Graffito

“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."

Agree. You get him and tweak the formation. Two defensive midfielders will help too if we have to bed in a new CB. Everton bound though.

Wanyama, Dier, Schneiderlin for one position. More likely he replaces the aging Barry at Everton.

Would any club be foolish enough to buy a player based on current form? The club knows this players capabilities inside out so no risk on that score. In any case I believe it's a theoretical discussion because I think he'll sign for Everton.

It's Merson. I think he may have been further adrift. Apparently the comment was about Plymouth. On the Bournemouth question, I think I'd feel a bit different if they started beating us regularly.

So JRod is finished is he? Puel said he expected we'd have more space in this game, and he was right. I expect Saints still to struggle to break down sides that defend deep. We have done so for the past 4 seasons. Nothing will change. All teams struggle with it, even those with much more quality on the ball than Saints. Puel said they would be prioritising forward play and finishing in preparation for this match and it looks like they did and it worked. Puel made another decisive substitution and it worked.

It does impress, when you see the fixtures presented like that, what a significant difference points won and lost due in part to match fatigue could make to final placings. Looks very good for Chelsea with the most rest and matches nicely spaced out and with their big squad and no euro matches. For the clubs with smaller squads and less rest, Christmas could be crucial to whether or not they stay up. We always knew this but it does bring home what a lottery fixture scheduling is. We can only trust that scheduling is entirely random but for the effect of televised matches. Only plus for Saints at the bottom of the table there is the later start to the Christmas campaign. You can see right there the 3 days off they've been given.

JRod scored the best sitter ever, against Palace a few seasons ago. Keep the faith.