Sheaf Saint

Yes, of course. I momentarily forgot that the disallowed goal was before their actual second goal. But that does not negate the point I was making.

That's right - they definitely weren't chanting 'We want Jackett out' after their game at Wycombe on Saturday.

I have to disagree with this. It was obvious within the first 5 minutes on Friday that the defensive setup was not working, especially with Danso at RB, yet he waited until HT and being 2-0 down (would have been 3-0 but for VAR) before making the necessary switch.

In fairness, the first 4 of those managers didn't pick him because they had much better options (Fonte, VVD, Toby). When he joined he was always liable to making mistakes, but he has cut them out and every time he has had a sustained run in the team he has shown himself to be a decent CB. Vestergaard has had a sustained run in the team now, but he has failings that he will never be able to overcome. His glaring lack of speed, turning ability, heading ability and reactions are all things that cannot be coached out of him. I watched them both play against Sheff Utd and Yoshida was very good despite not having played all season, while Vestergaard was his usual dodgy self. For any neutral watching that being asked to guess which one would still make the starting lineup the following week, 100% of them would say Yoshida.

Was just going to post the same thing. Line up properly like we did for the 2nd half last night and we will easily overpower them.

I don't think it's as simple as that. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, our manager currently thinks Vestergard is a better defender than Yoshida.

Nail on head. The defence looked so much more in control after HT when we had players being played in their correct positions. It's really not rocket science. I can understand Ralph wanting to experiment with different ideas, but he needs to recognise much sooner when it isn't working. That was a winnable game last night, and he has to take full responsibility for us not getting anything out of it.

I wouldn't say abysmal. He does good things but his decision making is often wayward. If he could just learn to find a team mate with a forward pass a bit more regularly, he would be superb.

At least he can hit a powerful shot on target. That's more than anyone else in the squad seems capable of. His 3 tonight may not have been far enough away from the keeper to beat him. But they were all well struck and there's always a chance the keeper will spill one.

That is all on Ralph for his baffling starting lineup. It was the same last week at Sheff Utd, but lucky for us their attacking players are terrible. Bertrand is the best defender in the squad. If he's fit enough to play an entire half then why isn't he on from t he start? Yoshida is the best CB in the squad, but despite playing really well last week he gets left out in favour of our worst player on the pitch at Bramall Lane. With the pace of the Bournemouth attackers, that was never going to end well. I'll cut Danso some slack because it seems he hasn't even been allowed to play a single half in one position yet, but he was woeful at RB. How the hell did it take 45 minutes and a 2-goal deficit (lucky it wasn't 3) for Ralph to identify that. We won the ball in their half very well and dominated the possession, but sadly every one of our decent chances fell to JWP who seems to be utterly incapable of hitting a moving ball properly. Boufal had a couple of decent long range efforts but couldn't get either of them far enough away from the keeper. Our best player tonight by far. As for that gift at the end. Gunn needs to have a word with himself after that. Woeful.

Summed up in 5 words... Bournemouth defended well; we didn't.

Bertrand coming on for the 2nd half

Overall, I don't think we're playing that badly. We're winning the ball in their half and making all the running and dictating the tempo of the game. But that defence is f*cking hideous. Case in point - at one stage, under no pressure, Vest messed up his jump and gave it straight back, then was far too slow to react when the ball came back in again. He's a massive liability. After not putting a foot wrong last Saturday, Maya must be right miffed at being left out again in favour of this charlatan. What on earth has happened with Bertrand? If he's leaving then why is he even on the bench? If he's fit enough to play then get him on FFS.

****sake. Our defence is f*cking hopeless. Get Yoshida on for Vestergard and swap Cedric and Danso round. It's so simple.

I'm starting to have my doubts though. Vestergard scares the bejeesus out of me every time the ball goes near him. Why can't Ralph see his is a very weak link?

Yeah agreed. I still consider Yoshida to be the best CB in our squad currently, so his continual exclusion is quite a mystery. But I have faith in Ralph, unlike his 2-3 predecessors. So I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

10/11 on Bet365. They must be taking the local derby nature of the game into account. On the same night, they have got Leicester (1 point above us in the PL) at 11/20 away to Luton (who are a division above Pompey).

Two very interesting stats from the BBC... https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/49684490 Bournemouth have never won a match at Southampton in any competition (D6, L9). Southampton have lost their last four home league games on a Friday, although three of those were in the Championship between 2007 and 2012.

I suspect he is referring to this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/49752486

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/49760230

It's interesting to see some of the comments made back when this thread was started. I'm very pleased to see he has regained the kind of form that won him POTS in 2017. Long may it continue.

That's not surprising about Djenepo. When he came back on to the pitch to celebrate with the rest of the players on Saturday I noticed his thigh was heavily strapped up, and in his post-macth interview Ralph praised the physios for getting him available to play in the first place.

While this is factually correct, it's fair to say that a large number of voters only actually vote for the party and don't care who is wearing the rosette.

Just watched Johnson's interview with Laura Kuenssberg. What a car crash. He just isn't capable of giving any kind of proper answers to anything. Just keeps waffling on about being positive. He's a f*cking embarrassment of a PM.

We rode our luck a bit on Saturday though. JV in particular looked more than shaky at times, and Bournemouth have much better attacking players than Sheff Utd do. I will be very surprised if we keep another clean sheet.