saintant

Officials cost us the game. No arguments, just a simple statement of fact. Four huge cock-ups made. We should have had a penalty in the first half for a clear handball. Sorry but if a defender holds his arms away from his body he is using them to try to block the ball - no different to lunging with your legs. The whole ball wasn't over the line when Lambo went clean through - likely that he would have scored. Don't even get me started on the way he completely bottled the sending off - that alone should be enough for him to have his badges taken away, absolute disgrace. Then there was the mystery moving of the ball for their free kick. The foul by Fonte was committed on the right half of the D yet Boro were allowed to take it on the left so that a right-footed player could curl it into the top corner. Watch replays of where the foul takes place and the kick is taken nowhere near that. We are still likely to go up but if we don't this referee has cost the football club millions - one of the most inept displays I've ever seen and he should be held accountable.

De Ridder must frustrate the hell out of the coaching staff. He has genuine pace, good close control and is not easily knocked off the ball, yet fails to terrorise defences in the way he should. He could do worse than studying a few videos of Aaron Robben, he might learn something. De Ridder must stop all the fannying about and become more direct. When he receives the ball his first thought should be either to drive down the flank at pace taking on anyone who crosses his path or duck inside and head for the penalty area. If he loses the ball sometimes I'm sure the fans will forgive him providing he balances that with some driving runs that open up opposition defences. He is capable of causing panic but not if he continues to disappear up his own backside rather than being more direct. Only once against Reading did he really drive at them but when he did boy did they panic and he got into the box to get a decent shot away. More of that please Steve and less of the pussyfooting around making crop circles on the St Mary's turf.

Have to go back to the root cause and that was the poor square pass played by Fox. There was absolutely no need to attempt it and I firmly believe that didn't just cost us a goal - it cost us the game. We were well on top at the time and Reading couldn't cope until that goal stalled our momentum and gave them a foothold in the game. Very expensive sloppy pass from an experienced pro who should know better.

Anyone who believes Ferguson will blood youngsters against us is living in cloud cuckoo land. He'll be desperate to beat us - and remember they beat Reading 3-1. He'll put out the strongest possible line-up available to him and will have them well fired up for the fight. We'll need to be right on our game and put in a full shift for 90 minutes and anything we get we'll earn - Ferguson will give us nothing for free. Still think we'll come away with the three points but it is highly unlikely to be a comfortable evening.

I think we will win but with a proviso. It is vital we do not concede cheap free kicks and corners because if we do Harte's pinpoint deliveries will hurt us. Hope Nige will be impressing this point on the players - the coaching staff are so thorough that I think that's a given.

Someone needs to teach him when to come short for the ball and when to drive forward for the ball over the top because he makes it very hard for the player in possession. He should be coming short taking a pass from Fraser then bombing forward for the quick ball over the top but he never does it.

To say we water our pitch to gain an advantage is rubbish. Does anyone seriously think we only water it on match days? I'm sure the sprinklers are on every day during dry spells. Our pitch is a credit to the groundstaff and gives equal opportunity to both sides to play proper football. The point about Blackpool's pich is that it had clearly been grossly overwatered up the centre yet the flanks were fine. Whilst there are no laws within the game to prevent this I don't think it is in the spirit of the game. All clubs should be responsible for providing a good playing surface and it's time referees were given the power to report clubs suspected of doctoring the pitch. That's not to say Blackpool didn't deserve their win because clearly they were the better side thanks to them having two quality wingers playing down the only decent areas of a shocking pitch.

I notice Jack Cork has claimed the Blackpool pitch was boggy. It did seem soft and our players were slipping all over the place at times. Has there been a lot of rain in Blackpool? If so it must be the only place in the country that has avoided the current drought. If I was playing the devil's advocate I might put forward a theory that maybe Holloway ordered the ground staff to over water it so that it wasn't conducive to our passing game. Surely that wouldn't happen...would it? Just my conspiracy theory as to why a pitch should be deemed boggy during one of the worst droughts in recent history. Must be selling a lot of brollies in Blackpool.

Woeful display today and thought we were very poor all over the park. Their two classy wingers Ince and Phillips ran riot down the flanks - would love them in our squad. We looked cumbersome, slow and devoid of ideas. Sharp had a shocker topped off by the penalty miss - he looked yards off the pace and it makes you appreciate just how good Rickie is. Need to get this out of our system quick and put in a good week ahead of the Easter fixture as we certainly can't afford another inept disply like that between now and the end of the season or things are going to get really nervy.

The weather is going to be a factor. Just watching Chelsea and Spurs and they've decided to play at walking pace because of the heat - it's pretty pedestrian and low key. Hope we don't resort to that or it could be a boring nil-nil stalemate. I think we have to put on a high tempo performance from the off regardless of the temperature. The time to ease up is when we are a couple of goals in front.

