saintant

Says he wants to win the title with Spurs yet seems strangely reluctant to predict that he'll improve on their finishing position last season. All he'll say is that he aims to get them playing in the style he wants - well, he might do that and see them finish in the bottom half of the table. If so it'll be curtains for him. So put your money where your mouth is Poch and tell us what position you are aiming for this season, not some ridiculous fantasy wish of being champions sometime in the far off future.

Yes and it worked beautifully didn't it Chez!

Well, that was a king sized kick in the teeth for Rickie Lambert from our master tactician Roy Hodgson. We're in need of a goal so what does Roy do? He brings on Barkley, Wilshire and Lallana, three midfielders who are not exactly full of goals. To give you a clue Roy when you need a goal you generally call for a striker, that's what they do, they score goals in case your years in football haven't taught you that. How many goals or assists do the three players he chose to bring on have to their name in an England shirt? It won't be many. Contrast that to SRL who in not many minutes for his country has scored two cracking goals and laid on three or four for team-mates. Still, let's ignore that and bring on some more midfielders. He must feel like catching the next flight home. If you don't call on a player like Rickie in that situation when do you call on him - maybe when England are three up with five minutes to go. Pat him on the head Roy and say, 'There you go Rickie, show us what you can do son.' Mind boggling!

So MP is reported to be leaving us to go to Spurs and one of the reasons given is that he is unhappy that we are selling some of our better players. Does he know Spurs sold Gareth Bale? Or does selling the most expensive, top players in the world not count! Spurs need to bear this in mind because if they dare to sell one of their assets MP might well spit the dummy and be off. Truth of it is, most of us can see this is just one of the excuses he's making to ease his passage out of Saints without upsetting the fan base too much.

Priceless! MP decides he doesn't want to be here and the vitriol comes out for KL whose family have put this club where it is today using their own money. Staggering!

MP has no loyalty to us. Don't be fooled by him alluding that the owner and board are not prepared to bankroll his ambitions - that's just a cop out to appease the fans and take the heat off himself. If he goes now he is reneging on what is left of his contract - end of.

If MP goes lets not blame the owner or the board. If he goes it will be because his head has been turned by Spurs. If a manager or indeed players want away there is nothing anyone can do about it because contracts have no value in football. We may not like it but that's how it is. So lets not blame anyone other than Spurs for their 'illegal' approach and MP for showing no loyalty to the club who gave him a chance when few others were interested in him. And if Spurs have been so impressed by MP as we keep reading that tells me they've made an illegal approach and spoken to him without our permission despite him being contracted to us. At that stage MP should have politely informed them he was not in a position to hold any talks with them. It's MP and Spurs who come out of this with their reputations tarnished not our owner or board members. We can apportion blame all we like but I think that is just people who are upset being irrational. Make no mistake, Spurs and MP are 100% to blame if this comes to fruition.

If anyone is to blame for potentially breaking up our great team it is players who want away ie Lallana and Shaw along with Mopo for not expressing his loyalty and appearing to be waiting for other offers. As with any club if players/managers see the grass as greener elsewhere they will go and that is their choice although maybe they should think about honouring contracts. Nobody, even the ruthless Cortese can make them stay if their hearts are elsewhere. Man Utd couldn't hold on to Ronaldo, Spurs couldn't keep Bale. It's how football works whether we like it or not. If players and the manager leave it won't be through a lack of ambition from KL it will be because they want to go. We can't offer Champions League football and probably not trophies either unless we decide to take the cups more seriously. If Lallana, Shaw and Mopo along with any other 'want away' players were keen to stay and see where this great squad can go then they would be saying so but if they decide to go let's not lay the blame on those who run the club. All we can ask and expect of them is that they use funds raised to secure as good replacements as they can get. It is a great shame that players and possibly the manager are prepared to damage the project but heads get turned by offers from larger fish and we can't prevent that. Maybe, in time, some of those who go will regret having left at a time when we could be on the verge of something special.

We are extremely naive and need to learn not to throw away winning positions. When 2-0 up in an away match it's time to close the game out so the fullbacks should be told to retain their defensive positions and not go marauding upfield. I'm not saying just sit deep and invite the opposition on to you but we could afford to pick our moments to break on them. We should have been frustrating them until they were easy to pick off. The job was done today at 2-0 yet we take un-necessary risks and leave ourselves wide open. Don't chase a game you've already won. We need to learn this lesson not keep on making the same mistakes.

This was probably a hangover from last week. There's no doubt the players would have been absolutely gutted to lose to Sunderland and would have found it hard to raise much enthusiasm and appetite for today's match which just had little or nothing riding on it. MOPO needs to lift spirits in the camp now but then, he was the one who didn't give the FA Cup game the full attention it deserved. This week he paid the price for that error of judgement.

Our league position has not changed by today's defeat and is unlikely to for the rest of the season. Sill, let's not let that get in the way of us trying to win a no-mark trophy like the tinpot FA Cup.

Nothing game. Not bothered or surprised at loss. Last week was the important game. Season petering out and momentum gone.

