up and away

I don't think you can pick on Morgan yesterday mate. He was superb. I've noticed u seem to have it in for him. That sums up my thoughts pretty much as well. The game yesterday was set up for Schneiderlin when we decided to play with two wingers and the midfields job was to get someone out to the byline and get the crosses in. I would favour Schneiderlin most of the time for that role over Hammond. But when it comes to driving that midfield down through the middle, I will take a fit Hammond over Schneiderlin every time. Something I expect Adkins also believes in. Chaplow to me, is that ingredient which sends the opposition into overload. A lot tend to underestimate Chaplows attacking potential, mainly because of consistency but he really can be a match winner. There's enough going on without putting Chaplow into the mix, but when you do it is just too much for any side in the Championship to manage. Most importantly, all done without weakening the midfield. Form comes into it but I believe that still applies with our current level, though there are limits as demonstrated against Reading.

That had all the hall marks of years spent yelling and screaming next to the supermarket sweet counter. To top that you even had the odd one criticising the Fontaine deal collapsing due to the medical, even though he never played a game for a further 2 months. Bearing in mind Adkins had already demonstrated a brand of football we had no right to expect, just as well or he would really have got a load more pelters. Some very nice words which I would echo. I had no idea how Jos would turn out but I was sure from his pedigree he would be capable of playing football. What I have a high degree of faith in is our transfer committee who look at these things. Jos was considered way before the start of the season with only the price being the knock back. It appears every player we considered was predominately left footed and could play on the ball. Gorkks looked to fit the bill but I can only think his ability to play the ball out was the reservation. I could not imagine Jos working out so well, he's really been that good and preferred over Fonte. Fonte had been regularly making at least one noticeable error a game even before Jos got here. That seems to have stopped now and can only go down to the understanding they have forged. Fonte looks to be getting better and better, especially coming out of defence and getting forward. I feel Fonte will be the dominant force come the end of the season, mainly because of what Jos brought to the party.

If you play Lambert up front in a 451, he will be virtually neutered. He just does not perform when leading the line. Ricky is very good at what he does, but he chooses very carefully where and when he takes it to the opposition. Everything about Lambert seems to suggest him as a perfect example of your classic centre forward, but his performances in that position have not been great. What he excels at is finding the space and the right opponent to take on, leading the line he cannot do that. As much as I agree with the 451, I just cannot see that working with Lambert. The closest we have to this is when Guly plays up front in support, but Ricky is reluctant to take the lead position.

I don't argue with any of that, but I would add it's a lot closer than the picture you paint. Hammond has the problem with going off the boil the more games he plays and minutes on the pitch. That's mainly because he gets through so much work. For those times and when Cork is flagging, it's right to bring Schneiderlin on or start him. If you can't start Schneiderlin in the middle, I would not bother unless it is to seal off the midfield defensively. He's a good player who should be gettng plenty of game time, just not as much as the other two.

Adkins and comments from De Ridder himself have made the position very clear, he must be able to perform his defensive duties to get a start. There is little doubt they rate him as an attacker, but not at the cost of weakening the midfield in the first half. Schneiderlin is the safety play, adds little to the attack but shores up the midfield well. Chaplow does both well, so is always going to get the nod over both players, unless off form.

It is the fairest way to levy any additional charge, with the people using the service, paying for that service. The alternative is for those who don't use the service to subsidise those that do!

This bit suggests booking fees are also going to be banned Examples of these charges are a £6 per person, per leg "administration fee" charged on all but one card by Ryanair, an £8 per booking charge by Easyjet - plus 2.5% when using a credit card, a £4.50 per booking credit card fee from British Airways, and a charge of up to 17 euros (£14.16) per person by Air Berlin Nope, you have misinterpreted.

I think there is more than one way this will work, a striker with genuine pace will do that job. Equally possible is thatJutkiewicz could work well, although a different type of player. The reason being that Ricky is not your normal #9, more a #10 in footballing terms. Ricky is very careful who and where he takes the fight to the opposition and has become very effective at doing so. Nothing against this and a joy to watch as he finds space for himself, but it needs someone in the forward position to bring it all together, someone who is comfortable with leading the line. I have seen occasions where Ricky has taken the more forward role, as Guly did against Pompey and fared none the better. There have been several times in the past where I would have Guly feeding a central striker rather than Ricky, but Ricky is the man in form at the moment. I don't believe neither Guly or Ricky want to be the furthest forward of the two, both preferring to be sheilded by the other. That said,when Guly switched to the middle and Chaplow went into the right midfield, I thought that was the best combination of attacking prowess and defensive solidarity we had ever combined. Even when we had Guly on the wing and Connolly upfront we were more than capable. If we get Connolly or Chaplow fit again, there should be no reason why we can't return to former ways. There are several ways of curing our current malaise, it will be interesting to see what eventually turns up. Apart from Ricky, our other attacking options are just slightly off form at the moment and we desperately need the energy of Chaplow to try and change that around.