Fantastic win tonight and that's four away wins in a row. If we win our four remaining home games Reading would need to win six out of seven games. It's looking very good now.

Just seen the goals on Soccer Saturday and the penalties looked nailed-on to me. First was a blatant trip and second the right back jumped and put his fist to the ball.

Yeah, our form has gone right out of the window. Even allowing for the fact that we might not have played as much slick football as we'd all like, our last six games have yielded 14 points (comfortably above the magic 2 points per match ratio) and put plus 10 on our goal difference. I think we've gone into total melt-down - time to change the manager. Help!!!!

If we are going to persistently boot the ball the length of the pitch to Lambert's head let's at least get two of our player feeding off him. Jeez, it's not rocket science. Either play the ball around with movement off the ball or go for the big boot and get men around Lambert. In that half we did neither although it was a cracking goal!

I think Wenger realises he's bought a dud and must be totally frustrated with Walcott's contribution for Arsenal. Bags of pace but no football intelligence and clearly does not understand the game. Watched him the other night - he offered nothing going forward and his tracking back consisted of jogging at half pace watching opposition players bomb past him towards Arsenal's goal. He just doesn't have enough tricks in his bag and only really looks decent bursting onto a through ball with lots of grass in front of him. Too often he'll take the easy option of receiving a pass and giving the ball straight back rather than taking responsibility and trying to make something happen by going past his fullback. His movement off the ball is really unimaginative. I believe Oxlaide Chamberlain will soon be way above him in the pecking order at Arsenal as he looks a far better all round player.

Welcome back Chappers!

Didn't think Fox's first booking even deserved a free-kick let alone a yellow card. He clearly won the ball very cleanly and his momentum after the tackle caught the guy. We're getting to the stage where defenders aren't even allowed to put in a decent hard challenge.

Going back to Rickie's freekick, if he had no intention of shooting why didn't he get himself at the far post and let somebody else chip it? Why let one of your most potent aerial threats chip the ball to the back post? Crazy!

Good point. Two questions 1) where did Lallana disappear to in the second half - did he go home? 2) Rickie's free kick, what the f#ck? Just put your laces through it man!

If Adkins wants to take the three points he'll have the balls to replace Connolly with Sharp at half time. We have dominated the match, passed the ball well but are lacking a cutting edge and someone with real presence high up the pitch. just don't think Adkins will have the balls to take the decision.

Can't fathom out why we would go to all the bother of getting Falque on loan if Puncheon was still in with a chance of being welcomed back into the fold. Hope this doesn't mean Lallan is either long term injured or on his way.

Lack of tempo caused by having a midfield including Hammond, Schneiderlin and Cork was a massive problem last night. If you want to play a pass-and-move game (which we aspire to do) you have to zip the ball around at a high tempo so that the opposition have no time to get in your face. With these three in midfield we don't and can't do that hence we play a pass-and-move game at slow tempo which is akin to committing football suicide. Leicester swarmed all over us like a rash forcing us to hit bobbly five/ten yard passes that regularly arrived around the recipients shins or knees or to lump the ball in any direction. Add the fact that Harding cannot play right back (a point obviously not lost on Pearson) and it is no surprise we were comrehensively dominated all over the pitch. Not our finest hour in terms of tactics and team selection. If we are serious about our ambitions to win promotion I think we need to quickly identify at least two possibly three realistic targets to bring to the club this window. If we are not willing to dig deep and pay the bigger money for the likes of Hooper or Rhodes let's at least make sensible bids for players within our accepted budget as the squad needs strenthening if we are not to fall by the wayside. It could be a long time before we find ourselves in such a strong position at this stage of the season and inaction in the transfer window could prove extremely costly when taking into account the rich rewards of reaching the Premiership.

Complete shambles. No passion, drive or commitment. Couldn't control the ball, pass it accurately over five yards, there was no movement, no pressing on their midfield who, given the freedom of the park, strolled around and did what they liked. We were second to every ball and bottled the fifty-fiftys. Not one player comes out of that with any credit. What's happened to our fitness? We were totally one paced - snail pace and appeared unable to up the tempo at any stage. Yes, we had key players missing but that does not excuse such a shoddy and lacklustre performance. Pathetic for a side that should now be capitalising on a brilliant first half of the season.

He was great in High Noon!

Well D'Urso quite clearly should not still be refereeing so had the FA got rid of him at the time he dished out two yellow cards to a player without sending him off he would have been nowhere near the Amex Stadium yesterday. Sorry, but the minimum requirement for a professional referee who is well paid should be to know how many cards he has brandished and who at. There can be no excuse for such incompetence and he should have been put out to grass. This guy continually makes a complete fool of himself and a mockery of the laws of the game. He seems to go out of his way to court controversy and it would be kindest all round if his whistle was permanently taken away from him for his own good and that of all true football fans.