redkeith

Gutted by a one goal defeat at Old Trafford! Thought everyone played well, other than when the central midfield disappeared for their equaliser . Ref was awful, I can't remember us getting a free kick until the 2nd half, plus the penalties not given. Unlucky but we are still out of the drop zone.

Gunn Vallery Bednarek Vest Bertrand JWP Romeu PEH Redmond Armstrong Austin With Long and Gallagher on the bench .......... Not looking forward to this one.

That's 4 out of the last 5 conceded that are down to Stephens' s errors. Needs a rest .

Days before the debut hat-trick, Shearer came on as a sub away at Oxford. Just before the end of the game he had a great chance, running on to a through ball, which he put over the roof of the home end. It took sheare a while to become the goal machine that we sold to Blackburn. Obafemi does look a better option than Long, but I am not expecting loads of goals from him straight away. The only youngster that has done that in my lifetime is Steve Moran.

I thought we did OK. We created the best chances of the first half , although we were lucky that Barnes chose not to try to step over McCarthy, but left his leg in there to be hit instead ( not sure there was any contact). After the goal we dropped deeper and deeper, and cocked up a few good chances to break away, and at the end Long wasted to or 3 good opportunities to run it into the corner, inviting more pressure than we should have. Even saying that, I wasn't too worried until Matt Holland mentioned Saints and clean sheets on my stream, at which point I knew it was just a question of time until they equalised. Should have only been 3 minutes added though, I goal 5 subs and no medics on the pitch ( 30 secs plus 5 times 30secs ) . Thought Slattery did well, but it was a shame we didn't have PEH or Lemina available for a bit of extra muscle and height at the end .

Dodged a bullet wit Walcott, he is a shadow of the player he was .

I hate midweek football, extra time , pens plus the hours time difference always means a bad nights kip! A draw was a fair result, but not when you are 2 nil up with 20 to go! Valery and Ramsay have promise, but I don't wan't to just the pair of them covering right back until the end of the season. Redmond transformed the team when he came on. We need to sign another pacy forward this window to give us cover/options. Mo's cross for the first goal showed that there is something in there, but he needs more coaching to get it out of him. It is good that the youngsters are being given a chance, but it is a bit much to put them in a team with so many bench warmers in it. Sorry for everyone that was hoping to get Stanley of off there 92 list, but hopefully we can use the break for some intensive Ralphing.

Just brilliant. A real gutsy performance. They must all be ****ged after that amount of work. It is so good to have a team that is drilled and knows what to do in all circumstances, rather than Hughes's "go out and play a bit" approach. Well chuffed.

If this is true then we should try and sign Sabaly from Bordeaux who fulham are after. I've seen him a few times and he is great going forward, decent in the air and can also play at left back .

It was such a shame that Saints became so obsessed with possession stats that they stopped looking for his runs. Any decent manager would have sat the midfield down, shown them videos of the runs he was making in games and then ask them why they weren't passing to him. Thanks for the Wembely hat-trick , and the goal at Swansea, and all the best for the future.

Things we learnt today. 1 - If the score is one all at home a penalty will not be awarded to Saints unless the defender gets a gun out and starts shooting someone. 2- Cedric, Hoedt, Davis and Gabbi are all leaving . 3 - We need to sign a right back 4 - Ralph seems to put some fight back into JWP, his best performance for a while. 5 - Elyounousi is too ponderous for the premiership, although it was a nice ball through to Charlie , which should have given him his first assist. 6 - It's a shame we didn't take the money from Fulham for Targett and keep McQueen instead. 7 - We need another CB to cover for Yoshi when he is at the Asian games. 8 - Neville was right, City do like to commit clever fouls when you break on them.

I don't think he gave us a free kick until the 55th minute, barring the odd off side. Not sure what price you would get for that on Paddy power. In the space of 3 minutes Andy Carroll put his arm in Romeu's face, and then slides in with six studs and is not even talked too! Finally he books Bednarek for a clash of heads with Carrol, when Carrol was the one who landed the blow! Having said all that we looked tired and West Ham were better than us. Tactically we needed to find a way to get Redmond and Armstrong in behind their full backs and away from the excellent Rice. Hope we have some fresh faces in on Sunday.

