Minsk

TTA. Really didn't think a big hard man (lol) like yourself would get upset with someone using an expletive which wasn't even aimed at you. Such a sensitive soul. And what abuse? Where have I abused you? I also didn't call you thick, I merely implied it. Just thought I would try responding to you how you do to most others. After all, that must be acceptable, right? Or maybe you don't like your own medicine, 'Hun'? xx

Not angry at all 'hun'. Yet another TTA. I know, I know, actually answering questions and debating like a grown up is hard for you. Bless. xx

And I was only discussing. You are the one who seemingly can't comprehend how one thing effects another and try to avoid any reasonable debate when people disagree with you. Once more, sorry that you don't like it when others disagree and point out errors in your thought processes. And, I guess by your lack of response to questions posed, you can't think of any specific misses of Armstrong that Ings would have certainly buried either......

Typical Turkish Answer (TTA). As usual you come out out with a complete and utter load of bollocks attempting to put people down and trying to make yourself look hard and clever, yet when challenged completely avoid any reasonable debate or answer valid questions. You try so hard on this Billy Big Bollox persona (to match your chosen username - says it all) and try to twist things around whilst being all over the shop yourself (which you then tend to accuse others of being). I know this post is a waste of my time as you likely don't have the intelligence to comprehend much within but fuck it, I've not much else to do right now. If my above statement is incorrect then explain the following: Why use the word hun (above)? Where have I mentioned anything about stats on this thread? What was the purpose of the word 'mentalists' in your earlier post? Why didn't you just just say anybody/anyone? I'm not expecting any reasonable answer to the above, so don't worry your few little braincells too much about an answer. Hope you and Egg had a nice spoon last night. xx

Who are these 'mentalists' that have said Ings wouldn't have scored a couple of chances Armstrong missed? (Any particular misses in mind?) Can you quote where they said this? Maybe you are referring to yourself? I mean, you then go on to say the same as I have in that even if he had been playing for us and we had subsequently scored more goals (by him) it doesn't necessarily mean we would have won those games anyway. Or is that just one of your usual bollocks bravado statements that you are so fond of?

Not at all Princess. I fully understand your opinion that Ings is (at present) a better finisher than Armstrong. Thus it is likely that he MIGHT have scored one or two more than Arma has so far this season. (Can't really bring to mind any glaring misses of his. Seemingly nor can you.) However, that does not in any way relate to the fact that we WOULD (your word) have won 1 or 2 matches already this season if we still had Ings in our squad. You seem to fail to comprehend that if we hadn't sold him we would have been starting different players, both in attack and defence. No one can tell how that would have impacted on any of the matches. It really isn't that difficult to understand. I mean, I might as well write - if we had signed Grealish, van Dijk, and Kane instead of Walcott, Lyanco and Armstrong we would have probably (but maybe not) won a couple of matches by now. Equally as pointless as your statement re Ings. But it's an opinion, right? It certainly doesn't make me any inciteful footballing genius, it just acknowledges the fact that are better players out there than we have in our squad. Simple enough for you?

Please point out where I have said that Armstrong is better than Ings. I said the exact opposite in the post you quoted. Let help you by quoting exactly what I wrote: With the money from Ings we brought in his younger replacement (who could likely do better with us over the spell he is here than Ings may have done had he stayed - not as good yet, but offers more years and potentially many more matches). I have even put the important bit in bold for you. Simple enough? Once again, I am not being contrary (or argumentative) for the sake of it. I have merely pointed out a very simplistic concept: us still having Ings would have meant we don't have other players in our squad. That should be simple enough even for you to understand. Therefore, your statement of 'We'd have a couple of wins on the board if we had Ings rather than Armstrong' IS pure conjecture - as we have no idea who else would be in our squad. As others have said, maybe keeping Ings we would have played a weaker defence and conceded more. So Ings scoring 1 might have meant we lost matches that we have drawn because we conceded 2 more. All conjecture. Sorry if my saying it upsets you. That said, I still believe it is very conceivable for Arma to match the 11 goals scored from open play that Ings achieved last season. Oh, and I'm still waiting for you to state exactly which chances Armstrong missed that Ings DEFINITELY would have scored.

Which chances in particular? Not arguing for the sake of it. Just stating that yours is simply an opinion which cannot be backed up or proved in any manner whatsoever. Yes, an on form Ings is better than a current day Armstrong. No one will disagree with that. However, surely you can see the point that if we hadn't sold Ings (i.e. he were still here) we wouldn't have bought other players. Therefore, it would be an entirely different team out on the pitch. Therefore, the chances may not have existed in the first place. As I said, pure conjecture. You have a habit, although not as bad as SKDman, of always trying to put the club down. Don't get upset when others point out the errors in your thought process.

Spot on. Let's wait until the end of the season to see if Arma matches the 11 goals of Ings (not including penalties) last season.....

Wrong (as usual). Ings might have scored one or two goals more than Arma has if he were still here, he might not have. He equally may have picked up an injury in the first match and not featured since. We will never know. As Lighthouse quite rightly stated without the money we got for him (and Vest) we wouldn't have been able to bulk out our squad as we have. And no, it is not an 'absolute shambles' that we bought 2 (1 potentially very good, 1 so far decent) fullbacks for the fee we received for an average (during the most of his spell with us) CB. That is good business. With the money from Ings we brought in his younger replacement (who could likely do better with us over the spell he is here than Ings may have done had he stayed - not as good yet, but offers more years and potentially many more matches), 1 x CB (not ready yet, but Salisu is proving a far better player than Vest has ever been - so Lyanco doesn't need to be there yet), 1 x CB for the future (Simeu) and 1 x (very promising/highly rated - Small) LB for the future. We are not a big club with a wealthy owner. Get over it!

