up and away

I really believe that would be anti-percentage. Playing 2 games in 3 days on a hot day can easily leave a player drained. They have to win this one and unless we do anything stupid like burning ourselves out in the first 30 minutes the game should be ours. We need to keep the ball and pass it and if we can't do that against Plymouth with all their problems, we don't deserve to win the game anyway. I expect Adkins to put as many fresh legs out there as possible without weakening the side. Although Plymouth played early on Saturday, they will not be stuck on coaches for a further 6-8 hours.

We have seen this so many times before and the FL will do nothing, that's just the way the toast lands. Brighton have earned the right to throw games, just as we can. But Poyet will be like a dog eating his tail at the moment, he hates everyone equally and Lee Clarke is no exception. Lee Clarke has opened himself up in giving that guard of honour, which may well leave a deserved taste come 16:50.

The differences between Holt and Ricky are such that it would be Brighton having to make do with the second automatic promotion spot, the differences are huge. When you have a striker who can create things for themselves and favourite for any one on one with a defender, whether in the air or on the ground, that is massive to what we have at present. Ricky could become that player, has done some very similar things in the past, but is nowhere near that level this season. Whether he can come good like Fuller we will have to wait and see, but could easily be another season yet. With Holt you don't need to distort the balance of the side in providing so much to make the player effective, he can do most off his own back. Then you find that the midfield is not totally unbalanced in providing that service you end up with a team that has far less weaknesses that we have shown throughout this season.

Some of the logic on here defies belief. When you have an attacking combination of Lallana, Oxo and Guly, what do you believe is needed to compliment that? Another winger, midfielder or a striker that can get on the end of what these players provide? No other team in this league has anywhere near that quality of supply line for their striker. What we really need is a striker that can take on a defence on their own and do the business. Ricky can do that, but I've only seen that clearly once this season cutting in from the left. With that type of striker it is no longer vital to have his personal feeders to bring him into the game and the balance of the team can be completely different. Those tough away games then become a lot simpler with their defence under threat and a midfield now geared to do the business. Anyone who comares Ricky to Teddy Sheringham needs their bumps felt, he never had to go into the stands to find the space but would do so on the shoulder of the last defender or tucked in behind. This discussion is very similar to Morgan, looked impressive but really was not effective. In all his time has only scored 1 goal and a personal competition with Kelvin for assists. Then he had about 7 games prior to his current injury where he dominated the holding midfield role. So solid in the tackle and reading of the game, great passing without the defensive petulance which previously marred his performances. I don't care if Morgan never got another goal or assist, those sort of defensive qualities with the ability to pass would make him a keeper into the Premier. But in reality that was 7 games this season the rest of it marred with inconsistency and I just await in hope to what he provides when he gets back.

Two sides to this season for Ricky, before that long lay off with the weather he was not worth his place, after the lay off has got a lot better. You can keep going on about his passing from midfield and his wing play, but it's a striker we need. Certain away games I feel we would be better off without him because of his lack of mobility. What we are seeing at present will not be good enough in the Championship, he has to become our #1 striker or we go and get another. This run down in form started well before the end of last season under Pardew, so I am not completely sure how things are going to pan out. After the snow break Ricky came back far better, tailed off, then recovered a bit by dropping into positions to be of use. What really amazes me is that if he has all these issues, why is he never rested or dropped from the side to give him a break, just cannot fathom that one? I would love Ricky to come good next season, but am not going to hide from the possibility that may not be the case.

I am not sure there was any fondness, just a rather weird old guy. Unless someone knows some bones to put on the kiddy fiddling story, I don't reckon it's true, well not up to his mid - late 70's anayway. My Auntie lived in the same block of flats and her husband always warned me about him when I went to stay. But after 15 years he came to the conclusion he was just a "weird old fooker". For some reason I met him several times in night clubs where he would just go round shaking everybody's hand then disappear. He had a heart of gold in respect to local charities and was continually conned out of "bus many home". I was always very wary of the guy because of his attitude to life and speech. He was as fit as a fiddle and very few of those good at sports as teenagers could keep up with him, pretty sure he was into most sports to county standard. Just as well he gave up boxing though as his whole face and palette got flattened, hence the speech. Everyone in my generation thought he was suspect, but I never heard anything to back that up.

