S-Clarke

As expected, Forster starts...but so does Diallo, no sign of Romeu in the squad. Subs bench is a 'WTF' though. Lewis, Vokins, Valery, Ramsay, Chauke, Smallbone, Tella, Long, N'Lundulu. Our weakest ever PL subs bench? That's shockingly bad.

Hopefully it's like the game against Everton under Koeman years and years back, on a poor run of form...went into it without quite a few regulars (Harrison Reed started) and it just refreshed the team and we ran out well deserved winners.

We're one of a handful (if that) of clubs who have sold season tickets in their original form. We shouldn't have sold them, end off. Not saying anyone forced you, but a lot of people did it because they didn't want to lose their seats - that was the primary driver for most, I'm sure of it. Therefore the club should have charged a smaller holding fee to sort that element out. Then as games get allowed again they can work through the ballot and offer supporters the chances to buy tickets for game x or y. Job done. No hassle then about having to fluff around trying to get your money back. I know loads of people who have had issues.

The bottom 2 aren't putting up much of a fight, it'll be all over by the start of Feb down there. I see Charlie Austin is still pretending to be a PL footballer.

WP was eased in over a few weeks....that's what I'm getting at, if they've been brought in as a new player the intention is that they get involved ASAP. This 'easing Salisu' in over an entire season is just waffle and cover up for something else at play - not to speculate about on here though. Lockdown helped WP for sure, but he started before the lockdown began. Not disagreeing with your general point though, we certainly don't need a new CB. If anywhere...attacking winger/striker and a full back.

You make it sound like he's a young academy kid we plucked from Spain. He wasn't. He was a regular starter in La Liga up against Messi etc, yet somehow he has 'not been ready' to play for us for around half a year. Something else has clearly gone on with regards to him. Clubs like ourselves, in the current climate, don't pay £10m+ and 'ease' the player into the team over the course of an entire year, maybe over the course of weeks at a the most. He was bought as a first team player from day dot, but something happened somewhere along the lines.

Hopefully he can win something and put those doubts to bed! He's clearly a very talented manager, just hasn't had any luck with regards to winning a trophy. He should get that at PSG I'd have thought. I wonder who he will come and grab from Spurs? Dele Alli has been mentioned for ages, so I guess that's a guaranteed move now.

At least we all know who finishes 20th this year. Derby's total is genuinely at risk here. They are gone, I doubt we'll see them back at the top table for a very long time. Seasons like this can kill a club.

For all of Leeds attempts to play football, they have the worst team organisation and defensive discipline I have seen at this level for a long, long time. They'll be ok, but they need to sort that out or they will never progress.

I don't think anyone will be spending upwards of £100m in a transfer market for a very long time (outside of your usual suspects). I imagine any investment Burnley get will be club-wide, not on a few luxury additions to the playing squad. We are absolutely desperate for investment, but I don't see that happening now for a long, long time. No one is going to spend £200m + on Southampton during a pandemic. Unfortunately we are stuck with the invisible Gao. Let's just hope we can continue to enjoy Ralph and he keeps performing miracles with this threadbare squad.

We should go as full strength as we can, players shouldn't be fatigued. It's fallen for us really nicely, so we are fortunate that ours is Monday night, it pretty much gives us an entire week from the last time we played. Pretty much same as any other match week in a season. We have the FA Cup the following weekend to rest everyone if we want to.

Yeah, I've noticed that - what on earth is it about? Soucek should have scored, he wasn't offside as Bertrand was a little slow getting back and was playing him on. That's not the first person in recent weeks who could have scored either. It's a very, very high risk strategy and I'm not sure why we are doing it. It doesn't benefit us at all, doesn't allow us to attack any quicker or break...it just seems daft. A bit like our insane high line at the start of the season.

Absolutely, they should have been used to take the backlog from the hospitals. I think they were a big publicity stunt though, there was never any intention to use them on mass - it just looked good in the media. We had one lined up next to the cruise terminal in Southampton but that 'never happened'. The one in Bristol was never used, the one in Birmingham and the North East area had a splattering of patients. London the most used one, but not anywhere near how it should be. They were 'stood up' to aid with the situation we find ourselves in now (Hospitals over run etc). So why in gods name are they being 'stood down' as of Boxing Day? Absolute nonsense. Lots and lots and lots of $$$$$ spent on these by the way, they were not 'freebies'.

If you're going to post something like that back it up and come back to answer the 'WTF' posts. As you clearly have no idea about football. Otherwise you will be categorised as a non-saints supporting troll.

My belief is that will happen, they are talking about a new tier for the entire country that is 'tougher' than tier 4. Curfews have been mooted, how that goes down is anyone's guess. Riots pending? Sounds like 2021 is going to be another blast of a year and we're not even there yet.

Agreed, it's only going one way whetherr you agree with it or not. Tier 5 mooted (which will apparently include curfews) and almost certainly a 'pause' of all professional sport. Meet 2021, same as 2020.

I don't see a 'spanking', as we are relatively 'solid'. (i bet we go and prove that wrong now). But I cannot see us winning, we have a few fatigued players at the moment. But we can't change it up as we have no depth (Just people like Shane flaming Long)

We were lucky West Ham were equally as dreadful. They seemed more bothered about stopping attacks than attacking themselves.

The less said about that the better. That was absolutely diabolical. We are certainly in a slump, be interesting to see where we are at the end of Jan. I doubt it will be anywhere near the top 6.

Pretty dreadful to be honest. We shaded it, in whatever way you can shade such a dreadful game of football. Absolutely terrible to watch, No flow, no intensity, no quality. Moussa is once again a total passenger. After 2 years he now needs to be showing what he can do, he's on the brink imo.

Brighton are so shit.

edit

For me, that shout fell into the category of 'seen them given'. I don't think it was 100% stonewall, but they have been given.

it was a freak season for everyone - especially Leicester, whereby none of their squad got injured, absolutely insane and unheard of. So whilst they didn't have a big squad, they didn't have to delve into it a great deal. They were able to play that core group for 90% of the season. We have already hit injuries to our core group, long term as well.

Not massively surprising, I think they both have better squad depth than we do. We've hit a bit of a period of injuries, first time in a while tbf. I don't think there will be much between ourselves and Villa at the end of the season though. Everton/Leicester and co just better than us. It's been fun where we've been, but the reality is that where are are now is more akin to our current level imo - top 10 would be a great finish for me.