S-Clarke

2002 called and wants its hairstyle back.

Mourinho has lost his way, overtaken by a fresher breed of progressive managers. He keeps bleating on about teams 'buying' the title, but this is a Utd team who spent £95m on Lukaku and £90m on Pogba, in addition to the huge outlay on Sanchez and the £35m each on Bailly and Lindelof. The bloke has become a parody of himself. Needs to go back to Portgual.

Bit of an odd thread again, Charlie.

The Europa League continuing its horrible habit of killing off any momentum from a medium/small sized English club who qualify for it.

He's actually known as Moi.

The players were a huge issue last season, let's not devoid them of any blame and say it was all because the poor little flowers didn't like MP. MP didn't help though as he was pretty meek. Hoedt, Stephens, Romeu, Austin, JWP, Cedric, Bertrand, Lemina, Gabbiadini, Long - all struggled last year because they're all limited footballers if we're honest. We play again with the same crap as last year and we have a similar result, so for me the main blame lies with our recruitment from the last few years, some of the fee's we've splashed out on absolute garbage has been horrific.

6/10

I see all the anti Hughes folk are coming out of the woodwork now. Bit odd. He's not the problem, it's players like Hoedt who are the problem.

We will always give ourselves a mountain to climb with our back 4, so we've kind of lost to sides like this before we even start. Good rally in the 2nd half to get back into it, but as was the case for a lot of last season, we gave ourselves too much to do. Ings will get goals and adds some serious energy into our side, which has been lacking. Romeu still looks a shaddow of the player he was, Lemina still flatters to decieve and Stephens and Hoedt are still dreadful individually, let alone as a partnership. So, as with last week, a better 2nd half after a poor first half. Always on the edge with the back 4. Need to actually try to play 90 mins next week, and hopefully no more Hoedt.

Ings deffo our best player out there. Makes the movements, pickups good positions, stretches the opposition. Just a shame about the defence, which never gives us a chance to build a foothold.

So you're suggestion is to flip flop again, with no plan, to another different manager? What did people expect today? We have Hoedt in the side alongside Stephens and Cedric at right back, we're not going to keep a clean sheet.

That's really harsh on Lundekvam who at least looked capable. Hoedt is a poorer and much more expensive version of Jackobson for me. and Jackobson was poor.

Wouldn't even put him as 5th choice. Should be in Scotland and Jones can take his place.

Whenever I watch Hoedt I just feel sad.

He looks and plays like a young Paul Pogba.

This is the state of play from one of the live camera shots this morning - That doesn't look anywhere near ready....

I think we'll see the same setup if I'm honest, but Yoshida for Stephens. Probably Ings for Austin as well. Hoedt left, Vestergaard central and Yoshida right side. That at least gives us a bit more pace at the back, but we need to be much more sure of our jobs compared to Sunday.

I thought Redmond was one of the better players in the first half as well (not saying much). But it's amazing what can happen when you have pace and actually commit/run at defenders.....for the last two years he's just stopped and gone backwards due to Puel and MP's coaching, now....hopefully....he has someone who actually coaches his ability correctly.

Yeah, I watched that back on the highlights last night. Insane bit of defending. Been a while since we've had defenders doing amazing bits of work!

Yeah, that was a decent tackle. My problem with him is that he always looks so uncomfortable, like he's going to trip over his feet. Lacks awareness and doesn't seem to anticipate stuff very well. He's been here a year now and already Vestergaard after 1 game has shown everything Hoedt hasn’t. Just my two pence, but I think Hoedt is always going to be a bit of an uncomfortable watch.

A positive, forward thinking central midfielder....

Yeah, something I noticed today. Always been really critical at his reluctance to take people on, but he did that plenty of times today and committed their centre backs.

Injected a real freshness to our play, sharp and alive. Starts for me. Makes our attack more mobile (not hard tbf)

Wtf was that first half, seriously. No point mentioning any more on that. 2nd half was better (after about 55-60 mins). We looked more comfortable and familiar, like we knew what we were supposed to be doing. I've never seen a back 3 be any good for us, I remember the occasions when Komean tried it and it was often reverted before the first half had ended. Glad that Hughes wasn't like MP and Puel in the stubborn sense though. Hoedt is bambi on ice, a truly horrific professional footballer. He's never going to improve. Vesterguard is everything we have needed. Strong, good on the ball, dominant in the air. Early signs, but he has potentially filled a HUGE hole in our back 4. Burnley aren't an easy team to come up against on your debut, but he swatted them away. Looks quality and everything Hoedt isn't. Austin looked slow and unfit, not sure what he offers us apart from being a fox in the box type. Ings offered far more in an all-round game when he came on than Austin has offered us for a long time. So, first half - something to forget. A decent side would have put us to bed on that showing (but credit to Vesterguard and McCarthy for keeping them at bay). 2nd half, learnt from our mistakes and benefited from a tiring Burnley. Lots to improve on, but also plenty to take into the next game at Everton. Still a familiar Southampton-Nill at home ring to proceedings though..

They say you do, but I watched the game last night without a VPN....