Sheaf Saint

I wondered whose turn it was to have a scapegoat thread started about him immediately after the game tonight.

Been out and only got back for the last 5 minutes. Seems as though we actually played pretty well and deserved to win but got mugged. It's football - that happens. Anybody remember away at Villa last season when we won thanks to a dodgy penalty? What about the Leeds game in our Championship season?

If that's the case then I can see Cork leaving in January to get the first team football he should be playing, seeing as he isn't even first choice backup in his position.

Much like us, Villa's defending is much improved this season. They were abysmal at the back in that game last season. Can't see Gaston having as much of an effect against them this time around.

Now we are a third of the way through the season, how do people view our progress? My take on it so far... We've played 13 games now, four of which have been away at Liverpool, Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea, and we're sitting 7th above both Man Utd and Spurs. I doubt anybody (excepting, perhaps, Cortese himself) had any higher expectations than that at the start of the season. Despite the two consecutive defeats, we still have the joint best defensive record in the PL. Up until yesterday we have pretty much held our own against every team we have played, but the manner of the defeat at Chelsea shows we still have a long way to go before we can seriously challenge the top four. Moving forward... The loss of Boruc will be a blow, as we all know neither of our back up keepers are really up to it at this level. Too often we look toothless up front and that's something that might need to be addressed in January, because so far both of our very expensive international attacking players have failed to deliver the goods. My gut feeling is that we will finish somewhere around where we are now. If we continue performing as we have then anything below 8th/9th come May will be a disappointment.

Very frustrating day, but Chelsea were simply much better than us. No disgrace really because there is a very good reason they have the home record they do. I too am getting very concerned about our seeming inability to create decent openings up front. I have very much defended Osvaldo so far but he was totally anonymous today. True he didn't get any decent service, but when that's not happening you need a striker that can create chances for himself, and the only player we have that looks capabale of that currently is J-Rod. Wanyama didn't have one of his better games today, and when that happens we look a lot less assured in midfield and at the back. Needed a big game from him today to counter the threat of Ramires and Mata, but he was too casual at times, as he has an infuriating tendency to be. Oh well. Draw a blue line under it and move on. It's disappointing to have dropped but with two consecutive away games against teams that will undoubtedly be in the CL places at the end of the season it was always going to be a mammoth task to keep our momentum going.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/25074373 Were we well beaten at Arsenal? Well the scoreline suggests so, but the reality was somewhat different. I thought we did a very good job of containing them and they only scored thanks to a suicidal piece of goalkeeping and a penalty that 99 times out of 100 wouldn't have been given. Arsenal are the real deal this season. The table doesn't lie and the 7-point gap they have opened up at the top this weekend is no fluke. With our regular first eleven I firmly believe we would have got a better result against them, which is why I am confident that we can get a result at Chelsea today because they have been hit and miss so far this season (despite sitting 3rd currently) and are a lesser team than Arsenal IMO.

I haven't had much time for gaming this year so I bought very few new titles. My out and out favourite though has to be Far Cry 3. Ubisoft brought together all the very best elements of the first two games and made something spectacular out of it.

Ouch. I'm 38 and Some of those are painfully true!!

Oh don't get me wrong, I had the cravings for a few weeks after I quit as well. But I found it much easier to overcome them (they go away after a couple of weeks anyway) because I had reached the stage where I just didn't want to smoke any more, and didn't want to be identified as a smoker. Of course there is a physical side to the addiction, but the psychological aspect shouldn't be overlooked. People who want to quit and say things like "I'll just finish this packet and that's it" inevitably give in and start again, because they are essentially saying "I don't really want to quit, but I'm going to try". If you build it up in your head and convince yourself that quitting will be really hard then it will be. That's why tobacco companies are more then happy to go along with the whole 'get help to quit' thing because they can be seen to be doing something to help people stop, but they know full well that people with that mindset are more likely to start smoking again.

It's all about your mindset. If you are serious about not wanting to smoke any more then you won't need patches, gum, hypnosis or any of the aids that are available, as you will just stop and you won't find it hard. If, on the other hand, you don't really want to stop but feel as though you should then you are doomed to fail I'm afraid. Smoking is the most irrational thing that anybody can do, and it is incredible the lengths people will go to to try and justify their habit rather than face the obvious truth: that they are just hopelessly addicted. Once you can accept that, you will find quitting so much easier.