You have left me with nothing to argue again, just add some details for interest. I fully agree about how we set up at home and away, even my dislike of the diamond is muted at home, especially against the lesser teams. The diamond itself is not the issue, it's the players you have to put in those positions, their form and what the opposition have got to offer. Tactically we have been the easiest team in the division to spot the weanesses, with the classic being Rochdale where they switched from their normal diamond to a 442 to get after us down the flanks. Still that makes a change from earlier in the season where the opposition just had to mob the middle of the park to see all supply to the forwards cut off and the defence have their arses exposed. Poyet is right in that we have the best individuals, but not the best team. We have so many good attackers that the option of playing them all seems too much to resist. It's ok when all those attackers generate the pressure, but teams have found it possible to double up on them and expose our midfield. If our attackers are putting in the performance there is little doubt, when they don't the midfield gets dominated and no supply line to those forwards. Why those figures of Minty's make perfect sense. For the team to advance in the Championship there are two conumdrums we need to solve, Guly and Lambert. Guly is relatively simple, don't rely upon a disciplined performance from midfield until he proves he can do it, but like the only tin opener at a jamboree, you just can't do without him. Ricky is a far more difficult problem that I cannot get my head round. He's a real Saints fan and puts his heart and soul into everything for us. His touches and passing between the halfway line and the 18 yard box are a joy to watch, but he is not going to lever Guly out of that position, still leaving us short of a striker. If he could tackle or defend then midfield could be an option, but I just have not seen that. Connolly seems to work like a charm with Ricky, reminding me of Quinn and Phillips to a lesser degree. Will Connoley stay fit? but someone like Mackail-Smith would have been perfect if we signed him. I don't know what has happened to Ricky, but something is still not right. He's jumping for the ball now although not scoring that many headers. Why he has only scored from one free kick this season further baffles? It's a dead ball and they were pinging in from everywhere last season with the goalie having no chance. Give the penalties to another player and you are at the same scoring level as Guly, but having played twice the amount of games. This so reminds me of Rasiak where it required so much support to deliver the goods because of the lack of pace, resulting in the midfield becoming unbalanced. The only thing that makes any sense is the same problem as Fuller, where his knees took a couple of seasons to recover. To me Connolley has shown the shortcomings in the Ricky Lee partnership and it should be either Connoly or someone like Mackail-Smith in the future. I desperately want Ricky to come good again, but if that's not possible I would readily drop him from most of the away games. This may seem a little harsh on Lee, who could even work better with another striker, but I would give it another go in trying to get Ricky up to what's required.

After watching those Colchester highlights, I am not sure Brighton are able to get back to their normal standards whether they want to or not. Losing Murray is a big blow to them and after holding your concentration and discipline for so long through a season, it's not as simple as being able to switch it back on. Everything I have seen and heard makes me believe we put up a decent performance at Brighton, what I am not sure of is how effective Brighton were in comparison to their pre celebrations. I feel Huddersfield will win their remaining games upon everything I have seen so far, though their form is as not as good as their results of late. If they don't it's as good as over anyway. To me everything rests with the Brentford game, our performance and theirs. If Brentford continue to put in recent performances, I don't see a repeat of their St Mary's result. But if they get up for this game and we go in with the team we started against Hartlepool, I feel we could be in trouble. Start with that midfield we had against Brighton and I feel the odds will be with us. I can't remember being so paranoid over an end of season, even in all the relegation years. Maybe it's because I just see disaster if forced into the play off's and the effect that will have mentally on the team. Equally with Huddersfield should they go down that route. I really feel our fate is in our own hands and if we picked the right players and formation it would be a formality. My big fear is that Adkins will have too much talent at his disposal and we end up with that unbalanced fookin diamond. No problem at home to Hartlepool, another away to someone who digs their heels in.

It's very rare that I disagree with your view on players, tactics and the game, but this time I feel you have it the wrong way round. It's true we don't capitalise early enough but that I feel is just the natural course of events. The opposition put in the concentration and effort early doors, but that gradually fades as those powers diminish with extended pressure and it becomes more easier to score later than earlier. The main reason we leave ourselves too much to do is because we have exposed ourselves to the counter attack with our bias upon getting those early goals. We then have a race to claw back what we have given away and sometimes that is just too much. Whereas nowadays if we have not given the opposition first half gifts, it's very rare the game is not ours at the end. Brighton are the classic example, they take in the opposition and see what they have to offer, then start probing their weaknesses, building that to a crescendo as needs must. This is the percentage way to get results and I am just so glad we have wised up to this eventually. One player that has been vital to this approach has been Guly. He has been the tin opener and the difference between how we used to drag into a stalemate rather make it all look comfortable at the end. If you look back to having Lallana and Oxo on the wings, we either dominated teams or if they managed to resist long enough, floundered because the opposition knew what was coming and got into an easy rythym resulting in us losing points. The one very noticeable difference between Adkins and Pardew is that Adkins gets the players to follow his instructions. I don't believe there is a lot of difference between how Adkins and Pardew wanted to play the game, as evidenced by Pardews disgust with the players when they never followed orders. Apart from individual errors, our weakness has always been the midfield, either being over run by numbers or the gaps down the flanks. It was interesting to hear what you said about the midfield against Brighton, where we had some control for a change. Normally with the extra attacker they tend not to cover for the full back and it's a question of whether the threat is sufficient to pin their defence back or expose our defence. When you look at how unbalanced our team becomes at times, with the amount of out and out attackers on the pitch, it should really comes as no surprise that the opposition can easily open us up if we are not doing the business in front of their goal.