Great win, and great to look a threat again. As some others have said , we should have been a lot faster and more clinical on the counter attack when it was 2.0, but that can soon be coached out of them. Spot on substitutions as well . Happy xmas boys and girls .

Our Central defence against Arsenals make-shift full back pairing shouts goal-fest. So nil nil it is then!

Trying to move the ball quicker meant losing it more often, with only one days practice. It was inevitable with our defence that a pub player would score. On a positive note, Lemina will flourish in this system, but we need Cedric and Bertrand, or replacements to make it work, the stand ins are not up to it. Thanks also to Neil Moss for giving us **** all all afternoon. He would have given both penalty shouts if it was Liverpool or Arsenal.

I think there will be interest in Austin, either from teams like Burnley or Huddesrsfield who are desperate to stay up, or from one of the many teams at the top of the championship who are looking for someone to Tony Funnell/Billy Sharpe them over the line to promotion.

Austin is stealing a living at the moment as is Long, but I do don't dislike any of them. I do however dispiar when they are selected ahead of other, better options. There have only been 3 saints players I have ever really hated, David Speedie, Stuart Ripley and Mark Hughes.

I would go for Gunn Bednarek Yoshida Stephens Cedric PEH Lemina Bertrand Armstrong Gabbiadini Redmond A sort of old style Dynamo Kiev formation **** rotation, we need win a game, any game is a start

I just would like to see Saints go for the oppositions throat when they have a lead. 18 points lost from winning positions since sparkless Mark took over. We were well on top, but keep moving the ball to slowly and worrying about possession stats, rather than trying to kill the game off. Austin is such a passenger it's like having 10 men. Add to that the ball watching for the first goal and it just does your head in.

Saw them down at Bordeaux last season, and the were very well organised, definitely 4 4 putain deux

There is this Irish footballing finance expert who is on Totally Football podcast every few weeks. He was heavily involved in the Sale to Goa and he has all sorts of algorithms to monitor the performance of clubs and managers. Maybe he advises on D.O.F's as well ?

Positives ...... through ball for the penalty and four other chances for Ings. Obafemi looked lively and put a great cross in , unfortunately to Shane Long 6 yards out, shot six yards wide ! Lemina made a couple of good strong arm interceptions or else it would have been 8-1 . Complete reboot of the whole club is needed, but we really need to stay up. If we do Long and Austin will have only on for season left on their contracts and Davis will have gone. We could carry their wages if we have the Premiership money, but i£150,000 a week for those two in the Championship will ruin us.

Anyone who still think JWP is a defensive midfielder know as much about football as my Border Collie. Caught in possession for the first goal, booked for kicking the ball away, meaning he can't even attempt to tackle and then running speedlily to the man he should have been marking, a la Simon Gillett, for the third goal. If we had any leaders on the pitch they would have told Hoedt to leave it before he smashed in the OG. Big shout out to Shane Long for running straight at the defender when we were on a promising break just before the 4th! Not sure how Cedric's shirt ripped itself for the 4th goal, but Mason did give us a penalty away from home. Highlight of the game, whoever put the through ball in for the penalty, other than that it's total ****e!

We should be doing a lot more one and two touch training sessions, as we move the ball far too slowly, which allows teams to get organised and shut down any space. Hopefully Austins shoulder will keep him out for a while as his most significant contribution this season has been tackling Ings on Saturday. Gabbi and Ings both have a bit off intelligence about them so give them a few games together. Armstrong was singed as a goal scoring no 10 so play him in that position. For now, I would persevere with Long on the bench, as we don't have any pace there, but Obafemi and Gallager need to be given a chance.

Agree with this completely. If you look at the make up of the squad, we have only one right back and two natural wide midfield players, and yet we are trying to play 4-4-2 . Pied, Boufal and Sims have not been replaced at all. Teams like Bournemouth have a bench packed with pace to hurt teams late in matches, we have Davis and Armstrong. Under Koeman we played 4-3-3 , but with a defensive minded player like Davis in the number 10 role and the kids played more or less the same. Now we have signed a more attacking 10 in Armstrong, but play him as a winger, which ironically is what got Koeman the sack at Everton. For the first 4 years after promotion we played of a target man and did well. 2 and a bit years on we are still playing the ball up to Ings/Long/Austin or Gabbi and wondering why it wont stick.