ant

Rarely have I ever been so ****ed off after a game. Just about simmering down now but that was an awful way to lose. I'd rather add to some of the stats on here as Villa completed a mite less than 50% of their passes - can't recall seeing a completion rate lower than that at the top level. It gives a measure of how poor they were and, despite any negatives, how well we managed to break up play yet again. Three mistakes/moments of weakness, three goals conceded. I just don't know how you can account for that when we didn't play particularly poorly. I see lots of talk about our lack of creativity; when we worked the space we were actually pinging it about nicely in the final third. It's always going to be difficult to play through the middle when the opposition is camping narrowly in their own half. One thing that does annoy is the reluctance of Shaw and Clyne to beat the opposition full back. If they've been instructed to be more conservative it seems wrong - especially when one of our CDMs drops in to cover them. Arsenal and Chelsea were largely better than us whereas Aston Villa played a kick and rush game that carved us open worryingly easily. We've got to find a method to withstand hoofball tactics or teams that sit deep and work the counter attack. To move to the next level we don't need to pick more than the odd point off top 4 teams, but we do need to put the average ones to bed. That's certainly how Everton have pushed on over the past decade. I see no need for panic stations - a wafer thin slice of better luck our way and we'd be sitting pretty again. Perform like tonight (defensive frailties 'n all) and we'll still win plenty. It's true that beyond our strongest 13 or 14 players the quality dips, but the squad's still far stronger than it was 12 months ago.

This is how it feels to be P*mpey, This is how it feels to be small, This is how it feels, When your club means nothing at all. Fits the original lyrics and doesn't rely upon which no-name they have in charge. Job done.

Which pub are people heading to?

I'm probably going to chance it and travel up on the day without a ticket, but if any end up going spare I'll gladly do the legwork to take it off your hands. Just need the one.

If you're using Google calendar then the functionality for sports fixtures is built in. https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/37098?hl=en Might be a more elegant solution. Futureproof too as it auto-populates the calendar with a new season's fixtures.

Hodgson: "Sod it, I'll take the lot of them."

I'm @antonydjames. Bit of a Saints bore on there I must admit.

Indeed. But in the here and now I'm struggling to take all of this in.

An interesting point. If you're willing to take away the context of it being a cup competition and a chance for silverware (I'm sure many won't - I'm undecided) then there's certainly merit in treating a match like tonight's as a glorified development team outing. It's definitely not as bad as putting out a squad merely consisting of has-beens or never-weres as some clubs tend to. In the absence of a Chelsea-alike depth of squad it remains a valid option.

A glimmer from tonight's poor performance - yet another assist from Ward-Prowse. Looking through our matches so far this season he's already totted up this little lot. Via: Free kick - Sunderland (h) Corner - Bristol City Corner - Man United Corner - Fulham (h)* Cross - Stoke *albeit helped on by Lambert's head He also has the 2nd best accurate crossing total in Europe with 29 (42.5% successful). Also, in case anybody missed it:

Bugger. Always meant to do this and never have.

I've a season ticket but severely doubt it'll get that far. If anybody has any numbers going spare with aways on them I'd be much obliged.

Just created a Pro Club (PS3) if anybody fancies joining. Team name is Saints Web, send me a friend request (amplifiedAnt) if you want to get involved.

Gutted I had to miss out (on the whole day). Next time.

This has nothing to do with political correctness and everything to do with idiocy.

I can't go now If anybody needs a pair of tickets at £47 each (face value plus fee) give me a shout.

Although naturally right-footed he injured it at Celtic and in order to continue playing did a lot of work on his left. He's unflappable no matter which foot a pass is delivered to and that's undoubtedly an asset when you've got an opposition striker rushing towards you.

Fully agree with Turkish's summary. While Fox did look out of place in the squad yesterday (quite literally in terms of positional sense), I can only echo the sentiment that getting on one of our own player's backs isn't likely to fix that. In terms of his distribution he's simply not as cultured as the rest of our defence, being far more used to hitting it towards the corner flag or attempting cross-field Hollywood balls. That said his team mates often didn't help when Fox tried to play it short; twice in quick succession he played it along the sideline towards JWP who stood statically waiting for it to arrive, only for a Swansea player to nip in and steal possession both times. Following that there were ironic jeers every time Danny managed to complete a 5 yard pass, which to my mind is about as constructive as booing. Big difference between targeting an individual and, for argument's sake, the collective groan that resonates as an attack breaks down.

Circumstances meant a big lump of unrelated design work took precedence unfortunately! I had forgotten as well though to be fair - if next week's not too manic I'll knock something up.

In summary of the final ten minutes of the presser (all I caught): MP is cynical about the Qatar World Cup (who isn't?); when asked outright whether his English is 'very good' he merely replied "poco a poco" (little by little); he stated he is "apolitical" and that the Italian journo this week merely pointed out MP started at Espanyol around the same time Obama was reelected.

The stats are all pulled from the same database, yes. It gets updated weekly but the Ultimate Team cards only get a refresh in January and at the end of a season. Lovren made it into the Team of the Week by the way: http://www.futhead.com/14/players/12342/dejan-lovren/

The overall rating numbers mean very little. Shaw's upgrade last season made him better than Fox in terms of defensive stats despite the card appearing worse on face value. Rodriguez's stats have barely changed from last year - the only reason he's gone from 75 to 69 is the change of position. Given where he plays for us you could argue CAM would've been more apt than LM but it's not really worth getting het up about. Ramirez has gone from 78 to 80 despite many of his stats reducing. Again it's purely down to a change of base position.

The guy buying our tickets was just charged £20 (matchday price) plus £2.50 in fees per ticket. That's a pretty hefty increase.

Yep, BBC reported at 15.01 today that Fox is still out with an ankle knock.

Exactly the same for me. The most I watch of it these days is the 7 or 8 minutes of race highlights the BBC put up on their website.