St_Tel49

He'll be fine when he has scored his first goal for us. Ricky Lambert set him up with two decent chances (which shows that they can play together) which he fluffed. He would probably have score at least one of them if he was still at Southend. It will come. Good players don't suddenly become bad ones.

Coinciding with James going off?

He probably just wants to blend in!

Ulster is made up of 9 counties. 6 of them (Antrim, Londonderry, Down, Tyrone, Armagh and Fermanagh) are in Northern Ireland and 3 (Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal are in Eire). N Ireland is not part of Great Britain but is part of the UK. When you apply for a passport your are given a BRITISH passport and that is the bottom line. George Best was therefore British and, while opinons on greatness can vary, I would like you to nominate better (bearing in mind the poster used the words "one of the ..."

You been watching "Last Tango in Paris"? ;-)

I did not think that they were reading each other at all today. Hardly surprising since they have only had a day together.

Completely agree with this. The ball missed everyone. I don't know why Solent were calling it controversial afterwards.

Don't question yourself - he is not short of pace.

Happy to see that you have the brilliant perception that the rest of us don't have. Why don't you ask Pardew for a scouting role?

Well -it's better than being the Pompey of the Premiership

+ 1

And grasping someone by the throat is OK!!!!? Sounds like the law is an ass.

!!!!!!!! The last time I saw him he came on for 10 minutes and did the job asked of him well. I suppose you thought Kenwynne Jones was **** too when he played for us.

Why didn't he issue two red cards? Schneiderlins conduct was no more violent that Gleason's. It is the inconsistency that ****es fans off

Anything is possible. What is probable?

Wes - I tend to be a glass half full kind of person when it comes to Saints - I just think the numbers don't add up. Yes - of course one of the top 6 could possibly implode but one of our near rivals could go on an extended run. My opinion is based on the balance of probabilities. I would love it, just love it, if I am proved wrong. I really hope I am wrong.

If you are going to assess Pardew then you have to ignore the -10

It was declared at the start of the season that we have a 5 year plan to get to the Premiership. I read that as 2 years to get out of League 1 and 2-3 to get out of the Championship. If we were to achieve promotion this year it puts us ahead of the plan. We should certainly try but in my OP I tried to show that the hard numbers are against us. Others have been saying that if we go on a winning run then we might still do it. True, but that is ignoring my core point that we have to win 4 MORE games than the top six sides. THAT is the part I am questioning.

I think 50/50 is optimistic. 30-70 or 20-80 would be more my assessment. 12 points is a huge gap at this stage. Even 10 points, had we won yesterday.

Agreed.

The impression I had from the Solent commentary was that the strikers were not making the runs. Pardew's view was that Millwall were pressing the ball so hard that it was difficult to be creative. It sounded from the commentary that Holmes and Lallana were the only ones really handling the ball well under pressure but that is an impression. I don't know for sure.

I guess that the point I am trying to make is that we have become dependent on the others failing. It could happen, but I resigned to the fact that, on the balance of probabilities, it won't..

In my opinion almost zero. This is not a reaction to yesterdays result which I think makes very little difference to my analysis. It is more of an objective analysis of the points situation. We are currently 12 points behind Swindon who have 2 games in hand, 12 behind Huddersfield who have 1 game in hand. The issue is not so much how many games we win as that we have to win at least 4 MORE games than these two and I cannot see it happening. Neither can I see us winning 4 or 5 more games than the others in the top 6. Realistically the JPT is our best chance of a trophy this year. The truth is that the 10 pt deduction accompanied by our very poor start to the season has left us too far adrift to realistically make the playoffs - we will be depending on one or more of the leading teams imploding between now and the end of the year. It ain't going to happen. Pardew's best policy is to concentrate on developing a winning mentality so we can do a Leeds next year. The problem will be retaining our best players come the summer.

Also good to see that there are people who resort to fatuous stereotypes as a substitute for a reasoned response

I think that the truth lies here. PS I am disappointed though!