saintant

Ditch the diamond or Spurs will win this - it has been one way traffic for last 30 minutes. Throw on Long up front with Rodriguez to give us an outlet.

Ryan's great individual effort was actually a superb team move if you watch the complete build up. Bertrand was involved at the start when he had the ball deep in the corner of our half. We played it from there up to the middle then to the right, back across to the left and that's where RB took over and did the rest. It was actually a superb move even though obviously he still had a lot to do when he received the ball on the left.

With a dour Frenchman as our coach trying to force his ridiculous formation on the players I guess nobody should be surprised that we don't entertain, we don't attack with any speed, movement or purpose and we certainly don't score many goals. Football is meant to be enjoyable but this bloke must be turning people off in droves. There will be those who are content with that as long as we retain a reasonable league position but for me our team must always go out and try to play entertaining football. This dull, insipid fare is just so uninspiring and I don't think Puel can set a team up to play any other way. He fools nobody with the sideways, backwards propaganda football which soon fizzles out through lack of movement and imagination as soon as we get anywhere near the opposition goal.

Claude will be delighted - he'll have plotted all week for a draw and that's exactly what he got. Is he completely incapable of getting these players to move into space and get between the lines? That's how you open up stubborn defences and create chances not by floating in a series of crosses when you have no forwards who carry much of an aerial threat. Absolutely played into their hands and threw away what would and should have been an important victory.

Win, lose or draw can we at least have a right go at them from the first minute rather than meaningless possession that creates nothing. What I don't want to see is a negative display with no ambition which will probably result in a one nil defeat. Let's have a right good go at them and start on the front foot at a high tempo.

Would like to see us come out of the blocks and have a go at sides in away matches. I get the impression this season that we set up to play for a point. With three points for a win we may as well have a go at teams and the odd win comes in very handy as it equates to three draws so why not go for it.

Good result against a side with a decent away record. Still don't understand the thinking behind playing Clasie alongside JWP - one of them only and preferably Clasie. I'd like to see far more movement off the ball when we get into the final third - too many players are static limiting the options of the man on the ball. We need to be moving and playing between the lines to create openings. Until we start doing that we'll continue to look pedestrian and struggle to make chances. More movement and we'll be a greater threat and the football will be more entertaining.

Miss the brave high-press football under Poch. Puel's boring possession for the sake of it football is horrible to watch and just allows the opposition to set up their defence and leaves us nowhere to go when we get near their goal.

Ditch the rotation, it doesn't work. Pick your best team and play them in every match. If an individual shows signs of fatigue give him a one match rest. Don't change three or four players every match - the best 1X need to be playing together week in week out. Players don't give their best when playing one week and out the next. Otherwise why do we always hear these excuses that a player is not match fit because he has not had a run of games? - you can't have it both ways. Either you get match fit by playing games or you get match fit by playing every other game - which is it?

He seems to have been around for ever and is thought of highly enough to captain the England U21s and some claim he'll progress to be handed the same honour for the senior team. People rave about his deadball delivery. Yet how many really great games does he have for us? More often than not he is ineffective and I don't recall us scoring shedloads of goals from his pinpoint corners and freekicks. For me he remains an enigma, his finishing is poor as proved again last week and I am still not convinced he is ever going to play well on a regular basis at the highest level. Once more he offered precious little today. Would love him to prove me wrong.

West Brom are 6th on 20pts. If we'd bothered to turn up today that could have been us.

With constant rotation we are going to get games like this where we look really poor. I firmly believe matters are not helped by us setting up wrong for away matches. Against Arsenal with no Charlie up front we had pace and movement and played very good football. He doesn't fit in and is better used off the bench in away matches. At home where we normally dominate he is fine but I think we lose something when he is one of the front three away from St Marys. We carved Arsenal open on numerous occasions and surely that is the style of play we need to adopt for away games.

That's embarrassing to be honest.

Don't start with Charlie in away games - it's hardly rocket science.

Swansea put five past these jokers!

Still think we should have started with Charlie on the bench. We need pace in away matches - should have played Long through the middle. Could be too much now to come back from two down. Not the first half we expected and we need to get right into them from the first kick in the second half if we are to have any chance. Really disappointing after some good displays.

I don't think he was terrible against Arsenal - he caused them quite a few problems with his pace. Ok, he needs a goal or two but I believe away from home when we probably won't dominate possession he provides a good outlet. Charlie to come off the bench for me as his game is not so suited to away matches.

I'd go with; FF Cedric, VVD, Fonte, Bertrand Romeu Davis, Hojbjerg Sims Long Boufal

Well played Clasie :-)

Well indeed. Staggered but he does owe us considering it's his first goal. Humble pie being consumed :-)

Clasie! Why?

Can't believe some people are criticising the ball played by Charlie Austin. He realised he had to hit it reasonably hard to avoid it being intercepted so let's not make excuses for the fact that JWP opened his foot instead of slightly closing it which would have made sure of a good contact - he only had to guide the ball into an empty net so let's not blame Charlie for a horrendous finish by JWP. Other than two bad misses JWP had one of his better games and did cut out some of the negative square and backward passes but he must start converting good chances more regularly.

Have Liverpool put in a bid for Josh Sims yet? - must be only a matter of time.

Take a bow son that was a very accomplished performance by any standards. I'm guessing he showed up well against a strong Chelsea 23s side and was given his chance off the back of that as it possibly showed that he could play at a higher level. Played very intelligently and made some astute runs to receive the ball, never hid and was always available. Put in a few tackles, took some hits and showed that he is not afraid to take opponents on and got into a few goalscoring positions. Not forgetting his assist for the winning goal. An unexpected bonus to the first team squad for me as I didn't know a lot about him prior to watching him today.

If the injury was serious enough to require surgery shouldn't we be asking why Serbia allowed him to play on?