Sheaf Saint

Adam Lallana - perhaps the one player most responsible for the existence of this thread - could be on his way to China or the US with his Liverpool contract due to expire in the summer. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2019/11/03/adam-lallana-emerging-target-clubs-china-mls-liverpool-contract/

Can't understand for a moment why we wouldn't wear our first kit away at City. Is there some sort of superstition going on due to our woeful home form?

Well now, if someone had told me an hour ago that we would keep them out and be in the lead at HT, I would have told them to seek medical help. It's a funny old game.

Well deserved by South Africa in the end. They defended brilliantly and ruthlessly exploited England's weakness at set pieces. They had a gameplan and stuck to it, and the better team won. Disappointing after England's monumental effort to beat NZ last week, but can have no complaints in the end.

The rot runs deep at SFC right now.

I think also the fact that our slow and ponderous transition from the plodders in the midfield three makes it very hard for the front three to really get into the game. If we had midfielders who were actually good at making forward runs or incisive passes once they've won the ball back then I'm certain we would begin to see much better performances from the front players.

You really have to hand it to David Cameron for not deleting this tweet from 2015...

If your GF is half your age then how old are you (if you don't mind me asking)? My (late) stepdad was 17 years older than my mum, which I thought was pretty much at the extreme edge of age gaps. My wife is 9 years my junior, and I often have to remind myself of that when I say thing like "Do you remember that kids program from the early 80s?" and then realise that she wasn't even born until 1984.

And therein lies the problem. A Lemina with a better attitude would be well above our price range and likely wouldn't come to a club like Saints anyway.

What makes you so certain he would have negotiated a better deal than May, given how inept he has shown himself to be in all of his previous political posts?

I thought the consensus on here was that we already have too many ex-goalkeepers in our coaching setup

This is technically true, but I would wager that a great many people go to the polls and vote based purely on which party they want in government and who they want as PM. If you asked everyone coming out of your polling station on election day who they just voted for, the vast majority would give you the party or party leader's name, and a large number of them wouldn't even be able to tell you the name of the local candidate despite having just put a cross by their name. That's the reality of the situation. Oh and also remember Johnson's accusation that Gordon Brown had no mandate to be PM when he took over from Blair, and his insistence that he should call an election immediately or be an illegitimate PM.

I hope some caring soul is keeping watch on Mark Francois' home today in case he spontaneously combusts.

I seriously doubt that. He just doesn't have the physical attributes required to be a top level player.

Meh. I'll take that, especially given the first half stats. Didn't watch but I can only assume City took their foot off the gas after their third.

The f*cking state of that lineup. No wonder we're so sh!te this season. We need to freshen things up so we bring in Stephens and Long, because we don't have any other options. And sticking with the same three useless plodders in midfield as well. Not even gonna bother finding a stream for this. Would rather stick nails in my feet than watch that.

Not sure how it's gone so wrong so quickly, but I can't see how any manager can survive a result like that. Last season he managed to get some decent performances from the likes of Redmond, JWP and Hojbjerg, but they have all regressed so badly this season it's alarming. Yet they are still the first names on the team sheet every week. I agree with many people that sacking Ralph now isn't going to instantly solve all the underlying problems. But frankly he has not shown anything this season to make me believe he is the right man to move us forward either.

Can someone please elaborate on what Hojbjerg said that alluded to a specific problem? I've been out tonight (was spared the pain of watching) and didn’t see the interview. Cheers.

That's the key thing isn't it. I think we've proven beyond any reasonable doubt over the last few years that we don't have the ability to do that.

So basically our strategy is to get a scrappy goal and then dig in to defend it at all costs At home Against Leicester. Glad I'm not paying to go and watch that myself.

Because there was no hint of it

Having a go at someone for not recognising discrimination, and using the word 'spastic' in the same post without any hint of irony. Brilliant

Yeah that was it. Some real highlights - the 4-1s against Liverpool, Norwich and QPR. The 6-3 against Luton. The 2-2 against Everton where we absolutely battered them but couldn't manage a winner - with Paul Rideout trying to steer a goalbound deflection off a defender in and only managing to put it against the post instead. I too watched that video over and over, to the point I can probably still recite some of the commentary. Some of the attacking play we produced that season was bloody sensational.

Granted. But our defence still managed to make a hash of it and concede the shot regardless. The point being they created a lot of chances and can rightly feel aggrieved they didn't get anything from the game. I'm usually as optimistic as they come, but I have seen precious little in our recent performances to convince me that we have got enough about us to finish above three other teams come May. I hope I'm wrong, of course.