hypochondriac

One thing this game does highlight is the worry I had before the game about Martin saying he doesn't care about positions. What this means is we have effectively no one up front and we lose the goal threat.

This result is on the senior management team at saints. We've known we needed a keeper for weeks and maybe even months. It's probably the easiest position to get someone half decent for.

If we go down by a point we could point to this game and say that McCarthy has cost us.

There we go. McCarthy...

Sugawara is just class.

It's quite noticeable how we have no central focal point up front.

They weren't conned. If one of our players did that I'd be pissed off at them for giving the ref a reason to send him off.

Don't lunge forward with your head then. Completely the Newcastle players fault.

Commentators can fuck off. You move your head forward and touch someone else then it's a red card. Everyone knows that.

Still time for it to be crap! Please kwp stay this season. We won't get anyone half as good.

Early days but we've been the better team so far.

What do we want from today? Obviously some points would be the first thing but if we can't manage that, I want a performance to be proud of, some promising passages of play, looking dangerous in attack and showing that we can compete with these players in this league. If we can't have any of that then just lose by one goal so we aren't bottom!

I was under the impression that woods was a proper backup option so didn't pay much attention to him. If he's the first one on following injuries or tactical changes then I'm concerned.

Team exactly as predicted. Interesting no Edwards or Charles on the bench. Good to see Alcaraz there.

Maybe. Will be interesting to see how he does this year.

Armstrong THB Downes Aribo I'd say they've all improved over the season albeit it was in a level below where some of the other people were previously playing. By all accounts Woods played the best football of his career under Martin.

Well it depends what you mean by worse and how you value championship records compared to Premier league ones. Adams scored more goals in the championship at 22 but the goals to games ratio was slightly lower than Archer achieved in the championship for arguably a worse team at age 20. It's unknown how many Archer could have scored had he been playing regularly in the championship at 22 but I expect it would have been a fair amount given what he achieved two years previously but I accept that's speculation. Adams score 4,5,7 and 9 for us in the prem. I feel confident that Archer could get similar numbers gi en that he got 4 last year at a younger age than Adams did. In fact if you want to get geeky about it, their goals to game ratio at the same age are strikingly similar except that Archer has played less games overall than Che although Archer has played an entire Premier league season, something that Che had not done at that point.

Well he got 4 last year in a team that you would hope are a fair bit worse than we will be this year even if we do go down. The point is that Adam's record was worse than archers is at the same age. Yes Adams has more seasons of scoring goals in the prem but he's seven years older! Again it's not a guarantee but neither is adna being older and therefore having more opportunities a negative for Archer.

I think the exciting g bit is the pote trial to have quite a few threats going forward and hopefully a more dynamic attack as a unit. Particularly if we get o'riley or an equivalent.

Also worth considering that solanke has just gone to spurs for 60 million and did naff all for anyone until he scored significantly less for Bournemouth in the championship than Che did last year when he was 24. It was only last season that he did anything in the prem and he will be 27 in a couple of weeks. Archer is 22 and there's real potential there, particularly with Martin who has a good history of improving players.

Che had never played in the premier league at 22. At 20 he scored 7 goals in 40 appearances in the championship. At the same age Archer scored 11 in 20 in the championship which is a better ratio than Che's best ever season in the championship which he had for Birmingham at 22 which is the same age as Archer. That's not a guarantee he will be better but it's certainly encouraging

Oh flynn Downes oh flynn Downes Saints are premier league Flynn Downes Downes Downes Downes doooownes Sit down - James Can we make this happen please?

Eh? The most Adams ever scored in the prem was 9!

I think you make a good point. Archer doesn't even have to be that good, he just needs to be better than Che which shouldn't be that difficult!