benjii

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.

Or Norwich away. Or the clear foul on Lallana at home against Liverpool. I think we've been pretty hard done by this season on the balance of decisions.

Does the article include the approximate address and occupation of various distant relatives of the "player"? Such a painstaking level of chronicalisation can only add to the reader's enjoyment and certainly won't bore anyone to tears.

Is anyone else watching Sevilla v Porto? Disgusting amounts of simulation going on and some truly pathetic refereeing. If the Premier League ever ends up like this I would struggle to take it seriously!

Think we'll win all five.

Lambert and Lallana weren't exactly busting a gut in the second half on Sat IMO.

He's evidently not good enough. Seems to be a mentality problem, rather than physical ability. He needs to drop down a few levels... Maybe one day he will have the right mentality for the major spotlight. It's crazy to blame him for the result though. If we must blame people then Fonte and Chambers contributed far bigger errors than Gazza in that match.

I spent around a month in Rwanda at the end of 2012. It's remarkable how stable, safe and increasingly developed the country is. I dealt with people who lived side by side with others who had been involved in the murder of their parents and siblings. It's really very difficult to comprehend something like that as an outsider. I had meetings with Hutus in government positions. No doubt some of them were perpetrators. Walking round the genocide museum in Kigali you find yourself constantly shaking your head and wondering "how could that happen"? For some strange reason it seems much harder to understand than a place like Auschwitz; maybe because of the relative lack of coverage and cinematisation. There is a room called the children's room where there are brief profiles of ten children murdered in the genocide. It lists things like their favourite toy, favourite food etc and has a big smiley picture of them. The final piece of text says, "cause of death"... "Hacked with machete", "pins pushed through eyes", "smashed against wall" etc. It's probably the saddest thing I've ever seen. The problem the west has with its interventions is insisting on some form of "democracy" (however much of a sham) following our interventions, as though that is a goal in itself, rather than a means of achieving a good society. Kagame is far from a democrat but he is exactly what that country needed and the progress they have made is remarkable. Democracy has a time and a place. Anyway, if you ever get the chance to go there, you should. I'm not sure why Tim is harping on about Kenya which is far more corrupt and violent than Rwanda.

Agree. Don't like Leicester as a club at all. ****ty place. Indeed. Even if you accept that Lowe needed to come in and slash costs, sacking a rising manager and replacing him with someone from the Dutch sixth division is a little maverick, to say the least. In hindsight though, thank goodness Lowe made those errors!

You can't blame him. He is clearly a desperately sad person who deserves no small amount of pity. Quite why the moderators don't deal with the two or three posters who ruin this place is beyond me.

I just don't understand how that offside can not be given. In real time with one view it was completely obvious. Back four in a flat line, linesman well positioned, Silva about five yards offside. It's unbelievable! The only explanation is that the linesman didn't realise Dzeko had flicked it on but Got should have seen something was clearly wrong and spoken with him. Pathetic. Shame Lallana couldn't control one of Lambert's passes in the first half.