tajjuk

Technique was awful though on Austin's shot, a massive scuff. And yeh Long maybe was under pressure, but it's another in a long line of decent chances he keeps wasting at least he hit the target forcing the save, the left foot shot was awful. He's in danger of becoming a Heskey IMO, very valuable contributions to the team as whole but is that enough to balance out all these missed chances?

Er Arsenal? We were the better team in that game for long periods, away at the 3rd/4th best team in the league.

If only Long could shoot properly, round the keeper and the tamest left footed shot I've ever seen. And the shot that was saved before Hesketh's goal was better but he almost fell over doing it. Austin will re relieved as well his early chance was offside, that was another awful finish. I think some more shooting training is needed. But good solid win, plenty of chances created, all the players looking comfy with the system and getting a change to shine.

Looked quality to me just from the highlights mind. Should have had a couple of assists to go with his goals as well. My only worry would be that I'd reckon less effective as one of the two in the midfield, not at the tip of it and how many games will he get there with Boufal, Tadic, JWP and maybe Redmond possibly being used in that spot?

Should at least get 2/3 of youngsters into the starting eleven with the fringe first teamers, then some more on the bench.

By his own admission he should have had a hat trick, after only being on the pitch for 30 minutes, so even if you try and claim him being on the 'left wing' it didn't seem to matter much as he got into good goalscoring positions.

I'd also add his other 'miss' where he hit the bar was just unlucky, he was stretching at full pace onto a drilled cross. You just try and get something on it and he actually got too much on it, these things happen and sometimes you get unlucky. Look at Sterling''s goal on Saturday, he miss hit it with his ankle and it trickled over the line and luckily went in. Igalho had a whole goal to hit with a gently bouncing ball and all was needed was a calm side foot into an empty net. Strikers miss goals from time to time, even good ones. But the more important thing for me was he beat his marker to the ball, when he started out behind him so overtook a defender in straight up pace race so he can't be that unfit.

Mane's shooting accuracy? He scored goals but you wouldn't say he was a good finisher.

Yeh not really sure that's a very outlandish statement, he has a huge range of passing, can cross well, finds good through balls, can switch the play etc. Hence why he keeps getting played deeper to act as a playmaker.

I think people are getting too hung up on positions, what we need are forward players who can offer good movement, link up well and finish chances. Charlie Austin is one of those players, it's important to note as well he scored his goal because he was coming from an inside left position onto the full back, and he did similar on Thursday as well IIRC. It's a common tactic especially for those players good in the air, Deeney was doing it yesterday for Watford, basically drifting into the inside left and picking on Valencia to bully. Redmond snatched his chances but did excellently the rest of the time, should be noted they were crediting Puel for switching him to a striker on MOTD2 and said the composure in front of goal would come with more time and experience in the position. Redmond might have been the 'central' player but the system is way more fluid than that and he popped up all over the place. The most important thing for me is we are creating chances, we look a lot more fluid in attack than a few weeks ago so I think the team are beginning to show signs of understanding and getting used to how Puel wants to play. The extra exciting thing is we have Boufal to add into that mix. The team is looking good IMO, very solid and lots of quality at the back, Romeu is looking better in defensive mid after a shaky start, Hojberg has impressed in midfield and the forwards are starting to gel to each other and the formation/style of play. Plus could be way worse, look at Stoke and West Ham, both teams close to us last year, both invested heavily, both with lots of talented players and both struggling. I looked at the Stoke team yesterday and you see the likes of Allen, Bojan, Arnatovic, Johnson, Bony, Shawcross and you see a pretty decent team there.

Austin should start, needs a run of games and he'll get goals. Personally I'd put Long on the bench, a shame because he does so much for the team but chances are falling to him and he's wasting them.

Hmmmn Man Utd looking poor, could Utd be this years (again) big team that fails? They should be at least 2-0 down. (They'll probably come back and win like 4-1 now)

If we don't score against Swansea we will struggle to score against anyone, their defence looks pretty poor and does not look like a unit at all. Chelsea should have scored 5 or 6 last week and somehow went 2-1 down to the most blatant foul I've ever seen, followed up with a second foul two seconds later.

Considering Tadic very happily ran over to Austin after he scored I doubt there is much issue about it. At a guess I'd say there was some confusion because all of the penalty taking candidates, Tadic, JWP and Austin are not guaranteed starters and this caused confusion. Minor thing though and I'm sure Puel will settle on a strict order to avoid it happening again.

Just a thought but maybe the less natural athletes develop their footballing brain more because they have to, as they don't have the pace to recover positions or burst past people, or the strength to bully people. Thus they have to rely on positioning, vision, quick feet etc. more to compete. Whereas the natural athletes who are fast and strong can rely on those attributes more, thus don't develop the other attributes as much because they achieve their success through their athleticism. Look at how say a Mane beats a man, it's a lot of pace and power with some dribbling ability, whereas someone like Messi it's more focused on close dribbling and acceleration. Also haven't they done a study that basically shows the slave trade killed off the weak and the small, and that is why a lot of black people particularly from the Caribbean and the US are such good athletes, because their ancestors had to be strong and big to survive being slaves. Football teams of recent years have been very focused on big athletic players and a there are a lot of stories of very talented players being discarded just for being too small, whereas I think Saints give younger players more time to develop. Wasn't Bale a late bloomer physically?

