St Marco

Elia off for Mane and JWP off for Tadic imo.

So hitting the ball into the penalty box constitutes a good corner then? Of course Lambert missed a lot of chances too. As do all players. But they score some too don't they?

Strange I thought I saw all four of our corners not get touched by a player (while theirs did) and a free kick (although close) went wide? Lambert would of buried that chance imo.

Not a bad performance thus far. Just need to take more of our dead ball chances. Wanyama best player so far imo. Elia having a mare.

Wanyama is a beast

JWP running around like a headless chicken again. Really needs to pick a position and stay there.

Terrible defending there

http://firstrowusa.eu/soccer/first-everton-vs-southampton-row5a1134

JWP needs a big performance today to justify his start. Can't afford to carry any players at this stage of season.

I do think some countries need to stick up to this to be honest. It could set a precedent that the tournament can be played at anytime Fifa feel like playing it. England has had it's leagues running since 1888 and it shouldn't change just because a few guys in suits say we should change it. I think a lot of people (myself included) actually prefer to watch domestic football over international football. While I think boycotting it would not be a good idea it would send a bit of a statement for us to send over an under age side rather than the full senior team. Kind of like the Olympics team. The only way Fifa will stand up and take note is if the superstars of football are not there. If the prestige of the tournament is lowered that would hurt them more in my view.

This is a forum, if we all agreed and didn't have things to 'analyse' it would be pretty boring no? We are having a great season and I am enjoying it. But like anything you enjoy there will be parts where you think it could be even better. LIke a film you really liked, there could be a part where you thought it was ****. In my view football is no different. We have done very well but that does not mean there are not 'parts' that could be improved upon. And to talk about them is pretty normal? Isn't that what football fans do? As for the clueless Divs bit wouldn't really expect anything different from you. Don't agree with an opinion and out comes the attacks. Something's never change hey? I am looking forward to watching JWP turn into this amazing midfielder some are saying he will be. Some have mentioned "possession" as some awesome stat. It isn't how long you have the ball, it is what you do with it that matters.

So dodgy Dave has now agreed to do one debate on tv. Saying " the other parties must accept the new deal or bear the responsibility of the debates not going ahead". I thought all the other parties had already agreed they were going ahead with the debates with or without Dave? Not quite sure I understand how they are responsible for them not happening after already saying they will all turn up on those dates? He really does think we are all stupid doesn't he....

As with the other thread, he isn't good at set pieces. He has only 2 assists from set pieces and has scored none. Tadic is better than him and Toby looks better than him in free kick taking. JWP had one corner at the weekend and like with the vast majority of his deliveries they go way over everyones head and out for a throw/goal kick or straight to their keeper. To be considered good at something surely you have to actually show results from them? I stand by what I said. Passing players who are better. Morgan, Wanyama, Bertrand, Clyne, Mane, Tadic. Players who are faster. Pretty much everyone. Defending. Everyone. Free kick taking Tadic, Morgan, Toby. Dribbling with the ball. Again everyone. Point being there is not one thing I would list JWP as being the best at in our squad. You may say that is ridiculous but I don't think it is.

Not sure we are looking at the same stat as per 90 he isn't 3rd as you say, he is 5th? http://www.squawka.com/football-player-rankings#performance-score#player-stats#english-barclays-premier-league|season-2014/2015#s'hampton#midfielder#16#39#0#0#90#16/08/2014#16/03/2015#season#1#all-matches#total#desc#90 He doesn't have double Davis' either... if you base it on the per game setting too you see he is 7th. With 2 players not even here anymore above him.

This is what I don't understand and seems to be a theme in this thread. "He is a good premier league midfielder". What is his position in midfield exactly? Is he a defensive midfielder? If so he has the lowest defence score amongst all our midfielders. In fact he has made so many mistakes that he is now -25 http://www.squawka.com/football-player-rankings#performance-score#player-stats#english-barclays-premier-league|season-2014/2015#s'hampton#midfielder#16#39#0#0#90#16/08/2014#16/03/2015#season#1#all-matches#defense#desc#total Is he an attacking midfielder? If so then he is 4th http://www.squawka.com/football-player-rankings#performance-score#player-stats#english-barclays-premier-league|season-2014/2015#s'hampton#midfielder#16#39#0#0#90#16/08/2014#16/03/2015#season#1#all-matches#attack#desc#total ahead of him are those huge attacking midfielders Wanyama and soon to be Morgan. In regards to his overall performance score he is 12th. http://www.squawka.com/football-player-rankings#performance-score#player-stats#english-barclays-premier-league|season-2014/2015#s'hampton#all-player-positions#16#39#0#0#90#16/08/2014#16/03/2015#season#1#all-matches#total#desc#total Before you say "He was injured, he didn't play" etc there are people around him who have played less games and have a higher score. The fact is there is no one area JWP does better than anyone else in the squad. He is not a bad player and will improve but he is without a doubt in a position that we will need to strengthen on if we are to progress. You mentioned players such as Hazard etc which is just silly. They all have their positions and they all contribute to the team with goals and assists. JWP has not scored for us yet. He is a nice lad and I am not writing him off. But he is not setting the world alight given the amount of games he has played. Yesterday we looked a much better team until he was brought on.

Maybe all the talk of the big clubs wanting him is why he has gone of the boil? Oh wait....

Of course not. But we are second to bottom in regards to chances and goals created from set pieces http://www.squawka.com/football-team-rankings#set-piece-goals#team-stats#english-barclays-premier-league|season-2014/2015#0#90#any#any#season#1#all-matches#total#desc#total For someone supposedly an expert you would think he would of scored at least once from a free kick or set up one from our 153 corners?

