SaintBobby

I'm a little unimpressed at the moment. But to conclude Puel is "out of his depth" and disaster is beckoning is surely premature. Mind you, this was the web forum on which some people were claiming Sadio Mane was only a League One quality player.....

Bank the cash. Wait until the Summer. £8m for Fonte is insane. Limp on to June. Rebuild then.

Preston 1 Arsenal 0 - HT

Oh well, we will win the replay. He says with utterly no confidence whatsoever.

Pretty poor stuff. Getting a tad worried about out total toothlessness.

Has passed away peacefully today. One of the nicest gents you could ever meet and a supporter since 1937. RIP and thoughts and prayers with his wonderful family.

I can tell you now, this is all completely untrue. The entire issue is Fonte's contract extension. Disregard the above post completely and confidently.

Nah. It's great to have them in the same league. Love em. But I actually cheer them on v anyone else, so not really a derby tbh.

Found it weird that there was any criticism of Boruc for Bertrand's goal. Great individual effort, maybe slightly slack defending, but the finish is in off the far post. Not the keeper's fault.

I think we can win this one. Spurs are good but we can close down their attacking options. We need to show boldness going forward and more width than usual, but I make us slight favourites.

I'm not too worried, as long as we don't lose VVD within the same window (or within 12 months tbh). I'd sit him on the bench, see how he reflects on things. Btw, Yoshida has been terrific this season. The errors we were used to seem to have been exorcised. I'd be okay with him being a starting XI CB now.

Really, really good second half. I'm one of those who'd long since written off J Rod, so serve me up some humble pie.

God, we're boring. Exceptional defensive record, but hell's teeth we need some new options up front.

I'm appalled and disillusioned. We will be lucky to stay up. Shocking mismanagement.

Don't much care about the Palace game - put out the second string side for that. Tonight - and next week's Europa League game - are much more important. Play our best players tonight and on Dec 8th and give them the weekend off if necessary.

Even on the basis of the little we have seen of Boufal so far, I am confident he is up to the League One standards of Sadio Mane.

Basically, yes. Boufal is the Mane replacement. We haven't replaced Pelle though (other than treating J-Rod as a "new signing")

Que sera sera 3-0!

So, Maya at RB.

Where did we find this Puel guy from? I'd never heard of him until he was in the frame to be manager. I'm now pleased Koeman left. We are a very canny club with a very smart manager.

Identify and ban the morons involved. Hooliganism is under control now. It's not perfect. But we now talk about if it's okay for ****ed Saints fans to toss beer bottles into a canal in Milan. Not how many people have been stabbed or arrested.

I think Puel has got the rotations about right, but I can understand why the media are obsessed with it. Essentially, it provides a talking point about how seriously you're taking a particular game - given that in many instances, you're actually choosing NOT to field your best starting XI. I presume that if the Inter match had been a "do or die" and the Man City match a total irrelevance, then certainly Fonte and very probably Austin would have started in Milan. We still fielded a strong team and were unlucky to lose, but it does provide storylines about the balance of priorities in the manager's mind and that's fair game IMHO, even if it does become a tad repetitive.

Not sure I question this. But obviously our aspirations are higher than 3 or 4 years ago. Plus we have (at least) six Europa games. So, I still think lack of depth rather than lack of quality is what will bite us.

Nope, I'm suggesting 5 centre backs and 3 CFs. I guess the definition of a CF changes, but Long, Redmond, Boufal and even J-Rod are sort of winger/forwards. As far as I'm aware, you can register more than 22 players, so on average you'd expect to have more than 2 per position. A squad of 22 wld be very light indeed. (I also think youth players don't count towards the total, if my memory serves, so Hesketh and Olomola can stay in the squad). A back up player who can play right back would be useful. Am not adverse to having a utility back-up player who can cover a number of bases (didn't Jack Cork play in about 5 different positions for us?). I stick to the view that out biggest problem isn't quality, it's squad depth. Doubly so if we progress in Europa and put together a cup run.

I think we're one injury from a crisis up front. It's also a mystery to me that we only have 4 established CBs in the squad (compared to 3 keepers and 3 right backs). If Pied is out for the season, we probably need RB cover too. I don't have any names in mind - but, against our usual recruitment policy, I'd look for established players in their 30s to bring in on loan to cover CB, CF and RB positions.