Well no it's not a wide array of goals, 50% of them are penalties and 50% of them can be attributed to Fonte. (2 pens and Zlatans header). If it was a wide array of goals it would be a worry, but it's not, it's largely down to individual errors, particularly down to one person. If Fonte hadn't f-ed up then we'd have conceded 3 less goals.

Er what? Nonsense is what you've just spouted. No just no, they might be bigger then we've ever been but they've been middling nothing clubs for a long time. Chelsea had won the league once in 1955 and had 2 FA cups, and Euro cup winners cup in their history, that's it. With one FA cup in 1997 being their only trophy for about 30 years. Man City are a little better but still nothing really since the early 1970s, 3 of their major trophies coming from before the war. Again over 30 years of winning nothing including getting relegated to league 2 in that period as well. That is dwarfed in comparison to a Man Utd or Liverpool. No foreign footballer came to Man City or Chelsea because of their history and no 20 something from France or Italy or Spain is liking their lips at living in the North West of England. it was money and nothing but money that is behind the success of Chelsea and Man City, they threw money at better players and that got them success, before that they were two middling clubs of no real stature who'd done very little in 30 plus years. Honestly you sound like those deluded Everton fans, you'll be telling me about Man City's corner flags or something next. Footballers aren't nerdy football fans, most of them couldn't give a toss about past history, those are just soundbites for fans. It's money, exposure and what they can win now that matters.

Defence is fine, wouldn't worry too much about that, I mean all Arsenal's attacking talent on Saturday and they managed an overhead kick from a defender in a set piece and got gifted a penalty. Before that it was Jose giving away a penalty when he was probably not fully match fit/in the right frame of mind transfer wise, same applies with his poor effort against Zlatan (though many a defender has got bullied by him) and you'd have to fault the lazy closing down by midfield against Rooney. Midfield tracking cost the goal against Watford and it was midfield again that gave away the penalty against Utd. In the 4 games only one striker has scored from us in open play and that was Imbrahimovic, we've then had 3 penalties, a corner and failing to track a midfield runner. Not sure the defence (aside Fonte who needs to get back into form) can be blamed much. Plus Bertrand is due back which will improve the team both defensively and attacking wise. So I agree it's attack that is the worry, we had more than enough chances to beat Arsenal, we had a few to potentially worry Utd and enough to beat Sunderland/Watford once the team woke up. Our best striker - Long, needs like 4 chances to score, our best natural finisher - Austin, doesn't seem to work in the system, leaving Jay Rod and whatever level he's at and Redmond who's hardly ever played up front.

it's a sad day when an overhead kick is 'dangerous play'. He was pretty spot on to be honest from what I saw. I liked his assessment of Claudio Bravo, basically called it nonsense for Guardiola to claim he was excellent because he managed a few passes that to be honest you'd expect most professional goalkeepers to do and said it was pretty pointless being good at passing the ball out from the back when you gift the opposition easy goals. Bravo was a complete clown in that game, a few short passes don't cover that up and I think Guardiola is saving face over the way he treated Hart who's twice the goalkeeper Bravo will ever be.

Same money? Pretty sure they'd have offered more and in reality that is what really matters, I mean there are players who have moved to Qatar, China, Russia etc. because of the cash thrown at them. Playing in the Premier League, living in England, and in the South as well plus earning boat loads of cash, I think a lot of players would go for that. Do Utds multiple titles play a factor? I seriously doubt it, it's because they pay £150k a week to squad players and because they will challenge for titles. Chelsea and Man City were hardly huge clubs before their take overs with a rich history of trophies, nor did either have a great stadium to play in, and Manchester hardly has much appeal to live in, they threw cash at some players and some of inevitably stuck, that allowed them to make the jump up to where they were competing with the big clubs.

What is the status of Boufal, is he training yet?

Except the likes of City/Chelsea after their take overs would have thrown big wages at those sort of players and promised/shown them big investment in the club. Some would obviously still go, but a lot more would stay and that is how Chelsea/Man City rapidly progressed from middling clubs to competing/overtaking with the Utds and Liverpools. FFP prevents that though. We are still a good investment to potential buyers but they aren't suddenly going to be able throw money at us to turn us into a Champions league club, all they go do really was ensure we maximise our potential under FFP each season. That will help with progression but it will still be slow and steady, not much different from what is trying to be done now. Probably with Billionaire investors ready to throw money at the club, then this season we might have seen one/two more players in but doubt they can do much more under the rules.

This was obvious as soon as they came out, they were there to stop more Chelsea's, PSG's and Man Citys from upsetting the traditional 'big clubs', the likes of Uts, Arsenal and Liverpool in our league didn't like their status being challenged by rich investors. It was probably the European super clubs that pushed it through.

Commercial link up with a Chinese club/business to increase our exposure in that market would be my guess. We've been trying to do that in the USA and would only be logical to do the same in China. Even if it was a takeover by some very rich investors willing to splash the cash, there is not a lot more we could do, FFP stops new Chelsea/Man City situations from happening.

He's just not that good and people might be happier with him being Spanish because they wouldn't have seen him last season, so wouldn't know he's not that good. But he basically is not that good, which is evidenced by watching his performances last season in a terrible Norwich team where he did not really stand out and was over shadowed as an attacking talent by Wes Hoolahan and probably by Naismith as well. Hence why he didn't play as often as you'd expect him to be and got subbed fairly often. He's young and may get better, we can only hope he does, but a first team player for a team that finished 6th last year he is not. He's a decent addition to the squad, but sadly he isn't he's one of the replacements for lost first team quality.