The strangest thing for me was the fact that in the wild only 1% of orcas suffer from the collapsed dorsal fin issue that manifests in just about all the animals that are kept in captivity. Whether that's to do with their diet or it's caused by psychological trauma appears to be unclear, but it is firm evidence that keeping them in captivity clearly has a physical effect on them that is not present in the wild.

Got it running today after I upgraded my OS. There have already been a couple of major update patches, one of which includes joystick support. Mine is working perfectly. It's very different from the previous versions so getting the hang of navigation and trading will take a while due to the sheer scope of it. I agree the graphics are a little disappointing, but if it means they have put more effort into the gameplay then ultimately that won't bother me. Could have done better though. As for the voice acting - yes it's crap but it was just as terrible on all the previous ones (due to the translation from German, I assume) so I had no expectations there. Looking forward to getting out and exploring the galaxy.

Indeed. Look at the Stoke v Sunderland game yesterday. Wes Brown got red-carded for what looked a very good tackle, and later Begovic wasn't penalised at all for a shocking studs-up tackle on one of the Sunderland players. You can see why Poyet was so furious. Really poor refereeing. Then there was the red card in the Hull v Palace game which looked completely innocuous to me as well. I really don't know how much longer the FA/FIFA can continue to resist the introduction of video replay technology.

I last took a foreign holiday in 2010 when I got the Eurostar to France. I do drive for work (my job necessitates it) but I have made sure I have been given the most economical vehicle possible that still allows me to do my job. I also avoid using my car wherever possible for private use, which I am able to do because I have a lot of facilities within walking distance of my home and have excellent public transport links I have been a fan of motor sport in the past (not so much any more) but the demands of competition mean that racing car manufacturers are always looking to make their engines as fuel-efficient as possible, and these technological advances help the motor industry on the whole, so I don't have much of a problem with that, although I accept the carbon footprint of, for example, an F1 team over a season must be pretty huge when you factor in flying their equipment all over the world. I have switched my electricity supplier to one that supplies 100% from renewables I recycle every bit of rubbish I possibly can, and I put what little food waste I generate into compost I drive my girlfriend mad with my constant nagging at her for putting the heating on when it's not necessary I have cold showers most of the time, to save electricity (and water, because I don't tend to stay in them too long!) I eat a lot of vegetarian food because my girlfriend is veggie Does this satisfy you?

That was my assumption. Lallana was clearly our best attacking player on the pitch but didn't seem at all surprised when he was subbed.

People will moan about strange substitutions, schoolboy errors and questionable refereeing, but the long and short of it is that we went away to a team that are top of the table for a very good reason, and despite the personnel changes we were forced to make we gave a very good account of ourselves, and I take heart from that. Yes it's obvious we lost our attacking momentum when Lallana went of, but there must have been a very good reason why he was substituted which only MP knows at the moment. Lambert was utter crap today. Not involved at all, offside far too often and made no contribution of any note. Of course we forgive him because he's Rickie Lambert, but if that was anybody else putting in such an ineffective display he would be getting ripped to shreds on here. J-Rod had a really good game I thought. Made some great runs when he was able to but just didn't get to see much of the ball in the 2nd half because of the switch in formation following Lallana's withdrawal. Wanyama had a great game and showed why we paid the fee we did for him. Put in some excellent tackles to break up the play and his passing was much improved on his performances earlier in the season. Boruc - oh dear. That will haunt him for the rest of his career, but aside from that and a couple of wayward clearances he did OK.

Yeah but imagine if it was the other way round and it wasn't given. We would be screaming blue murder at the ref.

He had a run at the defence that ended with a shot on target. That's more than Lambert has done today - he's been completely anonymous for the whole game.

Oh those Arsenal fans are so hilarious aren't they - jeering every time the ball gets passed back to Boruc. Oh my aching sides.

Giroud is actually a bit of a pr*ck isn't he.

Saints fans coming through loud and clear at the moment.

Not really. He played a large chunk of both England games last week so MP probably wants to keep him fresh.

Lovely move building up to Lallana's shot there. Deserved a better finish.