The main problem we have is that neither Lambert or Guly want to play on the shoulder of the last defender, it's not their game and we don't have such a striker at present. In the past I have seen Lambert attempt to stay upfront and Guly in behind and it's a different story. What we are doing at the present is making the best of a bad job with the resources we have available to put out on the pitch.

This game epitomised Saints performances of late, some nice patterns, relatively toothless and always likely to ship the odd goal. Guly was ineffective, Lallana has still to get back to his best (but slowly getting there) and Schneiderlin although blocking a hole, is in the Benali/Claus class when it comes to it in front of goal. A good goal from Ricky, but lets get one thing very clear, he's the striker and Guly is not and that has a lot to do with our problems. We despearately need a striker or someone to change the pattern of the play. Connolly can do it, if on form, Chaplow can add as well, but above all we need a striker who is capable of playing on the shoulder of the last defender.

This really is a very poor article. Anyone who fails to identify that crowd control and crowd safety are inextricably linked has missed the plot completely. Hillsborough was the catalyst that brought about the Taylor report and it's subsequent actions. A watershed in crowd safety and how football would be policed and regulated in the future. There were many disasters prior to Hillsborough that were never satisfactorily addressed, Hillsborough was the tipping point where every previous issue or future problem was considered and dealt with, following from the Taylor report. Following Heysel the UK government set about eradicating hooliganism at football matches, following Hillsborough the UK government set about creating a safe environment to attend football. The two aspects of combating hooliganism and crowd safety are not always mutual, as in the case of restricting access to the pitch. Safety wise the access to the pitch is paramount to allow overspill for the public, which did so much damage at Hillsborough, Bradford, 13 and Heysel. Even though this meant it was far easier for fans to run onto the pitch and endanger players, officials and opposing fans. This is far from perfect to combat hooliganism so other measures were adopted to minimalise this compromise, as stewarding, confining opposing fans into a controllable area, backed up by draconian penalties for anyone just stepping onto the pitch unless their life is perceived to be in danger. I detest the bubble and cannot ever see subjecting myself to the whole procedure. That said, I just cannot see any logic in the argument against such a policy when you have idiots happy to behave in such a manner it becomes necessary. The other thing this bubble does is to minimalise the effect this has on the local community who just want to go about their normal business on a match day. The bubble is a cheap and effective way of policing football derbies that I can see no change until fans behave responsibly. There is no doubt that civil liberties suffer, but at the expense of safety that would require a big shift in the balance to consider changing.

I rate all of our central midfielders, Cork, Hammond and Schneiderlin. Equally, I am a firm believer in only playing the two form players from that group in midfield, then bringing the other as a replacement for one of the original two at some time in the second half. Why, because it maintains the bite in midfield that always seems to drop off at some point, whoever is originally playing. I would have been far happier to have had a Butterfield rather than Schneiderlin, that does not mean I believe Schneiderlin had a bad game, but getting the best from the squad. Same with De Ridder, he has put in some excellent performances coming on as a sub because he is going against tired legs and he puts far more into the effort. If you start the game it is totally impractical to go charging around from the first minute, you have to pace yourself for the game. For the moment De Ridder should be left as an impact player IMHO.

Get it right, Lallana never carried the rest of the team today. He's off form from his earlier standards, but so are others and far worse. Our biggest loss is the drive from midfield and no Chaplow to work one of the wings.. Cork had a good game and thankfullly we had Ricky back. Hooiveld let his man slip away for an easy goal, yet I hear no mention about that.

He was as nervous as a cat in hell today,I felt sorry for the lad. The only way he is going to get over this is to get more games, something difficult to square if Kelvin is fit. He's in that catch 22 situation now where any action to remedy the situation means a move away from St Mary's. If we loan him out, we will need to get someone good in to replace him. His only chance is to get some games at Kelvins expense and work his way through the problem, easier said than done. If he goes to another club, permanently or or loan, I firmly believe he will become an excellent goalie, just find it very difficult to see how he can do it at Saints now. I thought his distribution was good, very good at throwing the ball out, though his dead ball kicks were a little too flat.

Butterfield is an obvious one for me, he is such a good passer of the ball. I prefer the idea of him at RM but a look at those goals would easily convince anyone otherwise. I really don't want to have both wings open when you don't have an attack that can open them up. There is only a real need for change if we are not functioning as an attacking unit, but I am having difficulty seeing anyone but Fonte being able to make that difference if that is the case.

