austsaint

Boufal on for Ward-Prowse, who is neither an attacking mid-fielder nor a defensive one; you can't afford the luxury of a dead ball specialist, sideways passing trundler.

He can't help himself - Fry - he's your nailed on contrarian who can string a clever sentence together...sort of.

Fair enough Whelk; I missed the pi sstake you intended - no doubt the Pochettino love-in at Spurs is in decline, and as others have noted, his pattern of prioritising the Prem over Cups, Europa and now CL is a risky strategy. There's something about him though that makes me think he will do better than Spurs before his time's up.

Yes, probably right. Poch's high pressing style does seem to catch up with player fitness as the season goes on, and the player rotation/resting issue is highly debatable isn't it; just like with SFC at the moment. The other thing with Spurs seems to be the depth of their squad and maybe an over-reliance on Kane. I'm as glad as the next person that they're out of the CL, but the comment about Pochettino being a dud coach/manager as post 5471 was claiming has to be called out.

Might be confirmed in your mind but most, including me, see him as a progressive Manager on an upward career trajectory. Injuries and player fatigue seemed to cost them late last season.

I think Hojbjerg can assume the role that Davis has been playing well for 3 or so seasons - shuttling forward, picking out a pass and putting himself into the goal scoring frame occasionally as well as covering defensively and hassling opposition midfields. Claude may revert to JWP but he should not - Hojbjerg has much more to his game already, and will improve with games and Prem experience.

I agree - he is a tremendous box-to-box midfield prospect. With Davis starting to wane; JWP treading water at best and Harry Reed still trying to establish himself, Hojbjerg is the partner for Romeu for the immediate future.

Klopp's saying if he'd signed Mane while he was at Dortmund, Pool would have had to shell out more than the 30k plus they've paid SFC - hence, the Scousers have picked up an exceptional player at a cheaper price. I'm saying SFC sold him too cheaply to Pool. You are disagreeing - that's not unusual.

Suggesting that he was being sold cheap, as many did, was received with ridicule by many on this forum. From what I've seen of Pool this season Mane is the ignition for most of their attacking play, just as he was for us. If we can keep him quiet Saints are a chance.

It could be - the Trump threats to put up the tariff shutters against Chinese exports might be the death knell of this takeover.

On the Beeb website it has a picture of Sadio in a Saint's shirt as nominee for African player of the year. Might even things up a bit.

That really is good news. I'm hoping Mane has a quiet day - he has lifted Pool to another level.

I reckon some of the "big boys" have Dembele's card marked already.

Isn't there an older Men's Shed or Workshop open in Glasgow where you could keep yourself occupied for a while GS.

Yes, but looking at the goals scored statistic in isolation is often misleading. How many of Austin's goals are penalties? With Mane, it wasn't just the goals he scored but the speed with which he attacked and turned round defences - and his incisive passing and assists. Boufal looks like a top player to me, but he's a different player to Mane - he's more a hybrid of Tadic and Lallana.

Lallana's headed goal tonight was a cracker; I still don't like him, but that was some goal, and he is playing well for Club and Country at the minute.

He wasn't always honest and upfront (while at SFC) though, was he. I do remember him saying something similar about Mane, 12 months ago, along the lines of enjoy the skills of Mane while he is still here.

Why don't you turn your forensic attention to JWP and get off Davo's back.

I thought Boufal showed more creativity and flair in his 20 minutes than any other player on the pitch. He was one of the positive things about today.

Who to be fair (Surman) has had a pretty fair career. No doubt JWP has improved a bit this season, but posts 43 and 44 sum it up for me. Hojbjerg has so much more in his locker.

No they didn't - you have to call a spade a spade. JWP has shown improvement this season but his game was abject last night - go back and watch a replay if you need convincing. Reed and Hojbjerg were very good in a poor scrappy game - but JWP did not play his part. I know people want him to live up to the hype and this is probably his best season for Saints so far, but he was extremely poor last night.

Yes, I meant Isgrove - poor lad is not going to make it at Saints.

Agreed. Yoshida, Reed, Hojbjerg, McQueen and Fonte all good tonight and of course the Boufal moment was pure magic. There were a few poor performances on the night - Stephens, Hesketh and Ward-Prowse were ineffective. Great cameo from Redmond - his speed is exceptional; thought Olamola was a brave change by Puel and he showed enough to keep himself in the frame.

He won't come back of course, but there would be a place for him. Romeu is going brilliantly, but a lot is being asked of him, and accompanied by Davis and Clasie; Davis and Hojbjerg, or even with JWP, there is a defensive frailty involving Romeu having to do too much.

He won't come back of course, but there would be a place for him. Romeu is going brilliantly, but a lot is being asked of him, and accompanied by Davis and Clasie; Davis and Hojbjerg, or even with JWP, there is a defensive frailty involving Romeu having to do too much.