Saint Martini

******. Reading have signed nothing, Villa have signed one French U21 player and Wigan have signed Scharner and Espinoza. Sure Newcastle and QPR have outspend us but we haven't done any worse then Wigan, Reading or Villa. Combine that with the fact that our team was better going in January we've done very well

We got Forren which was perhaps our main priority, now we have to make sure we don't panic by anyone just because other teams around us are going crazy (i.e. QPR & Newcastle). We need to buy to improve, no depth players. My biggest wish is an extra central midfielder (Biglia) to take the pressure off Cork and Schneiderlin. If one of them gets injured (or suspended) we're in trouble. I don't think we need another striker but a left sided winger would be welcome. What is Peter Crouch doing there?

Great! Di Santo and Hooiveld sound like a much better match-up.

That would be my team aswell even though I might prefer Forren for Hooiveld if he's matchfit. Kone up against Hooivelds "speed" is not something I want to see...

For me Puncheon is the one that needs to be dropped, he had his last good match a while back. He's losing possession to much and needs to keep it simple. Either cut inside and shoot or knock the ball past the fullback and cross (*simplification warning*). The effort is there at the moment but apart from the occasional flash there's no end product. If we start with Lallana on the left, Ramirez central and Rodriguez on the right I think we're playing our best team right now.

Sign him up but loan him back to Brum for the rest of the season. They merry-go-round we've had in goal hasn't done anyone any favours. We should stick with Boruc and next season we can go in with Butland and Gazza challenging for the No.1 spot. If Gazza doesn't show enough improvement we can always decide to keep Boruc one more season and have him challenge with Butland for the No.1 spot. I'd still prefer a more experienced goallie to be signed (Stekelenburg from AS Roma?) but I can live with Boruc for the rest of this season and a combo of Butland/Gazza for next.

Stekelenburg from AS Roma.

Michael Svensson and Niemi weren't signed from the Nordic leagues which makes their nationality a bit irrelevant. That combined with the fact that Denmark is the only league that has more then a few players good enough for the PL makes it a bit unlikely that we sign player directly from those leagues. In general players from Nordic (with Denmark being the exception) countries benefit from playing a few seasons in Holland, Belgium or Switzerland (or Denmark). Otherwise the step up can become overwhelming. But back on topic, I guess all the players Pochettino would have been interested in have already been sold to other Spanish teams.

Bram Nuytinck (I assume this is who they mean) is a good player. I guess he's a younger version of Heitinga but quite a bit taller. He signed for Anderlecht in Belgium on the last day of transferwindow in August and has been a good signing for them but then the Belgian league is hardly better then the Dutch. I'd say there isn't that much between him and Yoshida so my guess is that it was about the price.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/league-one/table

I'm absolutely shocked by the sacking and don't get the timing at all. But I do believe Pochettino is a good manager and he's achievedvery good results at Espanyol before he had to sell his better players. Cortese is ruthless and perhaps this is a good thing in a the sentimental business that football is. He evaluates results without emotion and I guess he expected us to be further after all the investment this summer. I decided not to vote in the poll because I can't possibly make an informed decision. My gut decision would be NO because I felt we were getting good results recently but at the same time we weren't getting enough wins. In the end NC made a a similar decision before when he appointed Adkins and that proved to be an allright decison. All that's left is getting behind the team and hoping Pochettino can continue whereAdlins left things.

You'll hear what Forren and Solbakken have to say about the Southampton transfer on Tv2 at 21:25. Arrived at Stamford Bridge just before kickoff. The Norwegian media sem to think this is a done deal.

Good to see Schneiderlin being captain, Lowe perhaps didn't do a lot right but signing him was inspired.

That's lousy odds for someone who hasn't scored in ages.

Does anyone know if he can play leftback aswell? He is both a CB and a LB in football manager but that doesn't have to mean anything.

Funny how we are so popular in Perth, Scotland.... I wonder why that is....

Guly was brilliant and it wasn't that easy a chance he missed. Its a volley with his wrong foot. Ofcourse he should have done better but its not like he's missed from two yards with the goal wide open to tap in. Its a shame we lost after taking a 3-1 lead but in the end you have to applaud Stoke for their effort. They were relentless the second half and because both Lambert and Rodriguez were tired they couldn't hold up the ball long enough to relief pressure. I don't blame Adkins for putting on Fox and Richardson. He could have chosen for an attacker and hope for a counter but both options were viable. Now we conceded in the 90th minute but it needed a wonder strike for them to get that. MOTM: Guly as good offensively as he was in attack.

My first reaction was that he got it spot on even if it could backfire. But so far he's given us a chance. It takes a lot of guts not playing Ramirez and Clyne and put in bit part players. Now lets hang on! COYY!!!

Given? If he can't get a game at Villa why would he be better then our goalkeepers? There's one fact and that is that so far our goalkeepers have cost us more points then they've gained. In fact the only match where I can really say that one of them made a decisive save that meant points gained in the end was Gazza against Villa, and it wasn't that difficult a save. I voted for Gazza since I don't believe we have money to invest left (I'd be happy to be proven wrong) and even though he has made is fair share of mistakes he has also shown potential. He's quick and agile and he got a good long-kick (he just needs to use it with better judgement, Davis on the other hand mi****s the ball all the time). Boruc is a big unknown for me. I know how good he can be from his time at Celtic, Fiorentina and the Polish national team but he was awful in the matches he played for us. He looked unfit physically and mentally and unless that has changed dramatically he is not a solution.

Detsamma! For the match against Fulham my wife had the computer occupied during the first half so I watched on my iPad which had Swedish commentators, during the first half I switch to my computer and voila English commentators.

I just hope that he signs a new contract ASAP so that it doesn't become a distraction come January. Since it was clear he was part of the team for this season I was all for him getting a fair shot and I'm just delighted to see that he took it. In retrospect you could also see, to a degree why he perhaps was dissatisfied in earlier seasons. He's got the quality to play in the PL but NA picked a 16-year old in League One (the correct decision but I can imagine a starting player being annoyed with that). He got to play in the PL for Blackpool then and when he came back he had to fight for a place in a Championship team when in his mind he should be playing in the PL. How he handled thing were unacceptable but the underlying reasons are still understandable.

Good thing we don't have a match next weekend. Plenty of time to recover from strained ligaments and a dead leg (wild guess on Yoshida's injury)

They weren't unnoticed by any means, we've had plenty of topics on awful refs in the previous two seasons as well. The thing is that they weren't as important in those seasons since we had the ability to make sure we won games in spite of awful reffing.

The most annoying thing about that as that Reading got a freekick just outside the box 10 seconds later. Ricky should have been lining up a freekick for 2-0, not Shorey for the equalizer...

The ref made some very strange decisions. The disallowed goal was one but the most staggering was Yoshida getting penalized for trying to head the ball when Roberts was just backing into him. If anything Yoshida should have gotten the freekick. On the other side, Cork did clip Tabb and it should have been a penalty.