doddisalegend

JWP does seem less effective than early season not sure why.

When was the last time a team had more possession than us? Missing Cork and Morgan big time.

Luke Shaw

Adam undoing all guly's hard work there:?

Guly onside FFS

Price of making to many changes?

really? Davis is all of them SRL looks normal to me

got love Steven Davis class

Don't seem that up for it do we.

Yes not really sure what we are saving some of our first 11 players for.............. finishing 8th instead of 9th I guess.

Teams not to bad Jos scars the **** out of me but having Victor sat in front should help him, still got pace and skill from the fullbacks and Davis, Lallana and SRL are still quality. Guly and JWP should be up for it in rare starts. Get the feeling Sunderland really don't want this so if we want this more we should be ok.

True but as a general rule the most expensive teams are at the top of the table and Man U aren't short of a penny. I expect a major overhaul in the summer at Man U and given enough time Moyes will have them back in the top four no doubt, saints I'm pretty sure won't be. If we can keep this team together and add some extra quality we could potentially push to be a regular top 8 side but we will need to spend quite big just to maintain that. The ops idea that we are somehow we are rivals to Man U based on them having a dodgy first season under a new manager and us having an amazing (by our standards) season is erroneous IMO.

Would love to finish above them but lets face it Man U is having a bad season they will no doubt spend big in the summer and leave us miles behind again (perhaps, I hate to say it, even buying some of our star players). To use Man Us 1st season under Moyes as evidence we are somehow a regular top 8 side is a bit premature me thinks.

What about Kevin Phillips? rather have him than McGoldrick

Does Lambert have a brother we can sign

I'm really not buying the idea that the club broke their transfer record (at the time) on a player in hope he would come good in 6 years. The club has an academy full of potential (some you could argue have already contributed more than Gaston on the pitch). When a club like ours spend 13 million on a player they're expecting a fully functioning player to take us to the next level Gaston (as yet) has not delivered on that.

I swear Gaston is one of those players who gets better the less he plays. It's amazing we've managed to get so high up the league, with him hardly playing, I guess we'd been top four if he was a 1st team regular. Sorry I'm just not a fan does very little in a lot of games with an occasional good game. The price tag does matter because a higher fee commands greater expectations a club doesn't pay more for a player expecting him to be no better than what they already have if you break the club record on player you expect him to make a difference Gaston really hasn't done that.

Can't see it.....but this seems like a good thread to ask who would be a forward step for people after MP then?

Yes we need to tie him down to contract because everyone knows contracts in football are watertight...... Look if Poch gets a better (in his eyes) offer he will be off contract on no contract just like players.

I like MP but is his CV really good enough for a club bigger than us? mid table in the PL, no trophies won (that I know of but I'm not totally up on his career before saints) and didn't he have a nightmare with his last Spanish club (under difficult circumstances)? Basically what has he done that would make a big side take a punt on him?

In the PL I reckon you have spend a tidy amount just to stay still to push on further would require serious amounts of money. I'm not sure the owner wants to spend that sort of money (not that I blame her TBH). Unless some mega rich Arab or Russian wants to buy us I reckon we've probably got about as far as we can expect to go. Still upper mid table in the PL with plenty of English and academy talent on show and a decent cup run each season wouldn't be the worst scenario in the world would it? Even that scenario would require a healthy budget and good replacements as manager and players inevitably move in.

How will we have more possession? According to the stats from the link saintadjg posted http://www.whoscored.com/Players/71714 Victor has a worse pass completion than Jack Cork, a worse long pass completion than Jack Cork and has been disposed twice as often as Jack Cork all those things would point to us having less possession surely? Victor is a better tackler though so might win the ball back more often than Jack Cork.

The keeper from my kids tyro team went to Chelsea didn't seem much point to me as they seem to have zero interest in developing youth players.

Actually might be better if our boys don't go, don't want Roy's dire style to rub off on our boys. None of our players really fit England's ponderous, lacking in energy, no pressing, hopeless flinging balls aimless forward style.

Adam and Rickie I reckon. Adam on form and Rickie because he offers something different to the other England strikers and Roy seems to like him. I wouldn't expect Rickie to play much being used more a last 20 minutes sub if England are chasing the game and want to bang balls into the box for a big man. Sadly England under Roy won't play like saints and I expect Adam won't look or play as well because of that... and then will be written off as not good enough.