Completely agree with the 2 from 3, also gives fresh impetus when 3 comes on as sub. If Lambert is fit we just go back to normal and hope everything is ok. not am not so sure about Barnard. Adkins should know from the training ground if Barnard is up to it and if not I would be very tempted to play Fonte at CF. Keep De Ridder for the impact and shore up the right or left with one of the additional full backs. I fully accept the notion of Fonte at CF may well be silly, but we were so toothless against a Doncaster side still favourite to finish bottom, that I fell that the position is desperate enough. Fonte will win you ball up front and be a threat from crosses such we can exert some pressure.

You have to be a total mong to read into that statement and get anywhere near that conclusion "We all too quickly forget the events of Hillsborough, Bradford and Stairway 13 and too readily deny the link between football violence and tragedy, as seen at Heysel." This clearly only relates tragedy and football violence in the case of Heysel. Trying to inflame matters on the Liverpool forum just adds such that I cannot understand your motives. That aside, I cannot understand what Bradford and 13 had to do with policing, virtually irrelevant. Several howlers came out of Hillsborough that, even now some fans cannot grasp delays to the start of football games when siignificant amount of others are held up. This response from the police was a total cop out, where was our "bubble" against Millwall where it was decided to place risk upon the general public, rather than trained officers by holding back the Millwall fans in St Mary's. Basically they were unprepared that day and screwed up, but they cetainly are lining up their ducks now. I don't like this one bit and would not go to Fratton because of being held in for so long last time, with this looking like a ****fest in comparison with all the additional hassles. I really have no issue with what the police are doing, we are paying for the idiots amongst us that have brought this about. The police could do this without infringing our civil liberties but the main cost would be born by others to which there is no jsutification, let alone the impact such an event has on the local community who are not even interested in the game. This is a practical and cheap solution to an old age problem that works, which we pay for with our civil liberties being reduced. What I don't accept is the sheite espoused by the police in trying to defend it as something else.

With nearly all the news we get from the Echo regarding Saints, it's just a cut and paste job from the OS. When we get to higher issues such as this, I doubt the Echo has any greater to offer. I have been looking closely at this aspect by comparing pre and post Markus and there is little indicating anything has changed. The players salary levels are high, investment in the Academy building is not faltering (how much did we pay for that plymouth youth player?) and we have tabled a lot of money to buy players, even though clubs were not prepared to sell. The purchase of Fox demonstrated that we were prepared to pay over the top for someone marginally better than already held, with firm offers in for another £5M+ worth for a striker and CB, not to mention Cork and De Ridder. The Oxo fee slightly masks what is going on, but there is nothing to indicate that we would not have still spent as we have (with the possible exception of De Ridder), even with keeping Oxo. There may come a time when we can say it looks like the money is drying up, but no indication so far. Most of this comes from our inability to get back up for another striker before the window closes and knowing what we do now, Cortese must feel he has slipped up here. The question I ask is would Cortese have behaved the same if Markus were alive today and I cannot see that. Even astounded to the value we were prepared to pay for Rodriguez, but maybe I am just out of touch with these values.

May be not play more defensive away from home, but stop trying to force the issue, we seem to get caught out when we go narrow trying to force a goal, I think if we keep the ball and work their players our better players will win out in the last 10 mins (If we are not chasing the game). Doncaster seems a unique case, they set up with very little attacking options, relying on us to over extend ourselves so they could nick something. It worked perfectly for them because we were no consistent threat. There looks very little that we could have done differently to engineer a result, we were just not good enough on the day. If Doncaster had tried to open up and make a game of it I would believe they could have lost. The error against Doncaster comes in believing we were good enough to force a result, whereas if we had played for the point we looked odds on to get it. Should Doncaster then feel the need to chase the game in the last 1/4, then we may have won with the extra space afforded us, as it was it worked blindingly for Donny. Against Bristol it was different, they had two of the leagues on form players doing their stuff and we were unlucky to concede those two goals, but the same logic applies, whether to stick with what you have or chase the game. We are suffering at the moment due to injuries and form, resulting in seeing Schniederlin up front. It does not seem that poor from Adkins given the position we were in. Thinking about it, maybe Fonte up front would have worked out better. But Adkins sees these guys every day and he has done hell of a lot of good things.

