S-Clarke

There's certainly no thaw going on down here, temperatures - after rising a little last night and giving us a bit of freezing rain, are now widely below freezing again. Few more bands of snow working their way up from the South as we speak, it's a little more east than forecast as this was earmarked for Somerset folk.

Doesn't really work yet, in fact it has been pretty shambolic. The 'clear and obvious' line was played at the start, so why on earth are they stopping play to check every moment? You can see the ref' holding his hand to his ear after a foul or a corner etc. The fact some decisions have taken a month of Sundays to resolve is a clear indication to me that they weren't 'clear and obvious' errors in the first place. It should only be used for something that takes no more than 5 seconds to spot and fix, otherwise all you're doing is basically employing a 2nd referee who can make his own personal judgement call on decisions. All that will do is undermine the refree, confuse players and frustrate everyone else.

Didn't we score a consolation in the final min to make it 2-1 or something? If we're thinking of the same one.

Yeah that Sheffield United game was horrific, I remmber losing the sensation in my nose after that! Another one which sticks in my mind was a mid-week game in December against Wycombe...thankfully we won 1-0 which got us out of the L1 bottom 4, but there wasn't much to keep me warm!

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Currently bright and sunny, as it has been for the entire week at most, great weather....if it wasn't absolutley f**ing freezing though. I have a feeling Saturday may be a bit slippy though.

Only if you want a senile old fool in charge.

Get players close to him and don't leave him isolated. But we are doing the same as we have done with the other players, leaving him to do it all himself. I must admit I expected him to be a little more dominant in the air though.

Needed to win this, yet we almost lost it. A really tepid effort to be honest, seemed more worried about Burnleys attack (yes, Burnley's attack) than having a good ourselves. Draw just papers over the cracks for me. Club is drifting to sleep.

That was incredibly fortunate!

They're got better as the game has gone on. This looks like a typical Puel home game.

Leicester look absolutley useless.

Quarter-finals Saturday, 17 March Wigan v Southampton (TBC) Manchester United v Brighton (19:45) - BT Sport Sunday, 18 March Leicester v Chelsea (16:30) - BBC One

Pretty sure he was taller than Romeu at least, but he had that physicality about him as well. He was a lot more dominant in the air through the middle anyway.

GK - This area is a little bit confused. Fraser seems to have totally lost his way and whilst McCarthy is decent he was only brought in as backup originally. Then you have random signings like Jack Rose and the young kid - Harry Lewis - who still looks a bit far away. It's probably more of a 'nice to have' rather than a necessity, but it would be interesting to see if we can improve the GK situation. It's average at the moment. CB - This area is a mess in my opinion. 3 transfer windows of incompetence from the club. We ignored the opportunity to replace Fonte and we have once again ignored the opportunity to replace a CB in VVD. Stephens and Yoshida should be 3rd and 4th choice respectively if we are serious about being where we were a couple of years ago, but both of these guys are now key components. Hoedt was an investment and technically looks very capable, but he is still very inexperienced and prone to some crazy giraffe like tricks with his feet. In the summer this area needs serious surgery, at least two incoming. One of them needs to be a powerful, dominant and athletic defender, who will complement the likes of Hoedt and Stephens who are the more ball playing CB’s. WB's - Not too bad as we stand, probably the area with the most 'quality'. Cedric does flatter to deceive, but he's not a bad player. Bertrand is probably our best player right now. McQueen and Targett behind him are also more than capable. We probably need to look at an addition to put some pressure on Cedric as I don't think Pied is really up to it. If we keep this area 'as it is', it's not a disaster. CM - Decent. Hoj, Lemina, Romeu, JWP, Davis. Good options, they're all a bit samey though and we lack one ingredient in there. I'd like to see the club invest in a Wanyama style CM in the summer, we only really have Romeu who can play that role and he has looked a little off colour for 18 months or so. If you have a Wanyama style player sitting, offering height and the ability to head the ball in the middle of the park, you can then free up Lemina and Hoj/JWP to become more progressive with their passing towards the final third. I'd look to move Davis to a very minimal role over the next year, he has been a very good player for us but it looks like his legs have gone now. Doesn't seem to be able to keep up with the pace of the game, not strong enough to play in the positions we want to play him (CM). AM - Boufal/Tadic/Redmond/JWP - Along with the CB area, this is the other area in the side in need of serious, serious surgery. There is quality individually, but there is seemingly no blend between the options and they're again very samey. Good technically, not very quick and struggle to get in behind. This is where someone like Quincy Promes would have been a positive, we need pace in the final third to keep the play quick. When teams setup with blocks of 4, you very rarely get through the middle of them - you need the pace and directness to get down the sides and in behind. We do not have that ingredient in our final third, it's all very much in front of the opposition which is where a lot of our problems lie. ST - Carrillo/Gabbiadini/Long/Austin – Bit of a mish mash of strikers for me. Long and Gabbiadini are support strikers, not very strong or powerful and they're not prolific goal scorers themselves. (probably being kind to Long there..). Carrillo may be the outlet over time and allow Long and Gabbadini to get themselves more involved, but the jury is still out a little for me. Overall, we have pockets of quality which you'd say shouldn't be anywhere near the position we are. The problem we have comes from a poor mix of players in certain positions, lack of options and poor setups. A combination of a very poor recruitment policy that hasn't understood the squad’s weaknesses and a very poor coaching setup which has failed to address the issues tactically.

*sigh*. TV Companies call the shots as per normal. The real fans who actually travel are seemingly less important than those fans who pay for subscriptions and watch from their sofa.

He's in the top 3 CB's in the PL. He is very good.

Confirmed: https://southamptonfc.com/news/2018-02-19/florin-gardos-southampton-club-sportiv-loan That's it for him here, so thanks for the Arsenal away game in the cup and Utd away in the league. Shame about his injuries to be honest, hope he can salvage some sort of career for himself.

No Europa League place for the runners up anymore.

Trouble in the away end, advertising boards being thrown at stewards and all sorts.

TBF it would be wayyyyyyy too late for any change to make an impact! we'd be well into march.

They beat Bournemouth 3-0 and West Ham 3-1 as well.

Man City ran out of ideas! Too many touches outside the box, not enough punch. Wigan threw everyone on the line, so amazing credit to them.

Amazing shock, that's what the FA Cup is about! This will be a very, very, very hard away game by the way. TV game and they'll be looking for another shock. Bit noddy to be running onto the pitch for winning a 5th round game though.

Wigan are way, way, too deep. This is only going to end one way if they keep going like this.