Tommy Mulgrew

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.

Totally dominant but lacked a cutting edge; we need to be more incisive and finish off teams such as Villa. I know it is difficult against a packed defence but we have to get better at shooting and getting behind defenders and not trying to walk the ball through the middle of a crowd of defenders. Poor mistakes at the back cost us and we were mugged. Gazza could have done more with the second goal but was not at fault with any of the three goals. Get behind him for heaven's sake. Yoshida had a bit of a mare but hasn't played for us all season. Why didn't he go to RB when Fonte came on? Fonte did well at RB and crossed well but would have been a better bet at CB. Cork was OK but lost the ball before Villa's second goal. We should have won and 9 times out of 10 would have. But we have been mugged before like this many times and never seem to learn from it. Naive against Chelski and naive again tonight. We have to be sharper all over the pitch to get anything from Citeh on Saturday. But even if we lose that game we shall still have done pretty well to be mid-table. I'm an optimist and I'm still sticking to a prediction of 8th at the end of the season. As ever, supporting Saints is so frustrating. But I'm enjoying it more than ever for over 50 years. COYS.

The BBC is now reporting GDP as out for the rest of the season. What a shame: I was hoping that after helping us to successive promotions he would score a goal in the EPL before returning to finish his career in Brazil and that now looks very unlikely. I hope he recovers fully. Also hope that later in the season we do not miss his contribution too much; with the progress some of the non-first-team academy players are making we look as though we can afford to have GDP not appearing for us again. Good luck to him anyway.

PDO seems to make Suarez look like a pussy cat; he's like Suarez, Keane (Roy), Barton and Savage rolled into a single person. Let's hope he behaves himself and fits in with our team spirit, which has evolved over the last few seasons into a considerable competitive advantage for us. If they haven't already, the favourites for the top half of the top half of the PL will certainly look at Saints in a different light now. Exciting times indeed but not too exciting, I hope!

McGrath in defence, Walker in midfield and Kirby up front.

Magnificent result, which we needed with Wigan winning. Multi-man MotM: the entire back four! Well done Saints. A couple of months ago I predicted 11th and I'm still sticking to it. Sunderland and Newcastle both lost. COYR.

excellent all-round team performance; not one bad performance in the whole side. we completely outplayed them for most of the game and with more clinical finishing, my only criticism of us today, we could have had six goals. well done everyone, including the subtitutes. difficult to pick one mom but for me it would have to be our alsatian frenchman.

superb all-round team performance, with everyone playing their part well. To see often as many as six of our players in city's half trying to get the ball back and doing so several times was amazing. I never thought I'd say it but I think we'll finish as high as 11th!

Ted Ditchburn

And he can tackle well: he robbed Fellani in the Everton match without fouling him; not many have done that recently. All he needs is a goal and his performance could well improve no end. Not many defenders can knock him off the ball (despite that happening once against Everton). He tracks back covering the opposing full-back better than anyone else we've got and he has carried out NA's and MP's orders to the letter: his surging runs against Everton were something we've not seen since last season. He certainly does not deserve the slating he gets from certain so-called fans. Without him we wouldn't be where we are now. In value-for-money terms, one of our best buys.

I've supported Saints since the 50s and the sacking is not remotely "saintly" but if you consider the toings and goings since Ted Bates and Laurie Mac perhaps it is in character. Cdertainly it is an expression of extreme ambition on NC's behalf. A day ago I thought relegation at last unlikely; now I know NC sees it as top four next year or bust and relegation completely unthinkable. I just hope we don't lose the tactical pragmatism that has seen us get some good results recently.

The furture's bright; the future's red and white!

I thought we had a really good game: right tactics bossing Arse in the middle of the park, a solid back four showing good spatial anticipation and both wide midfielders tracking back as well as forward in support of RL and GR; centre midfield closed theirs down like terriers. Boruc - 5 solid after a shaky start and a real character; mad as a hatter; not a lot to do 'cos we defended so well Cork - 8 as good an RB display defensively as you will see but no attacking threat Fonte - 8 one of his best games in the PL; covering well for others Yoshi - 8 ditto; well positioned and solid throughout; for me just shaded MotM Shaw - 7 not his best game but dealt well with AOC Morgan - 8 commanded the centre of the field Davis - 7 scurried around spoiling Arse's midfield; with MS, nullified Willshire and co Puncheon - 5 well below his best and sometimes seemed unsure where to run to or pass to; poor shooting - best one went straight to the keeper Gaston - 7 inventive and sometimes too clever for his teammates; good two "goals" GDP - 8 strong on the ball and closed Sagna down almost every time when the latter attacked; cracking 2nd half shot Lambert - 6 strong but too immobile; not at his best and never looked like scoring. Subs did OK but we lost our attacking threat and didn't look like scoring after GR, RL and GDP departed. GDP had to attack the Walcott free kick otherwise Koscielny would have got to it. Saints looked like the team challenging for Europe, not Arsenal. We deserved to win 2-1 and didn't deserve to have Gaston's little hand-off penalised (I originally thought it was for a wrongful off-side). Tactically spot-on. (I don't know what Ottery is talking about -sunny Devon indeed - OSM is only a few miles from here and it's been cloudy and raining or drizzling almost incessantly for as long as I can remember.) Five point cushion over Reading and QPR, one over Wigan and not far behind Villa and Newcastle. The future's bright; the future's red and white!

some wonderful names in the Fluminense squad!

Comment on MOTD about Rickie and how good he was against Stoke: "Huth is big and good but at times today he looked like he'd been in a car crash - that's how good Lambert was" or words to that effect from an experienced former PL defender.

BBC Sport gives plenty of suggestions for posssible January movers. And includes Lescott, who I've suggested before, and this: " DEDE (24, centre-back) Vasco da Gama Strapping Brazil centre-back, dominant in the air, quick across the ground, sound in the tackle and capable of playing out of defence. Club's financial crisis could force a sale." Sounds promising. Anyone know anything more about Dede?

Surely, unless Everton get him, Lescott fits the bill for an experienced Premiership CB, even ahead of Dawson. Citeh seem prepared to let him go and might even pay some of his wages if loaned out until the end of the season. No real idea how much it'd cost to buy him though. I hope we have enquired about him. Kjaer (spelling?) if we get someone in from Europe.