tajjuk

The main annoying thing for me is that his socre predictions most of the time don't really tally up with what he says. So he'll describe a situation where a draw is likely then put it down as a win.

Well if that is a 'net profit' it should include transfer fees, so without spending nearly £30 million on players we would have had a very decent profit. With relegation wages should drop, and obviously premiership money would drop but we would have parachute payments. If we got to the premier league from the championship for a loss of £2.7 million, surely we could do it again with the additional parachute payments. Relefation would give us a financial hit but it wouldn't be that bad.

Premiership experience guarantees little, QPR's obvious example aside. But also as an example:-

The biggest hing they are glossing over with the points deduction is the Parachute Payments. They are buying the club with them and they will have a signifigant advantage over other League 2 clubs with the £4 million bonus amount they are getting. All their financial irregulatities that have brought about the points deduction are the result of them overspending whilst in the Premier League. If they hadn't spent way above their means on players, they would have been relegated way before they actually were and the parachute payments would have stopped years ago. So you can't on the one hand claim the 'Bounty' produced by actions of the previous regimes (Parachute Payments, FA Cup etc.), yet on the other hand say you shouldn't be punished for the actions of the previous regimes.

Don't think I would want us buying a 31 year old for £6 million, unless it was like Zlatan or someone. But he's worth a lot more to us than his perceived market value.

QPR, Villa, Stoke, Sunderland and Newcastle say hello to your Swansea. All have spent more than Swansea and are doing a lot worse. All also have had more premier league seasons than us to build a squad. I also love how manager of the year is downgraded (a whole season), but clearly Pochettino is rubbish fon the basis of 13 games compared to another 13 games under a different manager.

Pochettino managed Espanyol very successfully for 3 seasons and had them puching well above their weight and regularly caused problems for La Ligas big hitters despite constantly selling their better players. There are many reasons behind the teams poor start to the season under him, it's not really to do with his style of football. Espanyol fans love him and he's a very highly rated manager. Of course you could just compare bare statistics from a very small sample size to make stupid point. A stupid that I'm sure all the over-reactionaries on here will accept blindly whilst crying into their pillow.

We won't, and if we did we would loose. We simply can't set up like that because our players aren't good enough at that sort of defending. Our defenders aren't good enough to defend under pressure for 90 minutes. Yawn, typical rubbish from you as usual, you seriously have trouble reading, did I say they didn't set up tactically to stop us? No. All I said was that it wasn't a 'great away performance' as you put it. Yes of course they set up like that and to hit us on the break. Did they execute it that well? No, did they have to play that well to get the win? no. That really clever game plan of long diaganol balls, so genius that they attempted it once. Had Saints played anything close to what they have done this season they would have won. As the above has posted we gave the ball away under no pressure at all. Only a handful of the QPR players actually bothered closing down during the game. Our decision making in the final third was generally woeful and we made it very easy for QPR to defend. Pucnheon and Lambert both slowed down play far too much, Lambert looked like he was trying to trap a beach ball. The result had far more to with Saint's inept passing and defending than it did to QPRs 'great' bus parking. We won't go to Sunderland, Norwich or Reading and try to grind out results. We didn't go to Old Trafford and do it against a superior team and we nearly beat them, so why would we do it against teams that are similar levels to us? Our defenders make too many mistakes for us to try and set up to defend for 90 minutes. To get the 3 points at those palces we need to go there and try and win.

Doing this should result in you being escorted from the stadium, as you are being kicked out the door, you will get handed a Stoke or West Ham shirt and get pointed in the general direction of Upton Park or the Brittania.

Yeh but we might be chasing a game by then. I feel if we keep it tight that will suit Norwich and they will nick something. i think we need to go there to try to dominate the game. We are techinically better than Norwich IMO, we have better footballers so we need to go there and keep possesion, and pin them in. We should approach this game no differently than we did against Wigan or QPR, they are an average team at best and beatable at home. Whilst I don't think Lambert should be left out, he's not undroppable. He was our worst attacker against QPR. Norwich however don't have a Samba, so Lambert will be handfull for Bassong and Turner. Plus I reckon it's the kind of game that could be decided by a set piece, we need Lambert there for corners and freekicks, or a penalty.

Gaston is quicker than any of our forwards bar maybe Mayuka I reckon. Plus some of our most creative and attacking games have featured Ramirez and Lallana. Like Villa at home.

I didn't say you did, I was refering to the comment further up. I wouldn't call it a great away performance. We settled into our passing game pretty easily and regained possession from them pretty easily. Our final ball was crap and our movement up front was poor but that had little to do with QPR. They defended ok, they set out to park the bus and hoped for something on the counter, which thanks to some poor defending they got. If we had defended properly despite the poor performance we would have won the game, a simple ball over the top should have been defended better and Yoshida whilst a tad unlucky should have got the ball from Park. Would you not be dissapointed if we went to Norwich, Sunderland, Reading etc and set up like that? No ambition, ten men behind the ball. I can understand them going to Chelsea or Man Utd and doing that but they needed wins and we are a fellow struggling team. It's fine to call it a good display in hindsight after they pick up a lucky win but they are unlikely to score 2 goals from 2 chances each week. Play the same way against other teams I can't see them picking up points.

