austsaint

Awful game but a few green shoots from Rodriguez.

Very happy with Tadic and Boufal starting. Very worried with Clasie and JWP together.

You may right that someone like Reed has earmarked Redmond and probably JWP as young English players who will fit the Southampton way. Look at the young English players at Spurs....Winks, Ali, Dier...they all look like they belong at Prem level; you cannot say that about NR and JWP. What I take from that is Mitchell is a better judge of a Footballer than Reed and our current recruiting team.

I just feel the need to correct you here Redkeith. Having watched the game twice, I can tell you Davis got back 4-5 times to tackle, dispossess and pass to team mate - he also made many incisive runs into attacking areas where sadly there wasn't much in the way of support to capitalise. There were a few poor performances from our lads last night but Davis was not one of them.

F*** off Les Reed, and take your useless England U/21 Internationals, Redmond and James Ward-Prowse with you.

You're such a ****e stirrer Glasgow. The clown is you, not Puel.

I'm with you Trousers. Elsewhere in that parallel universe Yoshida got that 93rd minute header on target and one all praised Puel for holding his nerve.

He had two great heading opportunities late, but neither of them were sitters. VVD missed a similar header early in the 2nd half.

That's the bit I don't like about him - Pelle used to bollock out his team-mates a bit, but Redmond's taken it to another level. He also seemed to get caught up in a slanging match with the BS Manager. I called him mediocre a few weeks back and copped a spray for it, but he really is....along with Long and Rodriguez.

Agree with Stan. Pep wouldn't be able to get more from the many average players we have in the squad - namely Long, Rodriguez, Redmond, Ward-Prowse, Martina and probably Austin and Clasie. The loss of Mane in particular has exposed the lack of attacking force.

Tough day. Will someone kindly remind me what it is about Ward-Prowse that is so "good"?

Probably the absence of Austin and Ward-Prowse increased our zippiness too.

No denying this quote. I remember thinking Lovren was fairly special, and then Alderweireld who seemed a step up again, but Virgil Van Diik is almost your complete CB. My hope (forlorn) is we get one more season after this........he has to be a 50 million pound transfer, at least - notwithstanding Stones homegrown status, VVD is so much the better player - from what I've seen Joel Matip is the next best CB in the Prem.

Yoshida is a genuine Prem CB and he was among the best players on the park tonight; not for the first time this season.

Completely agree about Reed. Any word about his foot injury - caused by the fantastic tackle which stopped Iwobi in his tracks.

You called Puel a clown before kick off - now you're delighted with him. You're the master revisionist.

I think what the OP might have been getting at is the present day players Ox and Theo may not offer much more (were they hypothetically back with us) than the early skills and potential of players like Sims and McQueen....throw in Hesketh etc.

To be fair, he looked pretty average in the first half being played on the right. Much better second half and grew in confidence.

I was thinking the same thing watching young Sims and even McQueen and Harry Reed (yes I know he's a DM, and a good one too) - would you really want that pair back on their massive wages and over inflated egos?

Agree with this, but you must include Davis among the best on the ground. All action running all night and brilliant incisive passing to players in dangerous positions, plus the lovely back heel to Sims was a touch of class. Davis' game tonight what someone like JWP has to aspire to. Special mention too for Reed - that tackle which led to his injury was skill and courage in equal measure. Haven't the Club got a good one on their hands with Sims?

I'd rather take one of the big ones out

That's very funny.

The only let down of the night so far is Long - his touch is just awful. Why not Sims? McQueen looks all-at-sea in an unfamiliar role - he would be the other change. Boufal's been magical at times; Davis very good with attacking passes and runs; Harrison Reed very solid; I hope Koeman is watching Reed's game. Yoshida and VVD, Bertrand all solid and Martina hasn't let anyone down so far.

It's a good question. I think a lot of us bought into Koeman's assessment of the Academy running dry of talent, but the emergence of McQueen and Sims and the re-emergence of Reed and Hesketh remind us of the short term thinking Koeman has and his post-match interview just highlights that.

No, that's ok; I was thinking of Shaw's first Prem appearance - can't remember the opposition, but he was really good - I take your point about the Cup game being his first Saint's senior start.