1) Lallana 2) His mum 3) His dad The line up in results with and without Lallana are absolutely staggering and he is without doubt the best player by far in this division. Over the years I have felt that the players have very little to compare with the fans as far as loyalty goes. This is the first season for a long time where I feel the players are caring as much as us to what happens. The attitude of Lallana, Ricky, Fonte and especially Jaidi have been absolutely fantastic, even to the extent of spreading through the whole team. Without that attitude I am not sure we would have dug out that result at Brighton and why Puncheon was taken off the bus for the better.

That I believe is the smart way to play it. I would start with something like Richardson Fonte Seaborne Dickson Butters Chaplow Hammond Gobern Guly Lambert Two most important things, cover our known weaknesses and keep Guly away from the midfield. I like Guly a lot and would play him every game up front. In midfield he can lose position and everyone starts looking where to cover. We then have the option of bringing Lallana and Connolly on and I doubt any team would not notice that for the last 40 minutes on a hot day. If anyone would guarantee that we could have Connolly and Lallana fit for every second half remaining, I would bite their hands off now.

tbh mate, I reckon if we start lallana and connelly we'll finish without lallana and connelly. At least nigels a physio, he knows the score probably better than most managers. As we saw with Connolly last season, soon as we started to use him from the off, we never saw him again. Same could easily happen with Lallana, would be more than happy if we had them available for all the second halves to come.

Without a doubt, no ones likes the spanner. Luckily he hates everyone else equally, otherwise I could easily see the youth team out for Huddersfield. If they had won today, there could well have been a good chance of that and Poyet even taking pleasure from commenting upon it in the post match. He must be like a dog chewing his tail at the moment, trying to figure out who he hates the most and wanting that 100 points.

After seeing Brighton a couple of times this season, the team and the manager are a horrible, niggly concoction that I would gladly pay to miss. This team has Poyet written all over it and the man is a gem to dislike. The style of football is better than ours because it is more effective for the main object of this division. I am sure they play some great football on occasions, but when their backs are against the wall, only a mother could love that child. So I fully empathise with Adkins, but all I am concerned about is Saints. If he wanted to say something like this I would have no problem after a win at Brighton, otherwise you are either sounding of sour grapes or just winding the opposition up. Poyet is one person who can fire it into his team and get them out of their lethargy that some of the players seem to be experiencing. Unless it's Kevin Keegan, the law of averages are not on your side. As for the guard of honour, I don't care except it may send the wrong idea to both sets of players from a Saints POV. I still believe this is a dumb comment from Adkins, but that does not mean I want him changed. Neither do I feel he should go or will go, should we not get promotion this season.

I think this is dumb from Adkins. I would use every psychological edge going to get a result at Brighton and i don't believe this is the way to go about it. I would ensure control over any statement that went out in regards to Brighton from anyone involved with the club, deliberately keeping things as low key as possible. After seeing a couple of the Brighton players in the week it is obvious that the celebrations are having an effect. The last thing I would want to do is to give them a poke with a stick to prime them up for Saturday, just nothing to be gained from that approach. I wouldn't give them a guard of honour but rightly praise them for their achievements this season. If any of our players need geeing up for this game they should not be in football, going to the league winners to cement an automatic place. If our players have anything about them, the biggest problem should be keeping a lid on the agression such you ensure you stay on the pitch. Do everything you can on the pitch to put them out of their normal stroll, but don't get sent off. We are going into this game with a loss of players and form that is not to our advantage, we just have to hope Brighton are not fully awake for this one.