Look, we enter three competitions. One of these we cannot win, the other two are possibilities. Why are we not trying to win the only two competitions we have a remote chance in? Seems a strange way to go about things. We were occupying a safe position in the league with or without the 3 points at Hull. Should have played a weakened team for that game. It's not rocket science.

Is this an important game? Do we want to win it? I guess we do as it has a large bearing on whether we finish 8th or 9th so pretty crucial really.

The goalkeeper and back four yesterday were by no means great but they managed to restrict Sunderland to few chances until we had to go gung-ho in the last fifteen minutes. They were not the problem. It was the midfield and attack that was critically weakened. So, had we started the game with Cork, Morgan and J-Rod in their normal positions it seems to me we would likely have put the game to bed by half time or at worst within an hour because we'd have played our usual pressing/passing style and had far too much for a poor Sunderland team. That was the point at which players should have been taken off and rested not the start of the game. If MOPO seriously wanted to win this game it would not have taken much to achieve that and we'd be in the draw for the quarter finals. Instead we have a largely demoralised fanbase left wondering what on earth we were attempting to protect by playing a severely weakened team. Baffling for most of us.

Does anyone seriously believe the crap spouted about JRod, Morgan and Cork being too fatigued after Tuesday's game to be considered starters in this match? Ask yourself would they have played if this game against Sunderland had been a league game - I think we all know the answer so don't patronise the supporters with this whitewash. These guys are fit and trained to play twice a week - if they're not why are we paying them so much? Compare having to play two football matches in four days to the work load of a pro tennis player. A footballer plays ninety minutes but is not involved every minute of the game. A tennis player can be expected to play five hard sets of gruelling tennis, albeit with a short break every two games, then go out and do it again two days later so let's put the fatigue excuse to bed. Either that or there's something seriously wrong with the training regime of our players.

MOPO has got a lot right but today he screwed up big time (assuming he wanted to win the game.) He went about it completely arse about face. Firstly, I find it hard to believe that Cork, Schneiderlan and Rodrigues were not fit enough to start today - if Lambert was they certainly were. So, the sensible thing to do is to start the game with these three so that we have our engine room and playmakers in place. Had we done that I'm convinced the game today would have been over by half time and he could then have rested players in the second half. If you want to win a game you need to start with your strongest line up. Different for Sunderland - they are already in one Cup Final plus the small matter of a relegation dog fight. Their team selection was tantamount to handing this tie to us on a plate but MOPO somehow screwed up.

We are still a good side and should not be too disheartened at losing away to Arsenal and Chelsea. Think too many on here are beating the side up and not looking at the bigger picture. We are very much a work in progress but have made huge strides in a short space of time and rightly received some nice plaudits. On the bright side we have taken a combined haul of four points from away matches at Liverpool, Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea - I think most of us would have accepted a point per game average over those fixtures before the season started.

Let's hope MP has been able to drill into Jos that he must be brave enough to hold a high line with the rest of the back four because that is his big weakness. He is always prone to drop back towards his goalkeeper as a sort of comfort. This gives opponents the space they crave and also is the reason Jos is prone to own goals - he gets too close to the keeper, sticks out a long leg to block and the ball can hit him and be in before gk can react.

Rooney and Sturridge absolute dross up front. Both gave the ball away almost every time they had it. Adam not getting many decent passes but looks our best player when on the ball.

Who'd want to be told they fit in to playing that pathetic style!

I feared England would play like that - we are so predictable. Makes you glad Saints are brave enough to play the high press and until England adopt the same tactic we'll remain a ponderous clumsy side. Felt sorry for Adam - you could see he was dying to press their backs but he was fully aware that if he did there was simply no back-up coming from midfield. He did lots of good things but the system didn't suit him and J Rod even less. Woy has got to change England's timid, negative style of play and grow a pair. Introduce the high press and put the fear of God up teams and we just might see a marked improvement - we have the players to operate this system but sadly nothing ever changes. If you keep doing the same things that have only brought failure what is the point of it all?

Tickets disappearing rapidly by all accounts for what promises to be a good night for Matt. Great time for an event like this with the current team riding high in the league and Matt is now as much a fan as the rest of us. Thought the plane towing the banner over the stadium was a nice touch today. From what I hear there'll be a few surprises on the night even for Matt.

Got my ticket for what should be a great evening at The Mayflower on 9th October. Hosted by Skysport's Ed Chamberlain with lots of guest appearances and video links to Matt's admirers (including the brilliant Spanish star Xavi) and team-mates down the years it promises to be a fantastic occasion. Great timing too with Matt recently having been voted into the Football Museum's Hall of Fame. Let's hope it's a full house because Le God certainly deserves this fitting tribute for his outstanding contribution to Southampton Football Club during his years of loyal service. Who else is going along to this?

He also reeled off a list of their previous fixtures and had the audacity to claim they should have beaten us because of the late chance missed by Collins. He conveniently ignored the fact that Osvaldo should have scored, we hit the post and their keeper was voted man-of-the match for a string of excellent saves that got them an undeserved point.