S-Clarke

That was a truly dreadful performance. Bristol City deserved that from where I was sat, and that's not how I wanted to see us lose our record at home. From the first minute we were hassled and muscled off the ball and we couldn't get near them. They were passing all around us. I was constantly hoping for a spell from us, but it never came and Bristol city continued to retain and use the ball well (albeit with little chances created until the last 15mins). Lallana was a liability today, and you won't hear that said too often. He took too long on the ball, tried to take an extra touch in tight areas and continuously lost the ball and gave it away in really dangerous positions. I was surprised he wasn't pulled off at HT to be honest. Defensively, oddly, we weren't really troubled, but the real issue today came from the middle of the park. As good as the pair of them were on Saturday, they were utterly awful today. Cork just had no strength at all, couldn't keep hold of the ball in any position and morgan kept giving it away. When the engine room was as poor as it was it's no real surprise we didn't get up any real head of steam. I thought SDR was easily our most dangerous player, the one player that had a spark about him and it looked like something may happen when he ran at their full back - too often though his crosses were poor and didn't cause enough trouble for the position he got himself into. Don't get me wrong, where we are in the league is amazing, and the first half of the season was unforgettable. Our record at home will live long in the memory too and I doubt it'll ever be matched again to be honest.....but the fact is that this month's results have been utterly, utterly awful. 5 points from 15....let's be honest, I'd be gutted with that return down at the bottom. It's **** poor. Let's just hope it's just a dodgy month because if we have another one like this we will disappear out of the automatic race without a trace. I just don't want to see all our hard work in the first half undone by such a poor spell....we really need to get together and start stringing some wins together again. It's been a long time since we've had any one the bounce! Onwards and upwards I guess, new year....let's hope it's as fruitful as 2011!

Jay Rod was our number 1 target in late august, I know that from a pretty decent agent I've known for years. We did bid for both Fox and Jay Rod, that definitely happened. We went back in against on deadline day for Jay Rod, even Sky Sports confirmed that, but it was too late really for anything to be sorted out then. I still expect him to be our top target. He'll cost a fair bit of money, but the bid we made from what I've heard is still on the table and was to be revisited in January. So we'll have to wait and see.

Wow nice one - Didn't see this at the top of the forum! Nice to see all our first team players here for the long term. Beats worrying about players running down their contracts!

The temporary huts have been up for a while, but as far as I know no work has started and all the old buildings are still in use. Went passed a month or so ago and there wasn't a sign of any building activity what so ever. May have changed a bit since then though.

Chaplow smashing that goal in against Man Utd. FT at Plymouth, knowing we'd done it. Seeing the pictures after the game of the players celebrating promotion. Before the Leeds game at the start of this season. Big crowd, live on TV and we were back playing at a decent standard once again. After the Leeds game, realising that we've just ripped one of the so called 'better'' teams to shreds.....and all of a sudden our expectations change. Rickie Lambert scoring his first ever championship goal at Ipswich. He'd waited so long for it and I think a few fans were still anxious as to weather he could make the step up. - Well he could!

I have no idea why or how people are coming to the conclusion that Barnard is not good enough for us anymore. How many minutes has he had in this team this year to even give it a good shot? Exactly.

lol.

The silly season has started.

Good to hear he's doing well. He wouldn't have got near our team this season with our midfield options, so this was a great move for him.

It was Lambert.

Yeah, signed a new contract until 2014. At the same time when all of our key players resigned. http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10280~2426115,00.html

Morgan and Cork were both outstanding, but Morgan pips him.

I wonder what Jay Rod is worth now? He's having a cracking season to be fair, think he's on 14 in all comps now. I think Burnley were interested in what we had to offer, but we weren't interested on what they then demanded.

It's genuine as well, not the usual ''oh let's just show the fans that we care'' **** that we've been used to in previous years. This group is really close. And that's probably 50% of the reason we're top.

There is a player at Chelsea who they are looking to loan out in the 2nd half of the season. He's young, powerful, pacey....Romelu lukaku Worth a quick loan offer for a few months? I can't see many premiership teams giving him lots of games, and what better way for him to adjust to English football than to come a few miles down the Motorway to top of the table Southampton... Stoke tried to sign him at the back end of August, but they were told 'no' because he'd already played for 2 clubs during that transfer window (then they went out and brought Jerome anyway). AFAIK he's free to be loaned out after January, and I doubt Chelsea see much benefit in him going abroad when they'd probably prefer him to adjust to english football.

I felt embarrassed for Ramage. The guy is just plain awful and has been whenever i've seen him, be it for QPR or Newcastle.

No one knows anything for sure, other than NA and NC, so it's probably a guess.

Based on your guly post, and this post, you quite simply weren't there today.

Nope he wasn't the best, but i just don't get these '''he's the worst player'' comments, when he quite clearly isn't. I can accept that he has bad games, like last week, but he also has effective games - like today. And he also has unplayable games where he's all over the show. He's an enigma and a match winner, and you have to accept the rough and the smooth with him. Take him out of our side and we've lost alot of the unpredictability we have.

Whatever. He was not the worst player on the pitch. That is a fact.

Yep, tbf during the first half of that game it just looked like a ''keep the score'' down routeen from birmingham, there was only one winner. Their 2nd half was better though, I still don't rate either side too much tbf. I think WHU are abysmal to watch and not very effective either at the moment. They have some good players who should be doing much better than they are tbf. I don't think some of their players benifit from ''big sam's '' way. Let's not forget that they have a tricky away game at Derby next, and are without Nolan, Mcaartney, Fabuert, Meite....etc, there are more but I can't remember all their missing players!

I don't know, he can play when he wants to. That little burst he had from defence into the box was a good laugh, almost got onto the end of it!

Yeah, from what I've gleaned from taking to a few people today - it's just a tweak, nothing more serious than that - and just another week or 2 added to his recovery. I'd expect to see him in our home game in the middle of January. It's certainly not an ACL, so don't start fretting over that.

He is a beast. Love the bloke. Our best centre back partnership for a very long time, they both compliment each other so well.

Birmingham look utter utter dross, don't think we can bank on them doing us any favours today.