He did. CW just showing his usual knowledge of Saints players. Not quite as bad as his comment about Salisu being to slow though.

Pure conjecture.

Match Day 5 Match Day Comparison: Last season saw us grab a last minute equaliser to get a very respectable 3-3 draw away at title contenders (and eventual European Champions) Chelsea. This season saw a fabulous time added on save from McCarthy to earn a 0-0 draw (which should have been a 1-0 win, but less said about that penalty decision the better) away at Champions Man City. When you consider City's other 4 home matches this season - scored 5, 5, 6 and 6 - shutting them out completely was an amazing achievement. Same points and GD this season as last (didn't think I would be typing that on here this time last week) -3 points; -1 GD Head-to-Head Comparison: Last season we lost 5-2 at The Etihad, so the 0-0 is a great improvement of +1 point and +3 GD. +3 points; +4 GD Next up, on Match Day 6, is Wolves at home. Last season match Day 6 saw us beat Everton 2-0 at St. Mary's; however, our home match against Wolves saw us lose 1-2 (after being 1 up at half-time). Would love to see us win this by any margin, we certainly need to get our first win under our belt. A 2-0 repeat of last season's Match Day 6 would be ideal, but I'm hoping for at least 3-0 with goals from Che, Arma and JWP. (A man is allowed to dream once in a while.) COYS

HaHa. You posted this as I was typing more or less the same. Great minds and all that. I would also like to see Tella given the start ahead of Redmond, but suspect Redders was taken off last night with Sunday in mind. In which case, I would hope Tella will get at least 20-30 mins at the end.

I think most of the team picks itself. Only real question marks are LB and the 10's: GK - McCarthy (I know many prefer FF, but won't be dropped him after 2 clean sheets) RB - Tino CBs - Bednarek and Salisu LB - KWP or Perraud CMs - JWP and Romeu AMs - 2 of Redmond, Djenepo, Moi and Tella (obviously add Stu A and Theo if fit) FWDs - Arma and Adams Personally think he will go with KWP at LB, with Moi and Redmond as the AMs.

I prefer Fraser in goal as well, but got to give credit to McCarthy for an excellent save from Foden's header (although lucky for us that Sterling beat Foden to the rebound).

Good spot

Makes sense for Oriol to play (and be captain in JWP's absence) given he is the only person Lyanco can speak to 'somewhat' normally. Can't say I'm really surprised at Valery starting either. Gives Kyle and Tino a rest. Nice to see Broja and Tella starting up front.

My thoughts on this: Ralph was confident we could shut out West Ham at home with a more defensive side, but that we would have enough going forward to score (as Broja so nearly did, twice). However, if you play defensively away at City you will get picked off at some stage and won't have a chance to get anything in return. Look at their previous home matches this season: 5-0, 5-0, 6-3. They are on fire in front of goal. So might as well adopt the old adage of 'the best form of defence is attack'. To do that you have to be able to keep the ball up the pitch when you have the chance, which means playing with 2 strikers. Whilst we did slightly change formation a few times during the match it was pretty much Ralph's favoured 4-2-2-2 for the most part. I would expect to see the same 4-2-2-2 next week, for both matches.

Apart from more composure in front of goal, Redmond played well today. Ralph sees the players every day in training. He sets a team up to play against the opposition. He probably has an idea of who the starting 11 will be at the start of the week, but undoubtedly makes the odd changes based on performances in training. What you are saying is that he shouldn't do that. Instead, he should look at today's performance and say 'right, players a, b, c, and d were the best players today, they will definitely start next weekend; players x, y and z could have done better, they're dropped. Now, what formation/tactics shall we go with to work around that'. Fucking madness! Modern football is a squad game. It's all about using the right assets at the right time. Especially for a team like us. Not being able to do that in the 2nd half of last season is what cost us and got the bedwetters out in force. On another point you made: yes, theoretically we could have won 1-0 with the starting 11 you wanted to see; equally we could have got the 9-0 stuffing you predicted pre-match. We will never know. What I do know is that I will trust Ralph's judgement over yours any day of the week.

Well fuck me, maybe Ralph does know what he's doing. No doubt though, the same people will spend the hour before kick-off slating him for his team selection ahead of the Wolves match. Well played Saints. Each and everyone of them gave their all. Really hard to pick a MoM, a toss up between Romeu, Tino, KWP and Bednarek. Even Moi and Redders gave very good performances (even though the latter should have done better when through on goal). And a great save from Macca before their (rightly) disallowed goal. 0-0 draw an excellent result up their, and should have been a win but for the cheating twat Moss is!

Don't worry, it takes virtually no mental energy at all in replying to darling Duckie. Although I do realise that he may have trouble in understanding some of the words used..... By the way, I have 4 daughters too and a plethora of nieces - one of which is a qualified football coach (coaches boys and girls).

Yes, World Cup. A tournament competed in by countries from all over the world. You do realise that there are world cups for many sports? And for both both men and women in those sports? Sorry if this comes as a shock to you Princess, or upsets your delicate misogynistic ways.

1-1. Happy with that! Not quite as happy as I was with 8-0 England win earlier though. 😉

I don't know what's worse, a supposedly grown man (or is that just an assumption?) getting his knickers in a twist because there is panel on the BBC main football page displaying a dozen Women's World Cup results instead of one solitary Premier League result (even though when you click on the actual scores and fixtures tab the premier league result is above the WWC ones) or a supposedly grown man getting upset by some school girls waving flags at a match they are attending to cheer on their country's women's team in a World Cup match.....