Yeh but they would be QPR fans. They had a pass sucess rate in that game of just 59%, even at 1-1 in a game they needed to win they showed little ambition. They routinely lost the ball and basically hoped for a f*ck up to get them a goal. They were timewasting as early as the first half. We were sh*t in the final third and made a couple of errors, which with a slice of luck they punished us. It happens, same happened to Chelsea against QPR a few weeks ago. Certainly was very far from a footballing lesson. No team has given us a footballing lesson. We've outplayed Utd, City and Everton under MP. We got undone by some poor defending at set pieces at Wigan (plus poor finishing) and some poor defending again plus generous refereeing at Newcastle. this reuslt and performance was pretty similar to the loss at home to Sunderland. Neither game were we outplayed we just struggled to break down a very defensive team that got a bit of luck here and there.

Too workmanlike for me against a solid workmanlike team. Norwich play quite defensively even at home they don't concede many and they don't score many. We'll need at least one of Lallana or Ramirez to break them down.

That is a good question. The only thing I can think off is he has been injured?

There has to be space for people to run into, there was very little of it. QPR set up very deep to defend in numbers and hoped to nick a goal and they did just that. I doubt Samba even got to the centre crircle. Our final third passing just wasn't snappy enough, Lambert's touch was off and Puncheon slowed the play down every time. Jay Rod is full of running and pace but his touch and dribbling isn't good enough in tight spaces. Many times when we tried quick one twos the ball bounced off someone and QPR cleared. Thought Boruc looked the calmest in possession through most of that game.

He's played what 45 minutes of football in 3 months? It's essentially like he's turned up in July for the first pre-season freindly last night. I reckon he'll need another 2-3 games to get sharp.

Yes I do.

Think the highlighted section about shows it. Both have been injured several times (both again on Saturday by the looks of things) neither have had a very consistent run in the team. Both are inconsistent young attackers in their first premier league season. I can't really fault their contribution considering their injuries. yeh they could have been better but they have 34 starts between them from a possible 54, 6 goals, 8 assists. in a stop start season for a relegation threatened team. They could be worse, they could be Downing. Our possibly best player this season is Morgan, he's started every game. Shows the benefit of having a run of games, staying fit and getting in form.

Our style might be more suited to playing Liverpool, they will attack us and they will play out from the back against us. We might be able to press them in and get at their defence which is far from sturdy. Despite beating Wigan 4-0, Reina made quite a few decent saves. West Ham, West Brom and Stoke will all come to St Marys, sit back and defend deep. We have missed an opportunity but at least we haven't lost gorund, veryone is where they were on Friday. We still have the 3 point gap and the superior goal difference.

This is his first game though in about 3 months isn't it? apart from a half for Norway? Understandable if he's rusty as he is essentially 'just back for pre-season'. Hopefully he'll get a good run of U21 games and he'll improve. Keep hearing good things about Targett, might be worth having him on the bench instead of Fox to back up Shaw.

Forren in the squad.

They are both young attacking mids trying to create goals they are going to be frustrating at times. If they were much more successful they would be playing for Utd or Chelsea. Ramirez on Saturday produced a lot of the 'pass before the key pass' type moments, he links the midfield and the more forward players very well and with a quick one touch passes or good movement he creates the space that leads to decent attacks. It's why he's wasted out wide. I also don't think anyone else on our team would have scored that goal, yeh it was a rebound but Cesar actually got out well to cover his mistake, I rekcon most of our attackers would have just sidefooted it at him. I can see the argument against both of them not being good enough defensively, but in home games against poor teams that will sit deep they are our best chances of creating chances and scoring IMO.

I thought Hoillet aside the QPR team looked very sluggish and unfit, most of their players were very ponderous in possession. We robbed them of possession in the middle third on numerous occasions but then did little with the ball and slowed play down too much. We play with two holding mids and whilst Cork and Morgan are excellent incisive passing and creativity I don't think are their strong points. Although a lack of movement from Lambert and Puncheon in particular didn't help.

Quite simply apart from the odd game here and there where we have been a bit flat (but still played ok) performances in most games have been good throughout the season (WBA away is an exception). Many performances haven't got the points they deserved (Man Utd h/a, Wigan away, Everton home, Norwich home, Arsenal home etc.) Even when battered 4-1 by West Ham, performance wise we played fairly well. We've thoroughly outplayed a poor Wigan team twice but have just one point against them. Essentially two things have been clear to me ALL season, under BOTH managers:- 1. Our defenders make too many mistakes. Our best back 5 is Boruc, Clyne, Fonte, Yoshida, Shaw and even these are making mistakes (but generally have improved as the season has gone on). When one of Fox, Hooiveld, Davis, Gazzaniga has been introduced we make more mistakes, we concede more goals and the other defenders appear more nervous. 2. Without Lallana or Ramirez we struggle to create against teams that set out to defend deep. Our midfield is 'workman' like without them and whilst Lambert is a legend his lack of pace and movement is a hinderance at times.