CanadaSaint

I'm not sure that we need to go "back to the drawing board" with the defence for a couple of reasons. Firstly, something has broken down farther up the pitch in order for the situation to have arisen. Secondly, one change can turn a vulnerable defence into a good one. For me, Jaidi lacks pace and if he's to remain a first choice he needs someone quicker and more decisive, ideally a really good "reader" of situations, alongside him. The Chris Perry of five or six years ago would have been be ideal. Without that, we'll continue to be vulnerable in the middle at the back, especially on wide breaks. All this was clear from the Brighton game. I should add that I think things will improve when Murty is back full time because James, for me, is another defensive problem, especially when faced with a pacy attacker.

It's time to stop b*tching and do something. Other team feeds start earlier, end later, and don't cut out. It's frigging infuriating. We need to contact either the Club or Solent or both, because I'm sure they both get a revenue share. My hunch is that Solent is the problem. The question is, who can we all e-mail to get this permanently addressed?

You see, this is your problem, Alpine. You make snide and negative comments and then try to distance yourself from them. What the hell else is the following post (from earlier in this very thread) supposed to mean other than that you'd like to see Pardew gone: It's little wonder that people get frustrated with your posts.

Alpine, make another dire prediction because I'd feel more comfortable with a two-goal lead.

I'd guess you aren't/weren't a keeper.

We need a quick six goals or else the manically depressive Bairdylegend will make his weekly visit to predict another loss.

"Dr. Channon". Who'd have thunk it?

POSSESSION (%) Saints 54/Norwich 46 SHOTS ON TARGET Saints 5/Norwich 1 SHOTS OFF TARGET Saints 0/Norwich 5 CORNERS Saints 6/Norwich 1 FOULS Saints 8/Norwich 1 MOST FOULS Hammond 4/Lappin 1 Those numbers very much suggest that AP got his point across during the week. Something like "I want to see you stamp your quality and authority on this game from the start, with controlled aggression and accurate finishing. Do not give them clear scoring chances the way you did last week."

Is there a techno-dude on the site who can tell us what causes Saints Player to keep cutting out when other club feeds don't? I assume the problem is at the Solent end. If they get a decent share of the income we might be better to b*tch at them.

Gtfit

Great post, Teddy. He's come a long way from Orcheston but all the way he's proven that "you can take the boy out of the village but you can't take the village out of the boy"! I have similar memories but among the funniest was watching him trying to ride with jockey-length stirrups when he was 6' 2" - clinging to his dream of being a jockey while his knees rubbed against his ears. And then seeing him trying to pick himself out of a gorse bush when the aforementioned riding style lost out to basic physics and centre of gravity stuff. During those few minutes he emitted more profanities than I had heard in my entire life to that point.

Pretty neat drive, isn't it? Some of the New Mexico stuff is a little freaky. If you head too far off the main highway in certain places, intimidating-looking military people appear from nowhere, stop you and tell you to go back! Warmest regards to the Great Man from me. A man without memories is poor indeed, but Ron's football and family memories make him a very rich man in much more important ways than bank accounts. Tim, thanks for everything you're doing.

That's really the futility of this discussion. For me, Lallana is a player with tremendous potential and we've seen many flashes of it. The gripe I have with him, as I've posted before, is that he can be like a f*art in a thunderstorm and that his wandering ways can damage our shape and, thus, any formation we're looking to play. By doing that he makes us vulnerable defensively and unstructured offensively. Other players try to get out of his way rather than dovetail-in alongside him. I can't imagine that Pardew gives him this kind of licence - I think he just takes it. And he's too damn good to leave out. He's still very young but he needs to find a way of harnessing his many talents within the system AP wants us to play, whether it's 4-5-1, 4-4-2 or any other permutation. Ideally, we'll have the fluidity to adjust formation in mid-match (and without needing to make substitutions in order to do so) because that's what the really, really good teams can do. But until Lallana becomes a more disciplined player, that's going to be next to impossible.

I'm with you, as usual, Dave. Harding got roasted on the first goal but he had a ton of real estate to cover because Lallana was I'm not sure where. We started chasing the game very early. Papa and then Antonio have saved James from a lot of dreadful roastings down our right side because they've kept opposing left-sided midfielders and overlappers very occupied. We desperately need Murty back. Desperately. We are slow and ponderous in the middle at the back, and that really shows up when James and Harding struggle. Jaidi needs some speed and decisiveness alongside him or he will really start to struggle - especially against two central strikers. I really like Lallana but he needs to stop being such a f*rt in a thunderstorm out there. He can create some great things but his lack of positional discipline really messes up our shape on a frequent basis. We'll never know our best formation for a given situation until he sorts that out.

Mine used to say that, too. "I don't know why you get so angry, it's only a game." That's why I bought her golf clubs a couple of Christmases ago. She's never said it since.

The whole 4-4-2 vs 4-5-1 discussion is redundant if: We make naive mistakes at the back Our middle-two are both slow and ponderous We sacrifice our width far too early by cutting inside We end well-constructed attacks with crosses from deep that often don't even beat the first defender What concerns me is that a lot of Div 1 managers watched what happens when a team takes it to us, and especially to the middle two at the back. We desperately need Murty back.

Dead right.

We may have needed this. You learn a lot more from your losses than your wins. We're not even out of November yet.

Every single time you've appeared on here with your dire predictions you've been wrong. Today might be the only day you're right but I feel more optimistic now that you've chimed in again. For pessimism you make Alpine look like a raving optimist.

I'm not sure what he can do. He's set up for width with 4-4-2 and we've just got to keep plugging away. The only change will probably be to replace like-for-like.

Absolutely. Width. Triangles. One-touch. Not aimless hoofs, although even then it's only a matter of time before we get a clean header. Lallana had one.

I don't like seeing Connolly playing so wide when he's part of the central one-two that can get us back in this.

Yep, we need to push the ball around and get them chasing. If we do that we can win this in the last twenty after trying to chuck it away in the first twenty.

The circumstances under which he left them. On the pre-game show he said he got a bum rap but didn't want to talk about it.

It's rather unfortunate, really, that the game is televised. That's a lot of managers in our division who can see that they would be better off to take the game to us and challenge our back four, especially the middle two. Those first twenty minutes could cost us some points before the season is done.