Saint Charlie

Maybe we should be grateful to Arsenal for coming in for Chambers because it sounds like without his sale Morgan would have been allowed to leave.

It was an awful cross that was sliced and nowhere near the intended target. Made good by a nice knockdown from Tadic. Long tries, is quick etc, but he isnt great technically. Not that it has mattered so far. The time to judge him is when Pelle is out injured or suspended, and he gets to play up front. Then he will need to show what he can really do, because we will be relying on him.

Benteke was an achilles injury I think.

Probably shows that we are a good side, but end of the day have lost in both league matches against supposedly superior teams in Liverpool and Spurs. Got a nice run coming up again though and has been a great start to the season. Still think we lack good attacking options from the bench.

Villa, Sunderland, Palace, Stoke, Newcastle all have decent backup keepers. Certainly far superior to what we have.

Phew! Good lineup and nice to have Gardos back. 8-1 Saints.

Davis is nowhere near PL quality. Going to be a long afternoon. If Forster is out for a while it will have been an awful decision to loan out Boruc. Gazza/KD was the biggest weakness last season and we havent learned.

No Forster on the video of the squad coming off the coach.

If Forster doesnt play it will be disasterous! No other players you could say the same for IMO.

Great article. Shows that Pochettino strung us out all along like we thought. Is almost a Parody of some of the Ashton articles during the Cortese era.

Hopefully one of Gardos or Maya will be back on the bench for Sunday. Would go with the same starting XI as for the QPR game.

You may do so. For me its pretty clear that without serious overhaul it will continue to be treated as a hinderance by British clubs. A view that many others agree with including the clubs themselves.

It is. Plus most of the teams in it don't have CL depth squads and arent guarenteed good league finishes like the top 4/6 nearly always are so they never pick strong sides. Hull even rested players in their qualifier before the season had even started. Obviously its hardly a disaster to qualify, but I really wouldnt be bothered about it and it we wouldnt pick our best players for it.

Its a pointless competition in the current format. Would be great if they revised the format and put it on a Tuesday or Wednesday but as it is most teams work hard to qualify for it and then never pick their best team in it, whilst also doing worse in the PL. Doesnt seem overly attractive unless you get through the mountain of games and get to the latter stages.

I was expected him to rest them all. He always does. Thats why the Europa League is an absolute waste of space and hopefully we won't qualify for it.

Well, they have rested their starting XI aside from Lloris tonight so Europa League won't influence the score.

Surely if Clyne continues to be ignored then it gives him greater justification to leave? In any case, unless he signs a new deal before the end of the season we may have to cash in on him in the summer regardless unless we want to risk losing a 15m asset for nothing the summer after. Will be interesting to see what happens. Hopefully he gets an England spot, plays every week for us and commits for another 3 or 4 years.

Radcliffe had to serve notice so would imagine we have a replacement sorted. Possibly from within as with Limbrick.

Presumably because they think he is better than theirs, who incidently was working with England at the WC.

Heard someone talking about this at the Newcastle game a couple of weeks ago so must have been on the cards for a while. Apparently he is excellent and Jay Rod in particular had been raving about how he has handled his injury rehab (That was the context of the discussion I overheard). Pretty sure there are a number of top physios that would be very keen to work for a PL team though so shouldnt be too hard to replace.

Good one. Ha.

Out of interest, what is Koeman's Plan B? Tell the players to play better when we go behind? Or leave it as it is because he knows we have the quality to get back into games? Then tell one player a week to score a worldie to win us the game?

How about dealing with players? He seemed to get them onside and loyal very quickly. I would say that is good management? For a fan, is there a whole lot better than winning lots of games and playing good football, attacking teams?

No. He lead us to our best top flight season for many years, playing excellent football. Nobody would have sacked him.

Hopefully the best young lads are playing in the 21s because I think the under 18s have lost 5 of 6 league games this season and there doesnt seem to be anyone of note in that side beyond Slattery. Is Limbrick the right man to lead that team? I have no idea apart from that to manage the U18 side of possibly the best run Academy in the country, I am sure we would have had plenty of high calibre candidates interested. Watched 15mins of the U21s game and Targett showed his class. Too good for that level. Definitely a few good prospects in that team. Anyone know what the talent is like further down?