Sheaf Saint

Such a good opening. Needed a better shot from Mane.

We're the better team at the moment. Need to score another to make it count.

Decent effort from Long. we are stretching them on that left hand side.

I know. There are many qualities a player needs to be a good penalty taker, and so far Tadic has displayed none of them.

Agreed. Surely Mane would be the best option. Even Clyne has a much better shot on him.

Mourinho won't be happy. Surely it must be a conspiracy

That's f***ing Lee Dixon's fault. It was only 2 minutes ago he was saying how we have only conceded one headed goal all season!

At the time of the rumours in 2007 I was one of the mods on this forum's predecessor, and as such I was party to certain information which, at the time, I was duty bound not to pass on. Seeing as so much time has now passed, I guess it doesn't matter if I share what I know, although I won't name names. One of my fellow mods at the time had a private meeting with a very well respected director of the club at the time, and was told by this person in no uncertain terms that the board had indeed met with people representing, or at least claiming to represent Paul Allen, and that there was a genuine, serious interest there. Make of that what you will.

Interesting that no sooner do we take Pelle off, we manage to score. He would never have made that run into the box that Mane did to gamble on the keeper spilling the shot and getting on to the rebound. Hopefully now Koeman will realise just how damaging it is playing a statuesque lump as a lone striker.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand....... breathe!

There we have it. That's what we have been lacking of late - a bit of luck with a parry or a deflection into the path of a player gambling on being in the right place at the right time. It doesn't happen with Pelle as our main front man. Our first league goal at SMS since New Years Day.

According to BBC Stats... 19 shots - 1 on target. Utter, utter crap.

It's hard to see how that record is going to be maintained after tonight.

Possibly because he was being pushed in the back as he went for it?

That moment just then, when Schneiderlin had the ball in an attacking position, we had four players in the box - all stood completely static. That right there is our problem.

Yes, you're right. The answer to all our attacking problems was to not sell a backup DM who specialised in sideways passing.

This is actually painful to watch.

I think that's down to the fact that Palace are leaving one or two gaps for us to play into, unlike our last few opponents.

My god, Does anybody in the Saints squad not remember how to hit a shot on target FFS!?

'Southampton nil' is becoming a very depressingly common sight. It wouldn't be so bad if we were creating decent chances and just getting unlucky, but we're not. The very worst thing we could have done today was concede an early goal. A pulis team with a lead to protect will inevitably just dig in and defend deep, and as we have seen from the last few games, we just don't have an answer when teams do that. We need a target man who is going to make runs, put himself about and generally make life difficult for the defenders around him. Pelle is the complete opposite of that right now.

Yep. Pelle was a total waste of space out there today, and has been for a number of games now. If we had a decent alternative he would have been dropped long ago.

The look on Pelle's face says it all. He's just a passenger right now and we will never find a way through a packed defence with him in this state of mind.

Long on for Tadic

Of course we're not glad you tool. We're thoroughly f***ing depressed that our goals have completely dried up and that our target man looks less and less interested with each game. Why would any of us be glad about that?

Right - don't anybody tell me that Pelle's poor run is down to lack of chances being created for him. That miss is absolutely unforgivable.