S-Clarke

TBF I'm one of the most positive people on here, but we are boring the life and soul out of every man and his dog this year. Absolute bore-fest.

Pretty much.

Swansea have been much the better team, fully deserve their lead. We have been garbage, as per.

Arona Kone. Keep clear of that non-scoring forward.

He was linked for a few days before, Komean said it wasn't likely a few days before he actually signed.

Sky talk so much without actually saying anything.

If we go into the next few weeks with Yoshida, Gardos and Stephens as our CB's then the club has made an absolute clanger. Makes a bit of a mockery of the ''turning 1000 players over at any one time'' black box stuff. Still time though....I remain positive enough to think the club won't cock this up! Potentially a season defining situation. Well, it is, as we won't get too many points with those as our CB's.

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How many chances will Isgrove get? Totally pointless inclusion, he is not good enough for this level. Just move him on. Sims is still raw as hell, but already looks a million times better than Isgrove. Reed as well, he needs a loan or something. Not anywhere near the quality for this level at the moment.

As good as he was on Wednesday, Stephens played with Caulker levels of ineptness tonight. I think the club should refund everyone who went.

away @ sunderland the weekend before, we were due to play Arsenal at home on the 25th Feb, but now we play the final on the Sunday so that will be moved. Maybe to the mid-week after that, not sure.

I'm sure part of him wishes it was him leading us out, but too late for that now. Wonder if he'll be another who looks back in a year or so and wishes he never left.

He's smelling the money on offer from Leicester.

I have no idea where he pulled that performance out from. He LEAD that team.

Congrats!

A tactical masterclass over both legs, you have to say. I'm now going to go back to drinking.

Lol. BREAKING: Sky Sources: @SouthamptonFC defender Virgil Van Dijk fit to play EFL Cup semi against @LFC . More to follow. #SaintsFC #SSNHQ

I'd take Benzema

Ah that's good news, bit of a late Christmas present for us all!

Yeah, totally. Have never been a massive fan of the ‘turns permanent after x amount of games’ deals. Those sort of deals have screwed many clubs up, similar happened with Sunderland and Ricky Alverez. They returned him as they didn’t want him, but Inter said…hang on, he’s played x amount of games therefore he is yours. It went back and forth for a while, but I think it ended up with Sunderland paying Inter the ‘fee’ and Inter keeping the player and sending him elsewhere. Cockup galore. But then that’s why Sunderland are where they are.

Clearly Napoli are holding out for the maximum they want, which they're entitled to. At the end of the day the club know he will need to be gone by the end of the window, so if someone doesn't pay what they want then they will come up with compromises all over the board. I can still see a loan on the last day being agreed.

Played really well today, marshaled the defense when VVD went off and played like a captain. We do need to replace Jose though, we're 1 or 2 knocks away from absolute carnage.

Really hard to make a huge judgement as there wasn't much going on in their attack, Romeu kept most of their efforts at bay. Couple of dodgy passes out from the back and a couple of bits of miss communication when himself and Yoshida went for the same balls, but it's hard to really come to any conclusion on that.

Really good effort today, we genuinely wanted it more and were a hell of a lot more hungry than Leicester. From the off we actually attacked them with a purpose and we really made the most of the fall back positions. We played with width and stretched the game, that made a huge difference. I think Danny Simpson must have been on the lash last night, we had him on toast all of that first half. The overlaps from Bertrand were terrific and that's a huge strength in his game, hope we see more of that. Cedric put in one of his best displays for us I thought, defensively resolute and attacking with purpose. The left and right back slots today were absolute key to the outcome. I know PEH will get some moans because of those shots, but I thought he played well in that first half. I love the way he can carry the ball through midfield and playing him in a more advanced CM role is perfect for him, I don't believe he'll ever be a holding type, but as a midfielder who can run with the ball between the line's he's probably one of our best. JWP stepped up massively today, very good on the ball but equally as good off it - always making himself available for a pass and picking up the holes all over Leicesters midfield, which to be fair was an absolute flaming mess. Jay held the ball up well, really well at times, and brought the wide players into the game. Pleased he got that goal and he's getting a run in the side at last, looks to be getting back to the original Jay-Rod again. We needed that though, reminded me a little of the WBA home game last year around this sort of time which flipped our season around - let's hope of a similar outcome this time round.

To be fair, I’m as positive as most but that is easy to pick apart. We’re not doing well, we’ve lost four in a row, we’re 14th in the league and knocked out of Europe. I don’t consider that doing well. It’s certainly not an absolute meltdown as some are saying, but it’s certainly not good either. Why are people now trying to make out that Jose was this error-prone centre half and we’ve carried him for the last 2 years? He was one of our best CB’s, one of the best in the league and we will miss that. He has not been making mistakes for the last 2 years. This month is certainly going to be a pivotal time.