S-Clarke

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2906405/Premier-League-race-4th-Manchester-United-Arsenal-Liverpool-want-it.html

They'll sort themselves out. Their start has probably meant a top half finish is the best they can hope for, but they're a good side. They will win more than they lose in the final half of the season, but they've given themselves too much to do in terms of being a threat for us. Still will be one of our hardest remaining away's.

And they're at home, which gives us a great advantage. Well, not the Everton game. But they're not involved in it this year.

Touch was a bit off at times, but that's due to lack of games. But the technical ability is there, seemed to be eager to prove himself (maybe a little too much, at times) and was defending as well as attacking when he had the chance. Liked the fact he worked hard, will fit in with the rest of the bunch. No room for any lazy mavericks!

Finishing in some sort of European place, I think. We've got somewhat of a cushion at the moment, and all we really need to do is maintain what we've done all season. We'll have a blip, but the beauty is that we've given ourselves a little margin for error in terms of a Europa league place. But for a CL spot, we simply have no margin for error really. We need to be amazing for the rest of the season, can't really afford a blip at all (i'm saying a 5 defeats on the bounce kind of blip). Given our remaining fixtures, it's possible as well.

He can't play in the cup game as he wasn't registered for the original tie.

He was one of the best CB's in the world in his pomp. His free kick taking technique was quite simply stunning, and so was the way he struck the ball. He was technically a genius of a CB. The sort of ball playing, passing CB that is few and far between these days.

That is true, his future centre back purchases were awful. Smalling, shocking player. Jones, an injury prone mess of a player. I'm sure they were in line to replace Rio - Vidic partnership down the line, but he didn't leave his successors much to play with. They need to ditch that 3 at the back ******** for a start, get 2 top class CB's (In the Pique, Hummells mould) and stop farting around with Valencia and Shaw as wing backs. That's another fergie cock up actually. He choose to go with Evans rather than Pique at the time, and sold him back to Barca for a cut price fee....brilliant

To be fair, when players were leaving left right and centre, with reasoning along the lines that the ambition went with Cortese, then it's quite easy to come to that idea! But to be fair, this is a solid club. It doesn't seem to matter who manages us or who chairs us, we are strong and resilient throughout. One constant though, the Liebherr's. Forever in our debt.

So after Man Utd's awful season last year, during which time Moyes destroyed them according to fans and the media, they are this year not a single point better off at the same stage. With players such as Falcao, Di Maria, Herrera, Blind, Shaw and all, LVG doesn't really have any excuses. Good for us though, but he's no better than the pushed out Moyes as it stands - and he's had far more resources to play with.

I'd expect to see the likes of Long, Tadic, and maybe Targett feature. Possibly a chance of Corky being back on the bench for this too. But other than that, we don't have a great deal of scope to change it, as Elia isn't available for this either. Isgrove as a bench option again I assume. In many ways, we're forced to go pretty strong!

Thought I'd have a quick look to see how we rank in Europe in terms of our defence. Then noticed Bayern Munich have only conceded 4 goals. That's the standard we could be up against!

If we did finish 4th, our qualifier would be against an equal finishing team from another top division. So as it stands at the mo, we'd potentially face the likes of Napoli, Sevilla, dynamo from russia (possibly). And if we got through that, we'd be the lowest ranked team in whatever group we'd be drawn in. A good experience that it will be, it will be very hard to go too far! But seeing the likes of Bayern, Barca, Juve at St Mary's in competitive games, whatever the outcome, would be nothing short of epic.

He won't go to Stoke I don't think. Not sure he'll move at all, to be honest. There will still be a place for him at City. They need all the squad they can get, will probably rotate Bony and Dzeko - and if they get an injury to Bony, they're back to square one again. Although it's not our policy, I'm pretty sure if we wanted to...we could attract some decent names in this window.

That's how I saw it, we'd started pretty well, he was playing well, we had a game plan...and then bang. I'd be pretty ****ed too! He was apparently on crutches etc, but the policy is that we immobilize any leg injury directly after - even if it's nothing too bad. He is such a class act though, best CB i've seen play for us. Just really hope it's not bad.

I think the Europa league will continue to hamper Spurs, their results after the Europa games were consistency poor. The advantage for us over Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs etc is the lack of European football - apart from the FA Cup, it's just straight league games. Our focus is going to be pretty solid I'd have thought. The only other team without European competition to worry about are Utd, which is why they'll finish 3rd I think. Some way off the run away top 2, but 4th is the place up for grabs.

A month/6 weeks ago I'd have said no chance, ahead of that fixture run (and during the run of defeats). I didn't see us with a strong enough squad with the injuries we had, to sustain ourselves over the Christmas period particularly. But amazingly, we did. We got a good result at Palace, did well against Everton, held Chelsea and beat Arsenal. That's a pretty epic Christmas by anyone's standards. So, of course we now have a chance. That horrible run of fixtures are done. We don't face anything like that again. We have a run of fixtures which are doable, not straight forward, but we can go on a run from here. So, 12th January 2015 - Southampton are on 39 points and 3rd in the PL, with the horrible run of fixtures out of the way. I honestly don't think we'll ever have a better chance of gatecrashing the party.

We're 9 points, 6 places and +16 GD better than we were at the same stage last year. Epic. Simply how we've managed to improve on last year is quite incredible. The last 6 years have been a dream as a Southampton fan, a year upon year improvement. The full blueprint on how to run a football club from back to front.

In a weird way, this probably increases our chance of getting him on a perm. deal. Out of the shop window for a few weeks, whilst we thrash out the deal in the BG.

Stoke might as well go home, horrific.

You're pretty bad with this posting malarkey.

So frustrating to hear all the predictable bull****. ''Are liverpool back? Look at their results'' ''They're a different team now''. Yes, look at the results. They've beaten a load of dross over the last 5, they will struggle against decent sides as they have all year when they play them again. Bloody media-fest.

They don't concede too many, because they just suck the life out of every game they play. They'll get lots and lots of draws. That'll be how they stay up, but they'll still be in a battle as they are true dross.

It's a shame that Sunderland are so ****. Hopeless team who are rotten to the core.

Confirmed by Komman today.