Graffito

I don't recall too much about matches way back but I do remember there was a great atmosphere in the Dell that night. 3,500 should be able to make enough noise for us tomorrow night.

In real time all I saw was Vardy pushing over VVD. I'm told by someone watching on Sky that Vardy deliberately stamped on him. Anyone come across footage?

If you want to see a very (Hasidic) Jewish area, visit Stamford Hill just south of Tottenham High Rd.

Return trains from London £30? You must have bought your tickets months ago.

TBH I feel a little bit sorry for the bloke. Aside from the lack of time he's had to prepare teams for matches and get his ideas across you wonder whether there is a communications problem, either with having to go through Black or with his language skills. I read that he works such long hours he hasn't found time for language lessons. I think he should have found time for language lessons. Communication is vital, including with the media so as to keep us whinging fans on side. The likes of Koeman understood only too well the benefits of promoting your "personal brand" before moving on to the next "project". In a way I respect that Puel has devoted his time to the squad and appears to have little time for PR. I feel the club could help him out a bit there.

We will know whether this is good business or not only once we have seen the quality of Fonte's replacement.

Football's not perfect but I don't know what I'd do without it. First playing and supporting Saints, now just supporting and following football. It's been my life since I was a small boy. What I would be doing without it. Going around Sainsbury's with Mrs G probably. Nice but, ya know. Some will disagree but I think all this angst is mostly because we're not winning. Get to Wembley and everything will look more positive.

“We are honest and transparent. If Sadio Mane wants to go to Liverpool and we get £33m, we have to do it. One of my tasks is to make it clear to the fans.” Away you go Ralph. I'm all ears.

As I recall, the Portugal defence improved when Fonte came into the team. In any event I think Fonte's qualities include leadership and organisation. Actually, I think we have missed these qualities this season. Puel really needed a motivated captain as a key link between him and the players. I'm leaving aside the rights and wrongs of the situation but just highlighting something I think we've missed this season and it's been damaging. Finally, why the sarcasm? Genuinely, is it really warranted?

He won the European Championships barely six months ago. Maybe that's his level. He didn't have Toby and Lovren with him then. By the way, Lovren's has been pretty inept for much of his time at Liverpool.

So do West Ham. And their's is actually expert.

Couldn't go today so thanks for that. Kind of conforms to what I gleaned from the radio commentary.

Just listened to the Reed interview. Unless I'm missing something, it's not crystal clear whether they made the offer of an extra year at the same time as they made the offer of a pay increase. Reed is talking about a new offer 6 months from Fonte signing his existing contract in October 15? That would be April 2016. Maybe need to listen again but it's possible they made the pay increase offer first and the extension was offered later, maybe recently. If so, Fonte wasn't lying but someone is perhaps being economical with the truth.

John Murray on 5 Live "...as the famous Spurs song (OWTS) rings around WHL"...Nice one kn@bhead.

There is no comparison with Villa. Contrast yes. Comparison no.

Whitey, I believe you probably have about as much of an idea of what a hipster is as I have. I could be wrong but I think they may not be hippies.

Monk and Beattie? I needed cheering up. That's a cracker.

It's like the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Can't you all just ignore him and he might just **** off.

Yes we played quite well first half and were dire second half and yes there are players in the squad who have character and are winners and others whose heads drop far too easily. Van Dyke, Romeu, Davis today, and a mention for young McQueen who I have complete confidence in but too many of the others are flaky. There are others in the squad who didn't play today who don't lie down, Fonte, Bertrand, Suarez, Austin. I'd rather see them play for that reason, even if they do lose a bit of edge through fatigue.

Having gone out of Europe we might have expected less rotation or even a settled team but we've been badly served by a combination of the fixture schedule and Sky TV giving us 3 matches in 6 days. Won't get any easier for a while, until we exit the cups.

Sorry don't agree with this. I'm ok with Forster except for his kicking. We are a team that wants to play possession football out from the back yet we have a goalkeeper that is clearly and demonstrably uncomfortable with the ball at his feet and more often than not cedes possession when he kicks it long. Even when we had Pelle to aim at, the ball all too often went astray or even into touch. As for Forsters other perceived weaknesses. You might expect given his height and frame that he would come for crosses a metre or two beyond his 6 yard box but he tends not to. He's quite consistent in not doing so. This will surely have been agreed and worked on with the defence and goalkeeping coach and we do have maybe the best CB pairing in the league. He seems reluctant at times to come off his line when one on one. Again seems quite consistent in not doing so so maybe it's been agreed with the coaching staff. Bar the recent loss to Tottenham, we've had a good defence this season, and last season, with Fraser in goal. It's a sound defensive unit which works as a unit. But Frasers kicking is poor. There's no way of dressing that up.

. For goodness sake I wish you and others would stop going on and on about formations and systems. IMO people set far too much store by formations. You may remember when Pochetinno was manager, he, or one of his assistants, said, we don't play in positions we play from positions. Look at it that way and a series of numbers and positions on a screen or a sheet of paper don't mean very much but flexibility does. Our front three rotate. They do it. They're just not that effective yet. The biggest problem we've got is that Boufal and Redmond don't link with the striker. Tadic is better but he's been injured. Puel needs to sort that out and we'll score goals.

I heard a rumour these ***** are threatening to play a bit of football these days. Is it too much to hope they have a go on Saturday? I think their poor away turnout answers that one.

What I find inexplicable is why we dropped so deep after just 20 minutes and ceded possession which is so adept at keeping the ball. It was the single most significant change in the game which determined the eventual result, Dean's incompetence notwithstanding. Given Spurs eventual dominance, it's easy to forget that we had them rattled for 15 or 20 minutes, yet we took our foot off the gas. A really stark contrast between first and second parts of the first half. The high press was clearly the agreed tactics and it worked. Ok we couldn't have kept that up all match but then to fall back so meekly after 20 minutes? It's not like Spurs did much with all the possession they had towards the end of the first half but it enabled them to take the sting out of the situation. Perhaps we thought we could defend a one goal lead and conserve energy for the remaining two games in the 3 games in 6 days period. That doesn't seem like a plausible reason to me given that players will be rotated. Could have been a change in Spurs tactics or formation that I wouldn't have noticed but seemed like their normal game to me. Otherwise I'm mystified why we dropped off.

He's blathering. Only bit of that rings true "If I compare, I like to do more business now in January than we did last year in Southampton."