You could well be right or alternatively it may be well better to not risk the likes of Lallana. Going to Brighton in poor playing form and with so many players unavailable really is a worry. If we lose 2 away games that could easily be enough to give Peterborough a chance on GD even. I just don't believe we have the players or the form at the moment with the formation I expect us to use. If we throw everything at Brighton and come out the other end with our arses in a sling, I can really see us struggle against Hartlepool at home 2 days later. I really don't know the answer but if we keep with that fookin diamond, we will deserve everything that we get.

Automatic promotion has to be our real chance of getting promotion. If we are in the play offs that will mean several things, none of which will be a good indicator of us winning through. We need to win 4 games and automatic is ours, the home games I am not too worried about, it's how we get the two away wins that concerns. I believe we have sufficient depth in the squad to do the job, it's just having the right players in the right positions I see as the problem. Adkins needs to change things round, we don't have the same players or talent available and it now becomes more important to cover up our weaknesses and play to what strengths we have remaining. If we stick with that diamond we are going to see all the problems at Orient and Rochdale exposed to a far greater degree than previously experienced or imagined. Even if we dump the diamond that is not the defining factor, because if you have the wrong players in the wrong positions you are not really that much better off. We can have no passengers or square pegs in round holes, that means no Ricky at all and no Guly as a vital cog of the midfield, just for the away games. I don't believe we will change that much and it's just going to be down to luck that the opposition don't seize the moment or that we get enough key players back for the play off's. I hope that 3 wins and a draw will be good enough as that seems our best chance at this moment, it's whether the opposition oblige.

That's all we have to do to get promoted. I don't really worry about the two home games we have left, but away to Brighton, Brentford and even Plymouth are concerns. I applaud games like Charlton where we have control and use minimal energy in securing the win, that's not the issue. Our two most defining moments last season came after the defeats by Bristol Rovers and Pompey at home, good enough for me to say then we will beat Norwich playing like that. And just in the same way after wins like this, I have a very good idea what's facing us when we go away from home. Because if we don't change the way we approach these away games, we won't get zip out of them backed up by this form. Keep going with the same formation and players which expose these weaknesses and our chances are not that great, we have to change. My main hope is the Brighton can't get up for what they have left and Brentford have absolutely nothing to play for, but I still have nightmares how easily Brentford turned us over at St Mary's. David Connolley was class today when he came on, but do you really believe we will see much of him once we start him? If that's the master plan you may want to look back over his time here. Lallana is on very shakey ground and if we get two decent 30 minutes out of him we may have done well. Just look back at our results without him should be enough of a worry alone. I am sure everyone notices the amount of work Barnard gets through, well take that away and what are you left with? If we keep playing the same away from home as we have been backed up by this sort of form, it would come as no surprise to drop points away to Brighton and Brentford, it then comes down to whether Peterborough or Huddersfield can take advantage. Adkins can do something about this, I just hope he will change for those away games.

We are just not playing well enough to go up automatically, everything is so disjointed. There is no way that if these tactics and form continue, automatic is beyond us unless Huddersfield and Peterborough go into melt down. The one light that came through from today being the possibility that Rochdale won't make the play off's, that looks about the only plus I could find. I believe at home we can just about get away with how we have been going, but away from home we have to change drastically or it will all be in bits on the floor. The problem we have is that we are not in the greatest of form, have so many star players out injured, that we cannot continue to play in the manner we have as if nothing had happened and that we can bully teams into submission. Rather than continue in the same mould, address our weaknesses such we are in the game long enough to make tactical changes and the possibility of nicking things when tight. You can go on about your favourite at full back, but they can all do a job when fit and that seems the most important aspect. I would like to see Martin come in along side Fonte, but the positions Jaidi's if fit and not facing a pocket rocket. I would shore up the midfield with using the other two full backs on the flanks,with something like Hammond, Chaplow and Gobern in the midfield. The most important thing to getting this to work is drop Ricky and put Guly on as the striker. I like Guly but really do not want him with midfield duties as it causes confusion, let him have a free role. If things are not going well you can always change things around, but if you have already shot yourself in the foot you can only go more extreme. I liked the way Bristol Rovers set up today and that is how I feel we should be playing until we have the form and the players away from home. If Connolley is fit enough he is a definite starting option, but remember the last time we did that and had to say goodbye after a couple of games. As a sub we may well stretch him out for this season. We really don't have a strike threat away from home at the moment, why not give some of that nothing up and plug the holes we know we have, then just roll the dice for the last 20 minutes if we have to. I don't expect Adkins will do this and I expect to see Ricky trudging across the park without intent, hopefully with Guly far enough away from the midfield to stop the confusion or our away malaise to continue.

