S-Clarke

Blimey. Will Grigg is very much on fire.

I think Powell going off has hit them hard as well, he's huge for them. Such a talent at L1 level.

Salah for me, he'd improve any team he plays in because of his pace and directness and his amazingly quick feet. He's also very, very clinical. Pace in the top level is so important to be honest.

The game has totally changed now, the red card for City has actually moved the game into City's favour. Wigan can't get out at all.

Think he came through Fulhams academy (if it's the same one). Always pretty highly rated, remember him getting some PL games. Fulham seem to churn out some good lads since they've had Hew Jennings and (possibly) Malcolm Elias there.

Jeez, Wigan could be ahead there. Unlucky.

We were in a bit of a mess at the start of that season, but we certainly turned it around quick enough. I think Adkins first game was the defeat at MK Dons, maybe? He got his first win against Wednesday....barnard with the goal. I must admit, I did enjoy those days.

You're agreeing with yourself

We'll be ****ed if we don't win games, simple. I happen to think that the two we have now, Burnley and Stoke, represent the best chance we have in this batch. I don't have huge confidence with the Swansea, Newcastle or WHU games in terms of getting 3 pts. That's why I honestly think we need to get 6 on the board in the next two, will make things a lot more comfortable.

Yeah, and that game. We lost 2-0 then as well iirc, pretty pants performance to say the least.

What's nonsense about it? We need to start winning, we can't keep picking up points or valliant defeats in the hope we still have games coming up. We need to get as many points on the board as soon as possible, I personally think the next two are the biggest chance we have for 6 points in this batch of fixtures we have. We need them on the board now, not in the future. If we're playing catchup at the back end of the season we'll be in trouble, and that's what we'll be doing if we don't start getting some wins together now.

He certainly wasn't one of our best players last season. Not sure what you were watching! His pace is a bit of a myth to me. he apparently has it, but I never see him use it. He just stops, looks back and slows the game down.

Not sure why it sticks in my head, but my overriding memory of Rochdale was when they beat us 2-0 in L1 in a mid-week game. I remember coming on here the following day and Alpine had already admitted defeat, we weren't going up. It was all over. We went on to win the reamining games that season and had a hard fought battle with Huddersfield. It was nip and tuck down to the Plymouth game. Good times.

The worry I have is that they play right into our weaknesses. Long balls, physical centre forwards. They are a fine example of a side who understand their technical weaknesses and play to their strength - which is Barnes, Vokes etc. I have no doubts that we will out pass them and have a higher % of possession, but we will need to move it quickly as they are a physical outfit who will not give us time to think. They press hard, play hard, bombard the box. We need 6 points from the next 2 for me. Anything less and we’re ****ed.

A win is a win, WBA are dog ****e though. Good to see a goal from Tadic, hasn't scored anywhere near enough in the last year. I do think we play better away from home....

He will help Tadic, as long as he plays up close to him. He hasn't really looked like threatening the goal himself yet though.

The West Brom is these days concentrated in Barcelona. Yesterday, some of his players returned to play at 6 a.m. and took a taxi from the hotel where they are housed in the city center. This morning they went to the police station to confess the prank

When you fill the 'top level' of the club with people who are corporate mouth pieces and commercial gurus – not football people - then football vision drops down the list. It will be all about protecting the brand, the image and how we're seen on a global scale. Ultimately this is the wrong way to run a football club. When you head down the route of talking up your commercial activities (Radio station anyone?) and taking your eye off the ball footballing side, this happens. Maybe they need the genius idea to create a competitive team on the pitch with a component manager, which would do all the global corporate branding for you, stop all these stupid slogans and management conferences - which they still do all around the world.

That article just confirms what many fear. We're protecting the brand, don't want to be seen as a sack happy club, so we'll continue with project MP to protect the Southampton way. All effort seems to be on the brand, not just in this country either.

This is the alarming attitude that has covered this season. The ''oh well, still plenty of games!'' attitude, everyone seems to have adopted it. We said it before Palace, and we say it after every wasted oppertunity. What will we say when there is just 1 game left? The club are seemingly oblivious.

Good post, also his blog at the end of last season (most notably the final paragraphs) were quite telling.

Yeah, that doesn't look acurate to me at all. Given Palace's injuries and the upcoming fixtures, that is a very optimistic return for them. And even if we are bloody crap, we're clearly going to pickup more than 3 points out of 11 games...! But agreed - impossible to predict the outcome really, it will chop and change every week. At least it will be an exciting end to the season, only positive i can paint on it.

It is a bit of a parody to be honest. We seem to be acting like a newly promoted club who 'expected' to be in a battle, and the fact we're still in touch indicates a good season (see Wanger and Houghton for e.g.). But we're not expected to be here, if the club were unhappy with Claude then I'm truly dumbfounded as to why they haven't acted. I think they're protecting the brand personally. If we stay up we will be all over the media, make no doubt about it, ''We never waivered, we stood firm in the face of bla bla bla". The fact is that if we do stay up, he still needs to go. So I don't get it.

Yeah, not as much money has been thrown at these latest rights. After the last record breaking set I think it was always going to reduce a little bit. Rumour has it that some of the unallocated pots (the midweeks etc) may be a share between BT and Amazon.

Massive let off on the stroke of HT with Juve missing that Penalty. Spurs are the much better side though, Juve look threatening on the break.