Tommy Mulgrew

great news

GDP was apparently a lovely bloke, characterful and popular with his fellow Saints players and rated by many of them for his skill with the ball. He covered the ground extremely quickly, scored plenty of splendid goals for us and was instrumental in our two promotions to the PL. Let's celebrate the good he achieved for us, ffs. OK he was languid off the ball and was at fault for a goal or two against us; but what of our other players wasn't. He was just about good enough to play in the PL and it was a pity he was so often used merely to close a game down and never got a goal for us in the top flight. The abuse he got on this forum and at some games was uncalled-for and distasteful. I was pleased to see plenty of messages of appreciation earlier in this thread; here is one more. I hope he does well in the USA. Go for it Guly. Very good luck to you; true supporters here remember you fondly.

What a load of tosh!

I can see an away goal coming if we're not careful. We need a couple more young legs. Get on!

QPR 0:Blades 3. Yet another one!

It will be a shame if Bart and McGoldrick don't play.

A great production but why oh why have a picture of Gazza in full view for several minutes? MLT, yes, but not Gazza. Or was I mistaken?

Strange game. We got a lot of luck but were on the wrong end of some strange ref decisions except for Gardos's yellow. The score could have been anything from 2:2 to 5:0. Victor immense and the key to our victory. Mane showed amazing skill to score. Pelle unlucky or not clinical enough. JWP atrocious in front of goal but good elsewhere; back to the coaching room for him. One especially good save from FF. Toby yet again showed his incredible flexibility but was not entirely at ease standing in for Clyne. Fonte, Gardos and Yoshida did well and Davis, Reed and Tadic were OK. Bertrand not quite the attacking threat that he usually is. But we gave Arsenal too many opportunities to score; fortunately they did not. Arsenal are a strange mixture of creative attacking threat and defensive and midfield ineptitude, despite all the possession they enjoyed. Tactically RK was spot on. Three ex-Saints on the pitch for Arsenal; amazing that Walcott took so long to even touch the ball after coming on. I thought Long should have come on earlier. January 11th looks as though it might define our season. COYR

Maya is in Garth Crooks's team of the week; we've got to keep him now (he was my MoTM on Saturday)! GC does not seem to have been aware of him before and is now promising to keep a look out for the "young lad" in future. Apparently Yoshida has more EPL appearances than all other Japanese players bar one. You learn something new every day.

Great result. We did to Everton what Citeh did to us: negate their full backs and cram the midfield with terriers in front of a solid defence. Maya answered his detractors with a faultless performance capped by a great headed goal. Toby, Davis and Long v.good; also FF and Reed. In the few moments he had, Gape looked composed. JWP looked knackered. And Clyne and Bertrand did their job to a T. Shame about Fonte's card but better to miss Palarse than the next matches. Good fighting spirit today, much better than on Tuesday. We should play the Academy graduates more often. Another three points in south London please.

Absolutely abject; outfought, outthought and outplayed by a division 1 side. We never looked as though we would score in a month of Tuesdays. And so unprofessional to pick up unnecessary yellow cards for Morgan and Victor, who therefore will miss the Everton match. At least (presumably) we shall get to see what Reed can do against the Toffees. And unforgivable for RK to not shake hands with and congratulate Clough. Well done the Blades! You deserved it; we could easily have lost 3:0 or 4:0. Disaaaaster!

Good to see that in relation to total spend we still pay very low fees. Some clubs that spent a fraction of our total spend paid more agent fees than us. The spirit of the Don lives on in at least one respect, I'm pleased to say.

The key for me for our win was the amazing way our midfield seemed to nearly always augment the defensive line and make it 5 across the field at the same time that Pelle came back and made a 5-pine midfield in front of the back-line: a 1-5-5 defensive line that very quickly broke forward and caused Arsenal problems up front. Clyne's shot was, I think, measured at 25 metres per second; that's very, very fast btw. Pool v Boro is still going on 13: 13 as I send this in.

Based on today's evidence, Tadic has not yet got used to the pace of our EPL but he showed enough promise to make us hope that he will eventually make the transition and earn a place in our hearts. To have an assist like that in your first competitive game for us should boost his confidence. I'm looking forward to seeing him flourish in our colours this season.

Based on today's evidence, Tadic has not yet got used to the pace of our EPL but he showed enough promise to make us hope that he will eventually make the transition and earn a place in our hearts. To have an assist like that in your first competitive game for us should boost his confidence. I'm looking forward to seeing him flourish in our colours this season.

Khedira supposedly available for £8m according to the Metro. Don't suppose he'd want to come here but it would be great to beat Arsenal to him.

If true, that news about no agreement is great but I'd prefer the club to categorically deny that JC is for sale at all, let alone a paltry £3m. Sheer madness to sell someone so vital to our success in the last few years for such a small sum.

Legia Warsaw now 2:0 up. FF obviosly wants to come here. Or perhaps the Bear was right and we should get another GK from Poland, Kuciak! VD on a yellow. Saga yet to appear.

Celtic 1:0 down at halftime. Not likely to survive in the CL now. GK and CB please.

I'm worried by the mention, in today's press article about Ron Vlaar, that RK is prepared to offer RV the Saints captaincy. Surely that should go to Morgan.

Great to see mention of Harry Spooner mentioned in #214. Brings back lots of memories, including one when he sent me out of morning assembly in front of the whole school! Harry made Felix Magath look like a pussycat. Imagine - Spooner to beat Cowman and manage SFC. That would ensure our players gave 110% until the final whistle.

Boruc 6 not a lot to do except pick the ball out of the net twice; one good reaction save and one horrendous mit-timed punch Chambers 8 very safe; better than Shaw at defending, not as dynamic going forward but still amazing considering his young age Fonte 8 safe in defence and aggressive going forward; good goal Yoshida 6 considering his lack of game time, a solid performance Shaw 7 shaky in defence, commanding in the air and a threat going forward Cork 7 everywhere in the middle of the park, could have scored, tentative at times but with Morgan bossed the first half Schneiderlin 8.5 Motm for me, commanding figure in midfield Davis 7 solid as ever and even showed off close control in Arsenal's penalty area when setting up Gallagher (Koscielny blocked shot) Lalallana 8 creative for 70 minutes and then disappeared; lucky goal between keeper's legs Rodrigues 7 for effort but not incisive enough as a lone striker late on; he missed Ricky Gallagher 6 good effort, not yet enough guile to outwit EPL defenders; horrid miss in first half JWP 5 not on long enough to make his mark and was right when protesting about a throw-in GDP 5 not on long enough to make his mark and should have been been awarded a foul; both subs ran well off the ball Excellent match in which, yet again, we outplayed the league leaders but couldn't quite convert our superiority into three points. So far this season only Chelsea have outplayed us. Exciting times to be a Saints supporter - just as good as when we had Paine, Sydenham and big Ron.

Earlier this week, Mourinho mentioned Lovren's absence from the forthcoming Arsenal game when ridiculing Wenger's criticism of Mata's transfer as unfair - M was effectively saying that Lovren's absence was as critical to us as Mata's to MU. So that's a top-level EPL endorsement of Lovren's class, not that we really need it. In terms of supporting Saints, I was brought up on McGrath and to then today is no comparison at all!

Poole? I hope he keeps well away from Saggychops!

Excellent performance and great result after falling behind so early on. All starters played very well; if anything the best were in no special order Lovren, Cork and Lallana. Osvaldo scored an amazing goal. Such a shame we could not bet anohter goal. Positive and confident display by our young players against the best team in the EPL; we battered them for long periods. More kudos for our academy. Keep at it, Saints.