S-Clarke

Thought it was pretty obvious. Attacking midfielders/wingers.

Ward-Prowse was better than he has been recently, but the area he was operating in was just a little too crowded. We seemed to be playing him as more of the AMC type. (along with Mane and Jay by the looks of it). His set pieces were delicious.

Cork was the greatest midfielder to ever grace St Mary's though, dontchaknow.

Spurs are very silly leaving their business this late. He's clearly not going to be leaving. Nothing to see here.

I personally don't think we need those sorts of players, we just need to utilise what we have a lot better

What I can see, based on a very early sample of games, is that we are currently too slow, ponderous and inaccurate in our passing, whilst overcrowding the central AMC area and therefore there doesn't seem to be a great deal of choice for midfielders to select. We looked our most threatening tonight when the likes of Jay and Mane pulled out wide, and one of our CM's looked up and played it down the line - we need to quicken it up and stretch the play, we have the pace to do it. The agility and recovery ability of our midfield seems a little under par, people will say that's because we lost Morgan (fairly) but Wanyama needs to have a look at himself too, as he has been totally pants! He's the one in there who should be providing the legs in there, he can cover a lot of ground when he wants, but he seemed half a sleep at times tonight. We're not a bad side, we have all the tools, but we just need to tweak it here and there. I'd say that a main feature of our play over the last season or 2 has been the full backs, providing width and attacking edge. Neither out there tonight have that as part of their game - in my opinion. Yoshida isn't an attacking wing back, and Targett is just a defensive full back. We need to hope that Soares gets up to speed and Bertrand is back sooner rather than later, as I think we'll then start to see the team open up a bit more and express themselves a bit.

Unless Reed is going, probably a no go. Has Koeman turned into George Burley overnight???

Absolute cringe. That club is run by Muppets.

Yes, I was going to say the same. I remember at this stage last season we'd drawn 0-0 at home to Alan Irvines WBA. Pelle was getting jeered and ripped apart. The mood was a lot worse then than it is now. This will hopefully be a defining result to kick us on, we've not really got out of neutral this season. Watford were decent at Everton, but I still think they've changed too much. They signed Vydra this summer, and they're already now talking about loaning him out. It's not a way to run a club in my opinion, so we can capitalize on what will be a very unfamiliar team.

We were the better team, but incredibly sloppy and lacking any quality at the front end, final passes just not good enough. It some ways it was similar to Saturday, started very brightly and then dropped off. Very tricky away game, as they're not a bad side. They play to their strengths to be fair, which is to time waste, fall over and do the dirty ****. I really felt we needed a 2nd goal, cause you know this is all they will do in the away leg.

But that doesn't really mean anything. What she's worth isn't what the club is worth, that's her personal wealth. You can't expect her personal wealth and the club to be linked, it's not how she works.

With Cork, you have to look at it from his position - not just ours. Here is a loyal player who gives his all, but isn't first choice. He may be first choice next year if we lose Morgan, but nothing was confirmed regarding that at that time. We often criticize players for sitting on the bench at clubs and picking up pay packets, but to Corks credit he wanted to play. He wanted to be a first team player every week - he didn't want to wait for that to happen here. I respected his decision and I don't see it as a fault of the club what so ever.

If Arsenal had come in for Chamberlain when we were a PL club the outcome would have been no different. I know people seem to think that Cortese wouldn't sell if he was here, but he ran as soon as the possibilities of that started to occur. He knew.

You can't include Toby or Boruc. Toby wasn't ours to sell, and Boruc was just released. We have better than him now. Cork, again, I like him...but I don't get the infatuation everyone has with him, like if we had him we'd have won the league or something. He was a squad player who didn't want to sign a new contract. Fair enough.

I honestly can't think of 10 players mate? Lambert, Lovren, Chambers, Lallana, Shaw - freak transfer situation this season - Morgan, Clyne. I don't think we're taking too long to sign a new CB, as I think we know who we want and we're just waiting until we're able to. We seemingly have a good relationship with Celtic and in my opinion everything is agreed.....

Who are the 10?

There might be disappointment, but some of the reactions are utterly ridiculous to be honest. We lost a game, 2nd game of the season by the way, so did Chelsea. We're not a bad side. We lost 2 players in the summer, 2 players I think 90% of us expected to go. Morgan for sure. We didn't manage to retain a player who wasn't ours. That's it. It's nothing like last summer what so ever. I think people just get frustrated seeing the over reactions, because that's all it is.

Come on Pilchards, you've got a lot more to you than being dragged into the board bashing. No one has done anything wrong here, because nothing has actually happened.

Link?

I don't get peoples points about Everton. If I read this without any prior knowledge I'd assume we'd sold him. But we've done exactly what Everton have done with Stones. People getting their knickers in a right old twist on here.

Look, you made yourself look a bit silly last summer - don't do it again.

It's not like Alpine to jump to conclusions based on just his mindset.

Good news I think. When Alpine gets into his hissy fits, good news often follows. Good omen.

toepunt will be delighted. Do Utd really know they're signing a non-league level player?

The meltdown on Redcafe is quite amusing, seeing as they've lost out to Chelsea on the signing of Pedro.