stevegrant

I'm inclined to agree with this. We played the same way through the majority of those first 10 games, with disastrous results, and then after the West Brom game Adkins felt he was free to tailor the tactics to suit the opposition's particular strengths or weaknesses and we started picking up results. Some of the tactical observations in that article are, quite frankly, nonsense. Ramirez's move to the left flank has been solely as a result of Adam Lallana's injury - suggesting it was some sort of brain-fart on Adkins' part is bizarre.

In terms of pure numbers, sure, the matchday revenue is a much smaller share of the club's total income now, but the £15-20m we'll bring in this season through the turnstiles is still highly significant for a club of our size.

Parody accounts are supposed to be a) funny, and b) in a style that resembles the target. This is neither.

That many?

Whatever protest materialises at whatever time, please let's hope this idea doesn't take off: http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/saints/news/10172160.Saints_fans_plan_Adkins_protest/

I've added a poll to the sticky thread.

Hardly surprising, he might actually have to answer some questions.

We went six games without scoring a goal, let alone winning a game.

Ultimately, we'd be able to sing Nigel Adkins' name for the whole 90 minutes without too many issues - the manager's not going to ****ing understand, is he?

**** me. Don't say you weren't warned...

Is Steve Bull being fitted out for a Super Saint costume?

The main thing for me is that it unsettles the opposition defence a bit. They're expecting to have a really physical opponent to deal with, and it's probably easier to deal with that sort of presence from the start of the game - we see so often teams bringing on big physical strikers when they're chasing the game, and it's because when a defender is tired, it makes him more susceptible to losing aerial battles. If Lambert's been battling it out with Cahill, Ivanovic, Luiz or whoever Chelsea pick at the back for 65/70 minutes, he'll be tired himself (and the combination of his physique and age mean he probably wouldn't be at his peak later in the game), so perhaps the comeback we saw tonight doesn't happen. I fully expect a similar system with Lambert benched at Old Trafford in a couple of weeks, Rodriguez to run around a lot for the first hour or so and then Lambert to come on and change things in our favour again.

Guly was poor when he got the ball tonight, but he did a hell of a lot of work supporting Shaw defensively. That's why he was picked ahead of Ramirez - let's not forget, he was completely anonymous on Saturday at Villa.

To be fair, it would have been interesting to see how Antonio would have developed in a winning team like ours, playing to his strengths. Reading stiffed him completely.

Come on, you know as well as I do that it wasn't a proper call-up. He was called up the day before the San Marino game with the sole intention of filling a space on the bench and didn't even have a training session.

Once again, Adkins got his tactics spot on. That's four games since Christmas where he's tweaked our starting lineup and shape in order to counter specific threats (Fulham, Stoke, Arsenal, Chelsea) and four times we've come away with arguably unexpected results.

Because Lambert plays for Southampton, not one of the "big" clubs. As well as he's done this season, I'll still be amazed if he gets a call-up.

I think I heard that the pilot asked to divert to Battersea because of the poor visibility, not as an "emergency" as such.

Yeah, sorry, meant leading by two goals in the 80th minute and then losing the game.

Odemwingie's been in and out of the team this season anyway, and Mulumbu's at the African Cup of Nations. While I'm sure West Brom will level out as the season progresses, what happened on Saturday was a complete freak collapse. I think I read somewhere that it's the first time in more than three years that a team leading a Premier League game at the 80th minute went on to lose the game. Assume the previous one must have been Arsenal when they fell to bits at Wigan.

I still firmly believe Reading and QPR will go, QPR have left themselves too much to do (pretty much European qualification form required for the rest of the season) and Reading simply aren't good enough. For the first 80 minutes on Saturday, by all accounts they barely resembled a Championship side, let alone a Premier League one. You'd think most teams in this league wouldn't let them off the hook in the way West Brom did.