree. You only have to look at the sums spent on Ramirez and Rodriguez and compare that with the sums spent on defenders to realise where we prioritised big money signings. Rodriguez was a capture that we'd been clearly following for some time before we got him early in the summer, so he was high up in our priorities. Did it hinder other captures? I have no idea. However, one of our priority signings is a reserve striker, and (by the manager's own comments) we didn't fill other areas in defence fully, with Yoshida only coming in once the season had gotten underway. It may be hindsight, but if we could have targetted JRod for so long and snapped him up with a very large transfer fee, could we not have done the same for a brilliant centre back? Because, as decent as Yoshida looks, there are still many concerns about our strength at CB. Its not about whether Rodriguez' transfer hindered other incoming players, so you're missing the point. Its whether that diversion of effort and funds could/would have been better served on other areas of the team. Its an entirely subjective viewpoint but mine is that it could.

Against a Championship side, yes. I've got no doubt the longer term plan is for him to replace RL, and he'll be being developed for that. My "problem" per se is not with that; simply that for a side of our nature I don't see the inherent value of spending as much as we did for that, whilst also neglecting/failing in other more vital targetted areas.

I simply think its rather telling that we haven't really seen him up front in his natural position yet; as least not in the league. The Man City game was especially bizarre; dropping Rickie and moving Guly up front on his own in order to accommodate Rodriguez out wide. That, and constantly playing him out wide since, suggests to me that the management don't think he's at all ready to do a job up front yet. Which, being the case, would seem to leave us (still after a couple of years) without a true replacement for Lambert should he be injured. Perhaps I'm wrong, and Rodriguez will shine if he's given the chance up top. Until that happens I'll remain entirely sceptical of his transfer though; at least for where we are as a side right now.

When I say "replacement" I mean longer term replacement. I simply don't know if JRod would yet be good enough to play up front for us if RL did get injured; I guess the hope is that he will be ready in 6 months, a year, 2 years. So its a longer term approach. My view is that, for a team who has just been promoted and needs to hit the ground running, I'm unsure as to whether prioritising a signing of that nature was the wisest course of action.

Agree about Rodriguez; after seeing him in pre-season I expressed doubts, after a couple of games I thought it was a bizarre move to spend £6M on him, and now I'm still not sure about what his role is supposed to be in the squad. I think its an extremely strange transfer, and spending that much money on effectively a replacement for Lambert doesn't make a huge amount of sense to me.

I'm not sure I fully agree with that; sadly I think our current woes expose the flaws in our transfer activity this summer, whereby we spent a huge amount of money but still came up short of options in numerous places around the pitch. Not getting a LB has led to us playing a reserve RB and a RB playing out of position at LB; very much less than ideal. We spent £10M or so on two forwards, Rodriguez and Mayuka, and both seem to be being played out of position when they do appear, we're certainly not getting the best out of Rodriguez. There's not much we can do about predicting injuries; though some may now question the decision to release Dean Hammond given that we play a 3 man midfield and are now seemingly reliant on the form and ability of a 17 year old. Suddenly, with Cork and Morgan out, we look very short of decent options in the middle of the park; personally I'm not at all convinced that Yoshida is that answer at all, and even if he were it means going with Hooiveld and Fonte at CB which has its obvious flaws.

Is there not a danger of having almost half a team of square pegs in round holes? We already have Clyne playing LB, JRod playing LM/RM, and Lallana playing all over the midfield line.

Unfortunately just a by-product of our injuries. Ordinarily in that position we could have Jack Cork or JWP; Chaplow (probably rightly) wouldn't get a look-in with a full strength squad available. For Fulham its a different story though. I hope we get at them, 4-2-3-1 with Lallana, Ramirez and Mayuka as the "midfield" 3 behind RL. At home to Fulham is an entirely different prospect to away at Everton.

With Guly being more dynamic than what, exactly?

So your solution to yesterday's problems would be to play Guly instead of JRod. That's it? Really? Wow.

Apparently Morgan was in Oceana with Steve de Ridder watching the game yesterday.

Away from home, against the better sides, I'm simply not sure to the wisdom of putting both Lallana and Ramirez in the team. Attacking-wise, of course, they're very good and give some great options going forwards; but having both of them in the side leaves the defence vulnerable, so many of Everton's threats came from surges from midfield that we just didn't respond to. And IMO our defensive naievety is also increased by having Rodriguez and Lambert on the pitch. At home there's a case to be made that they can play together, or certainly a formation akin to that. Away from home, not so much. I don't believe the formation in itself is the problem; its the players occupying those positions. I'd have preferred someone like Chaplow at RM yesterday (ideally a fit Jack Cork or JWP there with Morgan in the middle, but injuries prevented that). We're simply not going to drop Lallana on the left, so its a moot point, but were in not I'd also look to shore up the left side (if Ramirez is going to play through the middle); and if we do sign a decent LB then LM is a job that Fox could potentially do if/when fit (only in tight away games though).

Who knows? I can't speak for anyone else. But I would certainly point to the fact that a 1-0 defeat is better than a 3-1 defeat, and would show signs that we're improving defensively.

To be fair to him, on the BBC website (which shows all of his interview) he says that we're conceding far too many goals. That said, he followed that up by saying "Are we too adevnturous? I don't think so". In some ways its good to see a manager who sets up his football team to have a go, and not park the bus. But I think we can still do that, while also selecting a slightly more defensive line-up that will protect the back 4 much better. Expecting Lallana, Rodriguez and/or Ramirez to effectively defend the wings and provide adequate defensove cover to the full backs is a little naive IMO, and we're being punished for it.

Who has said they expected us to win? There's a massive difference between expecting to win, and setting up a team that will likely offer much more help defensively than playing 4 attackers and conceding three goals before half time. It is possible to set up the team more defensively and still play football. We just haven't chsoen to do that yet. 18 goals in 6 games is a damning indictment of that fact, even taking into account who our opposition have been.

Exactly what TDD said. When I saw we were going with effectively a front 4 of Lambert, Rodriguez, Ramirez and Lallana I just knew we'd ship goals against a side who haven't had too much trouble scoring and are very much in form. At home, that type of lineup has a chance of working. Away, when we need to keep it much tighter and will naturally be defending more than attacking, its almost suicide to put out those 4 players and expect them to do it defensively.

Strange that, when it's a schoolboy with a female teacher (rather than the other way round) the natural reaction is "Wahay! Get it in there lad!"

If there's grass on the wicket, let's play cricket. Too much?

Nabil Hassan ‏@NabilHassan79 #Pompey Supporters' Trust have finally accepted they are not PKF's 'preferred bidder'. Only Football League can save them and stop Portpin. And the POL natives aren't best pleased.... But the Trust aren't giving up just yet...