saintant

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.

I see the Sky Sports football guys are putting on a show at the BIC on 19th March 2012. Jeff Stelling plus MLT, Merse, Phil Thompson, Charlie Nicholas and special guest Chris Kamara. Should be a great night if it's anything like the show they did recently at the Mayflower.

Oh dear, Cork, Hammond and Schneiderlin - will we never learn!

Nige has to learn that Hammond, Cork and Morgan do not make for an offensive midfield. This hands the initiative to the opposition. Surprised after what happened at Brizzle and in 1st half v Hull he persisted with a line-up that clearly does not work for us. Very disappointing to lose to a team at the bottom but as others have said - nobody expected us to be top.

No surprise - big mistake to start with Hammond, Cork and Morgan I'm afraid.

Have to agree 100% with Derry - I believe it was a fundamental mistake to begin the game with Hammond, Cork and Morgan all in midfield. They are far too similar and just do not have the ability to raise the tempo of a game and generate the momentum needed to play crisp, pasing football. We discussed our concerns about this prior to the match and those fears were realised. Still rate Adkins and the coaches as a superb team in terms of tactics but, for me, they got the starting line-up wrong last night and it was fairly obvious that they'd have to make a change at half-time by introducing De Ridder. Thankfully they were astute and bold enough to make the change and it brought immediate dividends. Still a good win against a decent Hull side so onwards and upwards but hope our midfield on Saturday does not contain all three of Hammond, Cork and Morgan.

Hoofing from the back is for the dinosaurs. England do it an awful lot hence they'll never win anything or compete with the likes of Spain. Our style of football is the way forward and whilst it may cost a few goals Nigel Adkins and the coaches will rightly stick to their principals. I think the majority would rather see pass and move than the continual hoof down the middle - have seen enough of that and it's boring.

Was discussing this a few weeks back. No complaints about our style of football but I do feel the players should be encouraged to have a few more shots from distance. With our passing game it seems nobody is willing to try their luck but surely it's worth mixing it up a bit and not to always take the option of trying to get the ball into the box on every attack. We have some decent ball strikers so let's see more shots from outside the box.

Thought England were very poor to be honest. I think Saints play techinically better football. If you studied the game closely none of our players were making angles to receive passes, or playing between the lines and there was hardly any clever movement off the ball which is why we looked so ponderous. To be fair we could not string two passes together and only won because it was a meaningless friendly and Spain played several gears below there normal standard. Even then they played all the flowing football that was on display. Don't know how we can rely on the likes of Milner and Barry who are just workhorses. We looked better when the likes of Wellbeck, Rodwell and Adam Johnson came on but we're kidding ouselves if we think that prehistoric style of football will ever win a major tournament.

Have to mention Connolly's movement for the third goal. After a superb series of passes the ball reached Lambert who did brilliantly but without Connolly's movement I doubt there'd have been an opening. If you watch a replay of the goal he shows what an intelligent player he is by getting himself in position to receive the pass rather than standing still which is what many strikers do. Once he'd taken up that clever position he left himself with a relatively simple finish. Shame he isn't ten years younger but still a very useful guy to have around and others can certainly learn from him.

We have been poor but that was a blatant handball in the penalty area. If you have your arms stretched out and the ball hits them you have spread them to deliberately stop the ball so should have been a pen.

Both recently back from injury but how sharp did they look today! Morgan bossed the game and was rightly named Man of the Match for a cultured display. He oozed class and stroked the ball around effortlessly while also breaking up many Walsall moves. Chambo was electric and could have added to the stunning goal he scored. The fact that we put together such a fantasic run of games without these two to clinch promotion bodes well for next season. Add to that Connolly getting back to fitness late in the season and proving what a class act he is with his clever link-up play, great darting runs and cool finishing!

What a fantastic run-in we put together to stave off a very strong challenge from Huddersfield. Last 15 games we took an incredible 40 points from 45 and in the process scored 32 and let in just 9! Just think, had we beaten Brighton at home when their spoiling tactics gained them a point we'd have been champions on goal difference. Well done Saints, absolutely brilliant period of results when the pressure was right on us. Hats off to Nigel Adkins and the coaching staff for masterminding this key run of results.

To put last night into perspective - we lost two key players through injury and some on here are claiming it's the end of the world while at the same time they are bemoaning the fact that we didn't win! Appears we had a perfectly good goal disallowed and everyone knows D'urso never gives us much - it's almost as though he blames us for the fact that he dished out three yellows to the same player at St Marys without appreciating that he should have sent him off. Last night was a point gained because had this game gone ahead on Boxing Day when Charlton were in far better form I think we'd have struggled to come away with anything.

Anyone who thinks we will need to win all our remaining games to secure a top two spot is living in cloud cuckoo land. Peterboro and Huddersfield play each other and also both will have other set backs along the way. For either of these two teams to win all their remaining fixtures would be a miracle - it's not going to happen. We need to keep our heads and take one game at a time. I'm sure Adkins is sensible enough to realise this and that he'll be impressing this on the players. Start to heap unnecessary pressure on ourselves and it will go pear-shaped so a bit of perspective is what's required.

Great game to watch and a good advert for League 1 football. A point at Peterboro is no disaster even though we led by two goals twice - they are reknowned for comebacks this season and have some very good players. Disappointed with Seaborne - either he is very slow or CSM is lightening quick because he looked to be treading water for their first goal. That is a worry because you can't expect to keep things tight if one of your centre backs is dead slow. Thought Fonte was brilliant and needs a decent partner alongside him - not sure why Martin hasn't been given another go as he played well early in the season. My other concern is that we got caught once again when a player in an offside position left the ball to allow a runner to come from deep. We did this at Exeter and it cost us a goal - the same happened yesterday but this time Kelvin saved us. Perhaps we should try that tactic - let Lambert or Barnard take up an offside position with Chamberlain lurking just a bit deeper then play the through ball, offside player leaves it and Chamberlain uses his pace to come from an onside position. It's a difficult one to defend against because you anticipate getting the offside but with today's rule if the ball is left someone can come from deep quite legitimately.

Schneiderlin will often be slagged off after League 1 matches. Yesterday epitomised the fact that he is far too good for this division and his brilliance is often lost in the hurly burly style of football. Put him in a match like yesterday against gifted opponents who want to play football and he will shine every time. No surprise that he was our best player against United and it is likely that others representing clubs in the Premier League would not have missed the class he showed and a few might come knocking.

Can't believe there is a fair amount of criticism aimed at Guly on this thread. His touch and awareness was sublime and he was involved in most of the good things we did. Ok, he gave the ball away a few times but overall the guy was superb. Speaks volumes that someone spoke to a bunch of their fans who thought he was our biggest threat. He wasn't our man of the match because that honour can only go to Morgan but he oozed class.