S-Clarke

Top 4 was always pretty remote, to be honest. For mainly this exact reason we're seeing now. I think some people need to take a step back and recheck their expectations. During the summer and before the first game, most would have said they would be surprised but delighted to finish we we did last year - most predicted worse. We've had a start beyond anyone's wildest dreams which has given us a platform to maybe do 1 or 2 places better than last year, so let's not get away from that fact. We're doing a hell of a lot better than most thought, so there's not much to really moan about in the grand context of it.

Mane is alright, just having a right old mare at the moment though. Mayuka, well, what the hell is that? He's horrendous. If there's only 1 thing we do in January, it's to ship him out and replace him with a better player (which wouldn't be hard)

To be honest, most squads would look stretched with the amount of injuries we have at the moment. We're not very lucky with injuries.

Very concerned about our injury situation now. We're a right old mess, pretty much in the space of a week.

What can you do? You can have a squad, but when you lose as many players as we are right now, anyone will struggle. God knows how long Toby and Cork will be out for, but we're in a bit of a mess at the moment. To lose that is devastating really, that will hit our confidence a bit, as we didn't deserve that.

I think he's made a fair few people look like the pathetic idiots they are tonight.

It's 3 games. As long as we then go and pick up the points against Everton, Burnley and the likes, then we'll still be on target. I don't really get the idea of basing all our chances on 3 games before christmas. The teams in and around the top 4 will all drop 9 points between now and the end of the season, so as long as we win the games against the teams we should - especially the likes of Everton, Liverpool at home, Newcastle, WHU etc who are in and around...then we'd be at the head of the pack for a European place.

100% out for tonight. Having a scan this week to asses the severity of the injury. No comeback date set as yet.

That's what I feel as well, take a point tonight, get a win on Monday and go into Burnley on 30 odd points. Pretty impressive tally for mid-December, it has to be said!

This has always been the game I've fancied of the 3. They're on a good run, but I may regret saying this, but I don't see them as a team who can go 5/6/7 wins on the bounce as yet, they're still growing and they're full of injuries....and as they won their 4th on the bounce last night, it makes you wonder if we can halt it on Monday...it'll be good to put a bit of daylight between ourselves and Utd again, as they're on our tail a bit. By all accounts, Stoke should have drawn last night, they didn't play particularly well at all....so although results have improved, I don't think their form in particular has.

Ok.

Your post is all over the place and full of reactionary ill-thought nonsense. ''Incredible achievement if we can finish top half'' ''we can forget the top 6'' ''think we might just do it now'' so, what is it then?

All 3 of those have done a hell of a lot more than he's ever done.

It was open! They've scored in the end though. Liverpool, as per usual, look an utter shambles.

What a miss by Leicester!

To be fair, Valencia is pretty much a wing back these days anyway, SAF played him at RB a few times. Young I give you, horrific footballer played out of position. His pace will get him out of trouble though.

Notice they've got Rojo back now, so they're not looking too bad at the back.

Slightly over the top I think? But what you also need to take into account is that potentially, the current crop we have, are the lads recruited during our 'dark days' with the Lowe/Wotte experiment, whereby the academy did fall by the wayside. Obviously the club will have supplemented the age groups since then, but we possibly missed out on some of the core talent of that generation due to our situation. Worth taking that into account. And academy's come in waves, batches of players, then a few, then nothing for a few years...then another batch, but I think if there's one thing you can be sure of with Southampton is that we will continue to churn out PL level players over time.

We sold them all.

I think that's a fair point. I think even if we played at our maximum, we'd still have lost. They were THAT good on Sunday. Their work ethic was something else.

All this ''could have done a job for us'' if he was still here and on the bench isn't really true, to be honest. We all hope he could, we all wished to hell he could make that pass we all say he can make....but the general reality is that he'd be pretty useless on our bench as he didn't influence things for us, just left on the wayside in the premier league. For me, he's never, ever the sort of player I'd want to bring on to change the course of a game we're struggling in. He'd hardly make an impact, which we saw time and time again. If we're winning and there's lots of space, maybe, but in tight games - no chance.

I don't think he'll play for us again, quite simply not suited to English football what so ever and has shown no signs that he's even close to adapting. Will be back at a club like Torino next summer I reckon.

It's so weird how this season is mirroring last year. We lost a pivotal midfielder around this time last year (Wanyama) and struggled, probably not directly down to that, but it didn't help. We've now lost a pivotal midfielder again, for who knows how long. Morgan is absolutely vital to our tactical set-up, he's going to be a colossal miss, as good a pro Cork is, he's no where near Morgan.

It would stretch the squad and would cause a hangover in the league, pretty much guaranteed. Look at Everton this year for a fine example. It's a hell of a lot of travelling, shorter windows for match preparation etc. We'd need to add 4 or 5 of decent quality to spread the squad out a bit and allow players rest and recovery time, otherwise it could lead to be a bit of a nightmare season and our European adventure would be a distant memory. Never been a big fan of the Europa league anyway tbh.

Ah, we're still going with this Forster isn't good enough lark. He is, end of thread.