I still believe we have enough a quality of squad to have got something out of this game. Every team we have come up against recently have exposed us down the flanks. There was absolutely no reason why this game would not be the same and we were ill prepared. If you were to pick 4 from 5 out of Gobern, Stephens, Hammond, Butterfield, Dickson, that would give you a solid base, put Guly in front of that 4 and just tell him to chase down the ball when we don't have it, support the lone striker otherwise. I thought Adkins had learnt his lesson with playing Guly in such a fashion previously when he admitted he got it wrong, only to see the same thing here. If you start off this way, you should be able to contain Rochdale and you always have the option of changing things round with a substitution. Starting off as we did the only option if we hit any problems was to throw caution to the wind. Knowing that our playing form was not the greatest at the moment, we made it very easy for Rochdale. That comeback and pressure we applied in the second half would still have been an option, but more than likely without the 2 goal cushion they had built up.

Whether you think about this in terms of formations or players, it really does not matter. What is important is that you recognise the problems within the team and what must be done to cure those problems. No one with any sense is going to argue that our midfield can create all sorts of problems for the team, especially where the opposition have been regularly getting down the flanks and exposing us defensively. Now it's pretty obvious that by giving the full back cover, you will minimise that exposure. Now calling that 442 or giving the full back cover is neither here nor there, either works. It's all about having the right player in the right position, however you want to describe it. The main problem we have is getting the strikers to work and we bend the team out of shape to achieve that end. Get a decent target man and it's a different story.

Dopeydave was also telling us what a great keeper Kelvin is, he has to be the worst commentators going. But the midfield is a problem, little doubt about that. The result came as no surprise as we really have not been on it for a while, although our results have been good enough. After reading through all the reports back, there is nothing here that I have not seen many times over to one extent or another. Rochdale knew what was coming and switched from their normal diamond to a 442 to get at us down the flanks. And as with most other teams, it paid dividends, just when will we come out of this groundhog loop? Guly's performance in midfield comes as no shock, we have all seen that before. If I never had the team sheet available, I could well have missed that Ricky was even on the pitch. It's one thing working the channels, but where the fook is the striker to put the ball in to? Adkins is not daft and in truth has got us results with playing this way when I don't feel fully deserved, but there is an obvious weakness here. Looking back to Burley's time and Rasiak, I always felt we needed that extra man forward to get the goals flowing. The same looks to be true of Lambert, both down to their lack of mobility but I would have expected Rasiak to have made more of this service. Guly, just like Waigo before him should not be playing in midfield, put him up front where defensive nous is not so vital. To me Lambert is the problem and we are just bending the team out of shape to make allowances for that. My choice in these sort of games would be to play 451 or 4411, with Guly providing the link to the striker, something he is good at and does not weaken the midfield. If we play near this level against Brentford, they will have us for breakfeast from what I saw at St Mary's. I wouldn't say automatic promotion is our only chance, but I really would not fancy our chances going into the play off's with the sort form that would bring that position about. This is no knee jerk reaction, but something I have felt coming for a while for any team prepared to take us on. Most of the problems against MK Dons were left behind in the excitement of that comeback out of nowhere. The cracks have been papered over by the results, but this result has added a touch of reality to what has been going on recently.

It's about time we had a player like that! If we had a midfielder with those same qualities, we would be celebrating now!

Same way be budgeted for a loss at Norwich last season.....oh We showed sufficient form prior to that Norwich game to expect a result, at the moment I am not 100%. We did what was required at the O's, but it hardly sounded convincing. But we should still have enough class to win ugly at Rochdale given our squad, if they put in the effort. To me the Rochdale game is now key, win that and the opposition will not be so focused on the automatic spot, especially if they don't get maximum.

The results from our next game away at Rochdale and Huddersfield away to MK Dons are very important. If we win at Rochdale, Bristol Rovers at home and absolutely no pressure away at Brighton. Win at Rochdale and that's going to mentally knock the stuffing out of Peterborough. If Huddersfield lose or draw at MK Dons I would expect them to get that same feeling. If Huddersfield win at MK Dons I can easily see them winning all their remaining games, with Brighton still partying when they get to meet. The sooner we get these teams planning everything with the play off's in mind, the far greater chance we have. That's why I believe our next away game is vital in that respect. I would happily take 4 wins and a draw right now, but 4 wins NO.