tajjuk

Very highly rated probably the best young english forward in amongst the under age teams but might struggle at Arsenal to get game time.

Great news, hopefully Boruc will be tied up in a few weeks as well, I see Pochettino has lost his watch.

Shocking, hope the club tried to find out who these idiots were and got them banned.

Not sure that's strictly true. Did you see premiership world or whatever that programme is called with the interview with Bellague? He said Cortese was watching Coutinho back in Jan last year but then was more impressed by Pochettino at the time. Not sure it wnet further than that though, but clearly MP was going to be Cortese's first choice if the club needed a new manager.

I said earlier in the season that I thought Adkins had lots of potential as a manager and could be our 'Ferguson' and that we deserved to stick with him. I still think he will become a great manager but not with us. Pochettino seems like the Argentinian version of Adkins to me, young manager with potential, decent success and non-typical methods but no real pedigree. Like someone above said though I much prefer either of them to the likes of O'Neill, Allardyce, Redknapp, McCarthy etc.

Like others I think the team just played badly that day. Even if you reckon their first goal was a symptom of our high pressing style of play (which I don't, Liverpool played plenty of balls like that, we just defended better) their second was pure and simple poor defending, we had more than enough players back to deal with it. The team on the whole played badly and looked out of ideas, but at worse we really should have had a draw. If the two teams played like that again 10 times I would reckon Saints would win that game 4 or 5 times and the others would be draws. In the end QPR scored from their only two chances. They created a hatful at Villa last week and only scored two, these things happen. I certainly don't think MP was encouraging the long punts to Lambert, that was very much our players own despearation probably knowing they had underperformed.

Someone is Turkish fishing. Whilst it's good games are selling out, there were a lot of Liveprool fans in the home section last week, about 6 round me, four of whom were Spanish. I would imagine Chelsea would be the same, although the nationality of the glory hunter might be different. All paying customers I suppose. Whilst I am pro-expansion think we need to see the likes of Norwich, Reading, WBA, etc. sell out a few weeks in advance then we're in buisness. I think we'd have to actually loose a few fans to achieve this.

On the fence. I think Nigel got unfair criticism for somethings that were out of his control, like the terrible defensive errors. Although Pochettino has picked up a fair few negatives for us essentially missing chances. Performance wise hasn't been hugely different under either IMO, we play slightly higher up and press a bit more under Pochettino, but Adkins was probably quicker to adapt his tactics (see Stoke away) although we played a few direct passes against Liverpool. We've struggled to break down deep teams under both. We've lost leads under both, We've rattled the big boys under both (but maybe converted a few more of those performances into points under MP) 8 games isn't enough though really to jusge MP. He's still learning the team's strengeths, I thought he was tactically and personell wise spot on against Liverpool, something you might not be able to say about his previous games. Regardless of manager we are still playing the price for a horrible start of the season where a combination of tough fixtures, and players not adjusting to the legaue has left us playing catch up for most of the season. I've seen enough to think that this team should be higher up and now MP has got himself settled I think he will push us away from relegation. I also agree with Wes, Adkins handling of the GK situation was his worst error in his time with us. It has costs us as many as 6 to 8 points IMO. Adkins will always be a legend though.

What's funny is that West Ham have actually become less safe since he said that whilst Man Utd, well they were already safe but I suppose you could say they have become 'safer'.

We'll loose at Spurs, and probably against Chelsea. Every other game is winnable, hopefully we'll keep our last 20 or so games form and pick up another 10 or 11 points. We've been in midtable form for most of the season apart from the first 10, we were still in that level of form through a period with a fair few injuries loosing Lallana, Fonte, Ramirez etc. It's just that first 10 games that is hurting us. 4 points and 28 goals conceded. in the first 10. 27 points and 24 goals conceced from the last 20 = 1.35 points per game and 1.2 goals conceded per game, so would give us 10.8 points from the last 8. taking us to 41 or 42 points.

Leighton Baines is 28, yeh he's better than Shaw but if someone buys him he'll still cost around £20 million I reckon. Wilshere would cost like £30 to £40 million to buy from Arsenal, so £12 million for Lallana isn't a bad cestimate. I'd say more £8-10 million myself. Shaw and Morgan are our prized assetts I couldn't see us selling either for less than £15 million up front plus add ons, and that's only if they really really wanted to go. No one is going to offer us £8 million for Lambert, £5 million tops. But there is no point us elling him as we won't be able to replace him without spending £15 million to get a younger version. Hopefully we don't sell anyone, we need to stay up but if we do I suspect everyone we ant to be here will be here next season.

