Whitey Grandad

Well, look at it this way: It would only have gone to penalties and I have never liked that as a way of settling the tie. Now the Irish can feel morally superior and can hold their heads up with honour. The French on the other 'hand' ....

Maradona's was worse, that one involved England. There have always been bad decisions, be they offsides, penalties given or not given, balls over the line or not, it's all part off this great game that we all love. But we're not talking about unfortunate refereeing decisions here, deliberate handball like this does leave a nasty taste in the mouth.

Let's just take it one game at a time, shall we?

I think you'll find it was a lot more than one mistake. Also most of his crosses were just lumped in from way too far back, were far too easy for their defence to deal with, and gave our attackers nothing to work with. As a full back, he is awful. As a right midfielder he may in time become a useful footballer. It's interesting that there are these two extreme views of James's performance. Some think he was our best player, others that he is a gaping hole in the defence.

Tuesday would be good, I can go to that! That'll be the kiss of death then.

Good luck to him and all the other sufferers out there. It just brings home to you the importance of health and happiness.

I forced myself to skip through the recording late last night and Lallana was daydreaming. If Crofts could see that the lay-off was going to come across then Lallana should also have been alert to it. He just reacted a second after Crofts, but that's all it took.

3rd goal was awful (non-existent) defending by James and a failure to track back by Lallana.

Here's one for our friends in the north-west:

Two possible answers there.. 1. He's a very good manager. 2. He took over a better set of players.

For a moment there I thought you meant that national team that plays in yellow. I nearly choked on my coffee.

His best cross yesterday came when the ball was laid back to him and he hit it first time, only for Lallana to miss the goal from 8 yards out. This was about as high up the pitch as he got (apart from corners).

That's unbelievable, isn't it? Shouldn't that be 'never a threat going forwards'? I watched the recording last night and Brighton were the better team by a country mile, yet at the game I thought we were unlucky not to have scraped a draw.

Interesting, that. I and many others thought he was our weakest link yesterday, certainly playing at right back. He was at fault for two of the goals and his crosses were nearly all from too far back and when he tried to go past the opposition they just took the ball off him and counter-attacked. Yet some on here have put him down as our best player. We can't all be right.

Sad, but true

Spot on, as usual.

Isn't he 'un peu dépassé'?

I zipped through the recording last night (yes, I must be a masochist) to see who it was that let Crofts run away from him for their third goal. Yes - it was Lallana. In the camera shot from the Chapel end you can see that he suddenly twigs what is happening and tries to run after him but is always two yards behind. If Crofts can run that far then surely somebody can run with him? James was just brushed aside for the cross but that's another story.

James pulled out of a few tackles yesterday and was at fault for their second and third goals.

I fear you may well be right. I wonder what yesterday would have been like with Wotton in there instead of Schneiderlin?

And Morgan only played the first half on Wednesday. Why was he so poor?

That would explain a lot...

I thought he did ok today. If the other team double up on him it should leave more space elsewhere for the others to exploit.

I agree with almost everything that has been posted so far, except that we desperately need to keep James away from the right-back position. His defending was ponderous and cost us two goals and he will not get far enough forward before lumping the ball into the mix. These types of crosses are easiest for the defence and almost impossible for the attack. Morgan was exactly not the type of player we needed for this league. If he is not prepared to get stuck in then he has no business being out there. James also bottled quite a few challenges. We created several chances but Hammond and Lallana seemed to lack confidence or killer instinct. Will somebody please teach Lallana to put his foot through the ball? We looked lethargic and we were caught on the hop. We only scored when Brighton eased off after their second. One team wanted it more than the other, and it showed. I expect it will be different against Norwich.