I have no doubt NA is the right manager to lead us, but the away form issue is crux of matter. To answer WC's post he tried the same tatics against BC they did not work, so hey they might work for the next game Not! He even admitted so in his summary i quote ""We put Steve De Ridder up front with Guly to be a front two and then all of a sudden get Adam Lallana in the pocket - we did that for ten minutes, haven't scored and reverted back to where we were" Why! if it gave you more options, why abandon it after 10 mins. Not every team can score in 10 mins FFS! Back to your post B the B. I dont think were overperforming we have a good mix of NPC and L1 players that have a good team spirit, because were struggerling against the lower sides more, has not been overlooked by most when comparing it with our L1 seasons! We may need to grind out results sometimes, rather than play pretty football. We have been over performing, that's why we have all been gob smacked by the quality of the passing football to open things up. We are more surprised than opposition fans as to how we have been playing, it just came out of the blue from the start. At first it looked like the addition of Cork had brought all this about, but that has been levelled now. I didn't see this fall coming, but it's well and truly here and we are all wondering when we will come out the other side, hopefully soon. Just how can the away form be the crux of the issue, when you have won 30 points at home against 12 on the road? We are just off form at the present with a couple of injuries that are costing us. Adkins and the players are trying, but it is just not there at the present and we will have to be patient for all to return. One common point I would look at with the Bristol and Doncaster games was that we hyped ourselves up too much because of everything we had been doing well. If we had played for the draw in those games I could easily see us coming out with 2-3 points, but Adkins was prepared to risk 1 point for 3 on both occasions. I see nothing wrong with that given our previous, but we just have to accept that we don't have players on form or available at the present. These things will happen and you can do the best with what you have left and it's still not going to be good enough. Doncaster look the worst team in this league and by comparison just shows how far we are off the pace at the moment.

What an excellent in depth report, thanks for that effort. Anyone who saw Barney's last appearance should not be shocked at him not being started and as you say, he still had the chance to prove us wrong. When Connolly came into the side regularly last season, he was the difference that enabled us to get that automatic spot. He just stood out as being what we had lacked and put us onto a different level. After his form slipped away this season with some mediocre performances, I over looked this impact. Our failure to act in the window for a striker is costing us, I just hope the total bill is not too great and we remain within touching distance to turn things sround with some good buys in January.I can see your point regarding an Adomah type player and a target man. I would still go with the Maynard type, because of all those games you have listed where I don't want to see us compressed into our own half. Pace on the wings will cause them thought, but nothing like pace up through the middle to make them change their minds. The most disappointing aspect of all of this, being Doncaster are as bad / even worse for their current position. Adkins as much admits that he gambled 1 point for 3 and I really don't have a problem with those odds, but it is still dire. The question is how long before we come out the other side? And I certainly would not have picked Blackpool as our next home game in our current form. After such a brilliant start it's hard not to be disappointed with results such as these. But the reality is, it allows us to take a heavy hit for a while and still be in the hunt when we come out the other side.

We are just playing poorly at the present, simple as that. I don't know what happened during the International break, but something has gone wrong. Adkins said that was the best ever he had seen from Saints during that training period, I get the feeling they overdid things and left it all on the training ground. I can't understand how they can go from the best in training to the worst in the league, something does not add up. Adkins has got so much right I am not going to argue with him about this one. Barnard previously looked so far off the pace, it's hardly a surprise he never got a start. Although it was not my idea for the starting line up, we created and did not concede. So can't really complain about that first half. Adkins took a concious decision to go for the 3 points in the second half and we got caught. Not my personal choice for both halves, but Adkins decisions do make sense. We can rue missing Lambert, but I really doubt he would have made the difference after his recent performances. What has really cost us is failing to find a quality striker before the window closed. I just hope we can get to the window and still be in with a chance.

Hammond has put in some great performances and found himself dropped previously. I don't argue that he should have been dropped more, but it kind of works. What I am pretty certain of is to use the best current form pairing from from Cork, Hammond and Schneiderlin and leave the other one on the bench. The key to Saturdays game will be who adds to the midfield with Lallana, with options from De Ridder, Butterfield, Fox, Harding, Guly? When our attackers are on form I would always go with a more defensive player,with the ability to keep it tight with the option of turning things around. But our attackers are not on form and De Ridder does add to things without a doubt. Whether that will pan out when he starts is another matter but my guess would be yes. Going to be interesting to see who Adkins picks and the formation, but will not be arguing with him even if Hooiveld turns up there!

I have always believed the first priority was to ensure control of midfield. Often whan we have played with two attack minded wingers (midfielders) we have had a problem with that midfield control. Normally having Lallana on one wing is more than enough attcking threat and I would go for either Butterfield or Harding / Fox to compliment the other flank . The problem is at the present is that we don't have attacking players up front who are currently on top form and it is noticeable. De Ridder does add that attacking threat so it's a question of balance as to how to set up to give us the best chance. I don't know what is right for away to Donny and will look with interest as to how it pans out. I do strongly believe that just pick two from Cork, Hammond and Schniederlin for the central midfield, with Lallana + whoever.

That just about sums it up perfectly for me. From that performance I can easily see what went wrong at Bristol City and if Richardson had not stepped up to the plate, this one could have gone the same way. De Ridder coming on did make some difference with the attacking options increasing, bringing others into the game such the opposition struggled at times. Away from home I am not sure it would have worked and the loss in midfield could have turned things the other way. After Adkins comments last week that this was the best he had seen from the team in training, I get the feeling we left these performances on that training ground. Would not surprise me if we over did things slightly.