Sorry but that is rubbish. He has not scored from a set piece and we have scored only three goals from corners and two from crosses. Of which he assisted with one. Tadic has more assists from set pieces.

Football is a game of opinions of course but I disagree with this one. As others have alluded to just because he is young does not mean he will be a quality player. How many of our youngsters have we built up and then they turn out to be average? I remember people saying the same thing about James, Patterson, Reeves etc who were all in their national teams and played for our senior team. Their careers didn't quite work out as we thought they might at the time. You can also add a few others into that such as Surman. To play for a national team you have to be pretty damn good. But JWP is amongst these players of his era Kane, Berahino, Shaw, Chambers, Sterling, Barkley, Wickham, Zaha, Ings etc. It is a very talented age group. But has he hit the same heights as players such as Kane, Sterling, Berahino and Barkley? No chance. Those guys are going to be in the main England squad soon enough and some are already there. In my opinion they are a few levels ahead of JWP in regards to current ability. To get into that bracket JWP needs to be more noticeable in games. Have a presence about him. Score goals and create more. He has not scored for us yet in over 60 appearances. As a central midfielder that is pretty bad. Which asks the question again what is his position, what is his job for the team? What does he do that is better then what other players in the team do?

I played about three hours I would say. As you say everyone has an opinion and I respect yours but I don't agree with it. I think its Metacritic score from reviews is about right. Glad you enjoy it but I didn't.

I managed to play it at my neighbours house earlier. One of the biggest piles of **** I have ever seen. Have no idea how you can put it in the same group with Uncharted and Last of Us as they are nothing like each other at all. Those two games are masterpieces that combine great story telling with great gameplay. This game on the other hand is nothing more then a game with long boring cut scenes and very little actual gameplay. And when you do actually get to be in control of the character you are not doing much at all. You hide, shoot a few stupid AI guys rinse and repeat. It is up there with the most linear games I have ever played and deserves the poor reviews it has got. If you are into watching cartoon style films then go for it as you may like it. But for £40-£50 it is nowhere near worthy of that price tag. I 100% agree with this article on it http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/23/is-the-order-1886-steampunk-shooter-games-console it was designed to show you how pretty awesome games this gen can look. That was it. It looks awesome, but there is little to no actual game there. And rightly so the dev/sony and the 'game' are getting panned for it.

Like I said before and some gave me stick for it his dead ball abilities are nowhere near as good as some like to make out. The thing with JWP is as mentioned I honestly have no idea what position he is meant to be. He can't defend, he can't dribble, he can't use skill to get past people, he can't shoot, he can't out jump people due to his size and strength. His main ability is short passing in my opinion. But to play for a PL team especially in a game like today you have to have so much more than that. We have Morgan, Vic and Davis who are the guys who will disrupt play and put out a small pass or a longer pass to get us going forward. Mane, Elia are the wingers who get forward and try and run at defences. Point being he is not a winger, he is not an defensive central midfielder, obviously not a defender. Which leaves an attacking central midfielder. He isn't a box to box guy, he isn't a marauding run with the ball and shoot guy. So what is he? That is what I am struggling to understand and what he does that makes him a starter for us. Based on his performances from the past couple of months I think its time he was given a break. We have better options on the bench and with players coming back we should look more to them. Plus I think Reed shows more potential than JWP. I would prefer him to be given the game time personally. I know that's harsh but I think it is true.

If we take away the ref decisions (which were so bad) I don't think we deserved to lose that game at all. We played very well in the first 20mins or so. The problem was after that we became so predictable and had no penetrating threat at all. Pelle is going to get stick but I don't remember seeing any service to him at all. He had one chance that he created himself and shot wide. Most passes to him were high in the air with nobody ahead of him to flick onto. Or way ahead of him where he obviously is not going to get to due to lack of pace. When we had the chance to actually get people forward with set pieces JWP ****ed them up. This is the second game in a row where I have seen players giving him stick for poor deliveries. Fonte screamed at him with that cross that was 50ft in the air and went out of play. We need to create more chances but we also need to stop being scared of shooting, especially from distance. Look at their 1st goal, what a quality goal. Sure it could of gone horribly wide but if you don't shoot you don't score. All our shots on target were tame and easy for their keeper. That has been the story of our games the last month or so. Rather then take a risk we kick the ball back to half way and sometimes back to Fraser to punt up field. Which always drives me mad as what's the point of that? If you are outside their box try a cross, a pass into the box. If it doesn't come off then fine, but going back to the keeper to punt up also has the chance of losing the ball, but in an area closer to our goal than theirs. When JWP came off and Mane came on we looked a lot better. We tried to get forward and create something. He won a few dangerous FK's which Tadic was unlucky with I felt. On another day that might take a slight deflection and go into the corner. But if you don't get it on target you have no chance of scoring. Summing up I think we need to be more brave going forward, we set up too defensive at times. JWP is not good enough to be in the starting line up and Pelle needs someone ahead of him. For the next game I would go -------------Forster---------- Clyne---Fonte--Gardos---Bertrand ------------------------------------- --------------Morgan-------------- --------Tadic---------------------- Elia-------------Pelle---------Mane-- ----------Djuricic-----------------

Good article. But I noticed one thing one of our members won't like at all "going into the season amid talk of impending doom and what looked suspiciously like a fire sale rather than a coherent strategy" Jeff to the main board, come in Jeff

Game out today. Saw an interview with one of the devs, very interesting [video=youtube;FV-u5tvQC34]