norwaysaint

Well done (hopefully) to Wales. Welsh saints fans may now get the chance of being disappointed by their country as well as their club in a major cup competition.

I expect all of the fans who have moaned about player loyalty will be standing by Yoshida to keep his place, despite van Dijk being available?

Aren't saints a bit of a graveyard for promising young keepers? I can't think of one who's come to anything with us. Bialkowski, Smith, Blayney, Bevan, Poke, Gazza, Cropper, all failing to come to anything. Whereas our successes have all been mature keepers on arrival. Hope this guy bucks the trend.

Has Wanyama really done enough yet to attract any proper big teams? He's not quite in Schneiderlin's class is he? I don't think his reputation is good enough to risk a year as a forgotten man in the reserves. If he's got any sense, he'll publicly apologise and get back to work. Otherwise the best he'll manage is a sideways move to somewhere like Stoke, where I doubt he'll be happy. Can anyone truly be happy in Stoke?

It's not like fans have that much more loyalty towards the players. A few bad games and we start hearing the phrase "get rid" and "not up to it" and how often do we start calling for an improvement in a position already occupied by a player that's shown plenty of loyalty. Yoshida has done his best and always put in a shift despite being regularly dropped or moved out of position, how many fans on here will show loyalty by insisting that he starts even if we sign VVD? Probably not many, including me. Let's not get all hypocritical about expecting loyalty, we are quite selective about who gets it from us.

That's fair enough. It's all opinion rather than fact, isn't it?

Yes, really, equally skilled and outstanding, but in an entirely different role. Somebody controlling a game from a defensive midfield position, constantly intercepting, building up play, keeping possession and generally allowing the rest of the team to play above themselves may not make you gasp and stand up to applaud, but takes a very rare talent. I think we'll see just how much he made the team play above itself as this season wears on. We've already gone from a smaller team that could dominate possession against the biggest clubs, to a team that can't build up play effectively at all. Our possession stats have nosedived, and possession was what we built our recent success on.

Not a popular opinion probably, but I think Schneiderlin is as good as any of those players, although in a less showy, spectacular way. I would be amazed if we ever have a player of his calibre in central midfield again. i think he is absolutely irreplaceable and that him leaving signals the end of our recent superb era. I think Lambert, JRod, Cork, Wanyama, Lallana etc all looked far better than they do now because they could rely on a player like him to keep the match under control.

Well, his PL breakthrough at least, he was very popular and successful in the championship season, so there is that. I think you both understand what the other means already though.

It's actually fair to say that Lallana was fantastic during the season before he left, but was almost constantly criticised the season before that, if I remember correctly, although I often don't.

Wonder what people's opinions are now on these three? Our start last year was amazing, but at the time people were unsure if that was the team's real level and a temporary slump ensued, or if that was a burst of rare form and it settled back to a more realistic level. In December last year Tadic had been in a slump of poor form for a month or two, but people generally thought he would be as brilliant as he seemed at first. Did he ever really look as good again after September/October last year? What about Pelle, who was also looking off form after the start of the season, but still scored a few important goals. Is he class, or was it just a result of team form? Mane probably went the other way and started quietly, but ended up looking stronger. Was that just form or is he that good? This may have been done before, but I was just thinking how we rate last year's signings one year on. Can add Bertrand and Long to the list as well of course.

Alongside Schneiderlin, Cork was part of an amazing pairing. He never really stood out as a player on his own, a bit like Claus complementing Svensson so well. We miss what he gave us, but I doubt he'd improve us that much right now. Quality player though.

Of course, but seeing as we haven't had such an effective midfield since, at best, the eighties and possibly never and that a dominant, game-controlling midfield pairing is what most teams, including the top six, spend years searching for, it seems unlikely that we've just plucked up another one immediately.

I think more relevant is that we will rarely again have a midfield as strong as Schneiderlin/Cork or Schneiderlin/Wanyama was. Partnerships like the former are the sort of thing that every club is always desperate for. We've been spoiled for a few years with a midfield that could help us dominate possession against even the top clubs in the PL. I think that was the real "once in a blue moon" factor that we'll miss the most.

I teach some Shakespeare to my Norwegian students and when we get to that phrase, I point out to them that they are more likely to understand it than the average English student, as the Norwegian word for why is still "hvorfor", which translates directly as wherefore. They automatically see it as why". It's because, like all Shakespearean comedies, it has a happy ending. In Shakespeare plays this is almost always a wedding, like in A Midsummer Night's Dream. The alternative is a tragedy, in which the title character always dies, which is a bit of a spoiler for Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet etc.

Using JRod and Mane out wide would be an utter waste of talent as they are both mediocre there. The problem is that they both excel in the same central position. I don't see them playing together.

Tricky. I think Mane and JRod are pretty much the same type of player, best played centrally and using their acceleration to latch onto through balls from midfield, but both always in danger of being stuck out on the wings, largely due to that same acceleration, but where they are both half the player. Depends if we stick by Mane or have faith in JRod, because they would both be trying to do the same thing.

Is it right that, if Koeman finishes this season with us, he'll be the first saints manager to complete two seasons with us since Dave Jones?

This will cost Britain billions and have a minimal effect. Saudi Arabia, the country largely funding IS, must be loving watching the west plough themselves further into debt fighting a battle in the most expensive and least effective way possible. The only way to really have an effect on IS is troops on the ground and that would be very messy indeed.

I used to think it was a no brainer that we should try to sign young players who would be with us long term and really build something, but it's become obvious now that it isn't going to happen that way. If they are young and any good, they will be looking to move on as soon as possible, which is fair enough and means the only reason to get younger players is that we can sell them for a higher price.

Exactly how many goals and assists did he get last season? I'd expect more from a truly top class player.

I think he'll be back, even though the actor has said he's dead. Remember the red priests have form for resurrecting people and Mel arrived back at Castle Black just a moment before the assassination. That's not coincidence. Dead, yes, but he'll get better. Finished watching House of Lies season 3 on Canadian Netflix. After a disappointing season 2, season 3 is by far the best season of the show so far, it's elevated a fairly average show up to be one of the best. I also saw that season 4 of Suits is available, but then discovered I never even finished season 3. So working my way through those now, excellent series. I saw a bit of Sense8 and it was simply terrible.

I wish Schneiderlin well if he leaves too, am I a troll? He's always worked hard for the team since he got here and even when he was forced to stay, just got his head down and put in one of his best ever seasons, when a lot of players would've sulked.

I think Koeman is the obvious choice this season. Mourinho's league success was assisted by terrible starts for all of his rivals. None of the biggest spenders got the results worth the money. None of the others who did well with smaller clubs managed to do as well as Koeman.

Am I the only one who thought Jos had already left permanently?