He's not worth £25 million, more like £10 - 12 million, however we don;t need to sell him, he has a long ocntract and he doesn't really want to go, so to buy him you would have to offer silly money, i.e £25 million.

He was talking about Gaston I think.

This. Gaston seems to get labelled as the one who gives the ball away easily but it's a much truer description of Puncheon. Scored some important goals for us this year but he's not as good as Lallana, Ramirez or Jay Rod at the moment.

The 'user ratings' seem to indicate that a lot of people don't rate our players that much. Lambert given an 8 by Sky, 6.5 user rating. Rodriguez given 8 by Sky, 7 user rating. For a match we won comfortably and outplayed Liverpool for most of the game, we got two players rated 7 and the rest all below. Bitter Liverpool fans?

Liverpool were always going to be better after half time, but they hardly controlled it and created little. I would imagine Pochettino expected a little burst from lvierpool and instructed the players to ensure we didn't concede in this period which would then deflate Liverpool. We were back on top by the 60th minute, we just played a bit more compact and deep for a period.

March 30 Chelsea (H) Loss April 6: Reading (A) Win April 13: West Ham (H) Win April 20: Swansea (A) Draw April 27: West Brom (H) loss May 4: Tottenham (A) Loss May 12: Sunderland (A) Win May 19: Stoke (H) Win Chelsea are still too good for us, reckon it will be close but someone like Lampard or Hazard will score a screamer. We can beat Reading away and Sunderland away, both those teams will be much lower on morale than us. West Ham and Stoke are two of the worst away teams in the league and I think we can get something at Swansea as the don't really have much to play for now, they have a cup and will be in Europe regardless of where they finish. West Brom are very good on the counter and will sit back and then use Long/Lukaku on the break.

Watched the Everton v Man City game earlier in the day and was surprised how crap the pitch was, ours is one of the best in the country by far. Found that odd as well, there was enough water overnight in the area for loads of amateur games to get called off.

I don't think he is saying "oh well we conceded a goal on the counter, who cares", I think he is acceptingthat we will get get caught out on the counter (as many teams do) but should have cleared the ball earlier and we had more than enough defenders around to prevent that goal. it was a lack of concentration before half time that cost us dear (and has done previously) The game is 90+ minutes not 80 and we have been guilty of giving goals away near half time and full time. He was probably annoyed also that despite dominating the first half and creating a hatfull of chances we came in 2-1 up thanks to a lucky deflection and reminded the players not to rest on their laurels. it clearly worked as Liverpools second half surge never really materialised largely thank to our coninuted work ethic in the second half. He was managerially spot on on Saturday, tactics were correct, teamtalk was correct and the substitution was correct.

Pochettino did his homework on Liverpool. He obviously reckoned they would line up 4-4-2 or really more like 4-2-4 as they have done in recent weeks and mached them. We played 4-4-2 (which we haven't done so far) so we had 4 pressing their 4 defenders and they couldn't get the ball out and we also had more mobility and pace in midfield, so whilst Gerrard is still quality on the ball he and Allen had Morgan and Cork snapping at them the whole game, neither had the pace and mobility of say a Dembele or Wilshere to travel with the ball to create space, it essentialy meant all they had was the ball over the top, which with the pace of Clyne and SHaw we generally nulified, with a little bit of 'home' linesman advantage for a few tight calls.

Would definitely take Figueroa and Hangeland. I'm presuming Lampard and Rio will sign new deal, as well as Brunt. We need to sign Boruc up as well. He's been class.

Stoke won't go down, we might need them safe with nothing to play for, same with West Ham, would be confident of two home wins there considering both are awful away from home. QPR fans confidence is odd, for a start how many teams are winning 5 from 8 games at the moment? They have Arsenal at home, Everton and Liverpool away in their 8 remaining, tough to get any points from those as all those teams will be fighting for a European slot, so really theya re going to have to win against Fulham away, Wigan home, Stoke home, Reading away, Newcastle home. Possible I suppose but all 5 I doubt, plus they will have to actually go to places and try and win, not just sit 9 behind the ball. They showed on Saturday they are poor defensively if the game is a bit more open. QPR and Reading are down. Stoke and West Ham have enough just. It's now between us, Villa, Wigan and Sunderland for the last spot. We need 3 wins from an ok run in, the only games that would be zero pointers are Chelsea home and Spurs away, but after our result on Saturday and Fulham's yesterday you can't rule it out.

Well Refs have let us down today, Norwich had harsh sending off, harsh penalty, should have a penalty. Wigan should have been down to 10 and scored a goal from a blatant handball. Could have had Wigan and Sunderland well below us.

Get in Santon!