benjii

Giaccherini? He hasn't been amazing this year but clearly has talent and works hard and has a year in England under his belt. I think he would suit us quite well. Poyet doesn't seem to rate him. Shouldn't cost too much. Worth a bid?

Why do so many people think it is a good idea to wear a long tie with formal wear? It looks infantile. Bow tie, cummerbund or waistcoat. Our players ought to manage it. They earn enough to go to a tailor and get a good dinner suit that will elevate them to real elegance. Instead they turn up looking like gormless sixth formers at a prom trying to look "Hollywood". This is something the academy needs to work on.

Hopefully our squad have all sobered up by the weekend.. .. Would be good to give United a sound beating but 3pm on a Sunday, players looking to avoid injury and nothing to play for should be enough to ensure it's all a bit flat.

Some great memories in that video and some very nice goals. It reminds me what a great laugh the last few years were for Saints. I hope it doesn't get stale now we're in the Prem. Good luck Guly!

Indeed. If we're talking sitters then Lambert at Sunderland.... Gallagher has started three league games and looked very promising. Two of those three were against Arsenal and Everton so not exactly poor teams. He will be a very useful player. Put it this way, he looked much better than Shaw did in his first couple of senior games.

I completely agree. Apart from having an incisive forward, the rest of our team is really as good as virtually anyone in the league. I hope the board are serious about pushing on as I genuinely don't see any reason why we couldn't finish above Spurs, Everton, Man U and even Arse next season. If Liverpool lose Suarez we could finish above them too. I might be getting carried away but we control games so well. Every single match this season has been competitive.

Lol. Bitter? His influence was overwhelmingly positive for the football club and anyone who can't see that is blinded by bigotry

Hypo, so we're all clear, can you lust the disgusting things where death is the best outcome (as per your earlier comment) so that we have some idea where the line is? Thanks mate. You're a legend.

Your posts are very odd and generally premised on the overriding need to look hard or "scene". You are either joking (which isn't funny) or have some sort of deep-seated insecurity. If the former, please stop. If the later, just chill out, you're making life much harder for yourself than it needs to be.

The transfer "debt" is payments not yet due. It's not borrowed money. I think the "difficult" comments were more about the difference between the reality and what Cortese had initially budgeted for (ie. they've found out he has spent 15million more than expected). I don't think they were saying the business is financially vulnerable.

There is certainly a lot of inconsistency around this. We should have had many more penalties than we have received this season. The most obvious ones were at Norwich and Stoke, I think, and both would have probably resulted in us having more points. One way to deal with this would be to remove the "deliberate" requirement, which is the discretionary element which causes the inconsistency. However, you don't deserve a penalty/goal just because you flick a ball into a defender's arm from a yard away. I agree with Hearst, there should be a new free- kick in the box for those types of handball. If the offence blocks a shot on goal or a goalscoring opportunity from being created then it would be a pelanty.

Can anyone seriously think Johnson and Walker are better than Clyne?

Boruc - 7 : nowt to do. Decent distribution. First touch a bit flairy. Clyne - 9 : excellent. Fonte - 7 : v good. Lovren - 7 : v good. Shaw - 8 : v good. Wanyama - 8 : v good Cork - 8 : v good Davis - 9 : excellent. Lallana - 7 : good Lambert - 7 : good. Much more effective than usual. Gallagher - 7 : good. Makes a difference having a striker who actually has half a chance of getting on the end of a through ball.

Some of the Ward Prowse comments are hilarious. He's 19 FFS and playing in one of the most demanding roles on the pitch. Yes, he's not yet at the stage where he has the same impact on a match as Morgan does now but he's evidently better than Morgan was when he was 19.

But most people aren't interested in "taking a guest", they want a ticket to watch the match. People who habitually buy tickets linked to another customer number will do so because they habitually attend the match with that person. You're inventing odd scenarios that simply don't happen much (a sort of corporate pseud who each week takes a different "guest") to justify your silly rant. I am glad your knobbish "guest" isn't coming. Up yours mush.

Interesting. I saw Lambert and Lallana missing easy chances against Villa but, yeah, if only someone had been running around more quickly at the same time we definitely would have scored

Wouldn't have to be that much. Bony and Sturridge each cost about twelve million. We should be able to raise at least that through selling Osvaldo and Mayuka. The main challenge is finding a good enough striker who is happy to join a side outside the very top level and doesn't command an unaffordable wage. Tricky, but there are some out there. Probably not in the Prem or even the Championship but in Holland, France, Germany etc. We could find a Pahars bargain. Then another keeper, a centre back and an attacking midfielder (could probably cover the attacking player through selling Ramirez if we wanted). I'm not saying it's easy but criticising MPis retarded. He's got a great level of performance out of the resources available. I would go as far as saying that if you took Suarez out of Liverpool and stuck him in our team, we would probably be above them. Give Brendan Rogers a glacial striker and see how Liverpool get on.

Milan will only go for Pochettino if they can't get Macarthy. Pochettino is clearly an excellent coach though. The only thing separating us from the top four teams is a decent striker and some more strength in depth. In terms of the level of play achieved, there's really nothing much in it.

The priority should be to ensure genuine Saints fans get in, not gormless divvy acquaintances of ST holders who just want to sit there taking pictures of Man United players. On that basis, I'd say the club are spot on.

Personnaly, if I was paying the thirteenth highest wage for a manager I would hope for a bit more ingenuity than some tightly organised long ball. And is it really necessary to pay Hodgson that much?

If Gaston is out then I would play Lambert and Gallagher, with Lambert deeper and Davis and Lallana supporting. If we have Lambert up top with JWP, Lallana and Davis behind we'll be slow and predictable. Having said that, Villa are rubbish at football so that might still be good enough.

Lol. Looks like a local tennis club AGM.

I actually agree with Radial to a large extent. Rickie is still, usually, good against the weaker teams but he's very easy for the well organised teams in this league to neutralise. It's not his fault we don't have a decent alternative yet but, my goodness, we need one. We need better than him to get higher up the league. The rest of the team have left him behind.

Lambert missed an open goal from a yard out FFS. What a ****ing stupid article.

The problem yesterday was nothing to do with being found out, bad tactics, fannying about or any other simple minded "man on the terrace" explanations. It was simply bad execution from multiple players on multiple players in good positions. Shaw's build up play was excellent but he wasted loads of great positions. Lambert was awful. Lallana had a sub-standard game. Ramirez was decent but fluffed his chance to score. If several players have a bad game at once then these things can happen. As we know, the squad is a little thin so it's hard for Poch to make too much of an impact with subs. Having said that, I thought Guly was really good.