Saint Martini

I hope he means the line-up used in the second half against Spurs. If its the line-up from the first half then it won't matter that much Ramirez comes in. I'm not a big fan of player playing out of position but would Cork at rightback and Clyne at leftback be a improvement on our defense from the spurs match.

We don't even know what "this" was caused by so how do you know it wouldn't have happened with a fan on the board.

Nicola, now is the time to stand your ground eventhough the press and part of the fansbase are calling for Nigels head.

Well, at least we didn't play our first team only to give away a 4-0 lead...

I can agree with the ineffective and uninspiring, I don't agree with the lazy. He puts as much effort in as Lallana (and has the same lousy defensive awareness) in my opinion. But even if you think he's a lazy **** that shouldn't play a minute more for us, why in gods name do you boo the guy for just getting on the pitch?! What are you trying to accomplish? Just cross your fingers and hope he puts in a decent performance and perhaps boo him if he is not putting in the effort but booing in advance is just petty and counterproductive.

Boruc has been put in goal to early in my opinion and should have had a few reserve games under his belt before playing him in the PL but now NA has decided he's our first goallie so we'll just have to hope he regains the form that he had for Fiorentina last season. With that in mind we have 2 goallies that won't be playing regularly. For Davis that might not be the biggest problem, he's experienced and will be able to do a job without a lot of matches under his belt. For Gazza this is different, he's veery unexperienced and needs match to become a better player. Why not do that in the Championship where he'll be tested more then at Gillingham and I'm sure we'll have the possibility of a recall. I can't see any problem with this deal except the risk of Gazza getting injured at Bristol. I do understand people wanting Gazza in goal instead of Boruc but since NA prefers Boruc at this time I can't understand why anyone would be againt him going out on loan. If anything he gets the chance to proof he's the better goallie.

I missed the first half so I only saw the mid-table team. We were much better when we changed to our regular formation (4-2-3-1). Not sure if this was down to Mayuka playing better then Puncheon or if it was down to the system but we got a flow in our game we didn't have before. A real shame we couldn't get that second goal, I think we deserved it on our second half performance (especially the last 30 mins) but on the other hand I understood from the "experts" on Viasat that our first 45 were so bad we were lucky not to be down by 3 or 4. I look forward to the WBA match. If we play to our strenghts (an attacking passing game) then we should be able to get a win. If we play scared and back off then were fooked.

I didn't think it was a freekick but you can't complain about the penalty. There was a normal amount of pushing around and Fonte thought he was playing basketball and needed to get to the rebound.

I think David might be mixing up Östers IF and Örgryte (relegated two seasons ago). Östers haven't been in the Allsvenskan since 2006 (they were in the 3rd tier two seasons ago). Historically they're a "big club" having won 4 league titles. I just hope Häcken win this year because they are one of the few teams playing entertaining football. For other reasons (proximity) I'm glad to see Gefle IF once again beat the odds and in all likelyhood will avoid relegation.

When I saw Puncheon going off I was convinced it was for Mayuka, I was very surprised to see Chaplow coming on. I'd have put on Mayuka for pretty much the same reasons you gave, especially since we had Maya playing rightback and he's doesn't overlap the right midfielder like Richardson/Clyne. The reason for choosing Chaplow must have been wanting to add a bit off bite to the midfield. Not a bad thought, but afterwards we can establish that this wasn't a great change. Taking of Lambert was the right move in my opinion, he didn't have a great match and Guly made a positive impact after he came on. In the end we lost due to two attacks down our left where Lallana doesn't do a good enough job tracking his man (he drifts inside too much). That's not the defense to being good enough, that's the defense not getting enough protection.

During my childhood I spend some years in the USA and learned my first English there. Back in the Netherlands I learned British English in school. After that I lived in the USA for another year and then a year in Belfast. My accent is British when I'm in the USA and American when I'm in the UK. I do tend to adapt quite quickly. If I'm in London my accent adjusts itself rather quickly and I'll talk more British after a day or so.

I voted Gazza. He started the last two matches and even though Boruc will be our first goallie in time I can't see him playing an away match in the PL without him having played any training/reserve matches. He'll play with the reserves 1 or 2 times and if he isn't completely **** there he'll get the starting job.

Who's playing LB? Seaborne or Jos?

That's the other possibilty. Increased competition leads to better performances from our original players. We saw that very clearly under Strachan. We brought in Niemi and Jones responded by upping his game. Competition in a squad is a good thing if players respond well.

His defensive work was a bit hit and miss. Yes he wasn't afraid to get stuck in if he didn't have to run too far for it but several times he let the player he was marking get one/two yards on him which created problems for Davis and Schneiderlin. I think he was the player that benefited most from Ireland not playing the second half. The Villa midfield didn't look the same after that and Ramirez could focus on the thing he does best, terrifying the opposition defense. He played a very good match and for me he was our MOTM but defensively he'll have to be better against better teams. Maybe its a fitness issue, which would be understandable after his pre-season, but there's definitely room for improvement.

Seems you've made yourself unpopular there in no-time..... Now be a good boy and apologize to saintstr1.

Wasn't there a post in the pre-match thread there were 500 something tickets left? How many of the ca. 1900 were actually available to Saints fans yesterday? Did Villa sell-out their allocation? 500 empty seats is a good turnout for match against Villa after we got thumped 6-1 the previous week.

I'd say he's pretty screwed. Even if Gazza did nothing except perhaps his save on Bent early in the second that was anything special his excellent footwork calmed our defense and improved our play from the back. I can't see NA reverting back to Davis for the next match and surely Boruc will be our first goallie sooner rather then later. I can't see Davis getting a lot more matches except for maybe one or two cup games. A real shame he just isn't good enough at this level, he failed at Sunderland when he went up with them and is making the same mistakes now. He deserved a chance to prove himself but we can't be sentimental too long. Davis surely understands this, he can't be happy with his performances and knows we have real competition for the number one spot now.

From what I've seen of him he's a good signing (can't say I've seen him that much though). Does anyone know how good he is with his feet? Its quite essential for our style of play that our goallie is capable of controlling the ball with his feet and passing it out (instead of randomly hoofing it).

Ramirez for me, he was good in both halves. Had an assist and was instrumental in the 3rd goal aswell. Lallana worked hard but apart from the assist he made the wrong choices often which lead to him wasting chances. Clyne was good in one half and lost the ball in the leadup to the 0-1, Yoshida was great but could have done more to prevent their goal (the main culprit was Fox).

He made one good save that turned out to be very important. If Bent scores 0-2 there I don't think we'd have come back. Apart from that he was came out to claim a few crosses, had good distribution and seemed to calm his defense. If compare him to beaten at the near-post/ giving away the ball away Davis he was brilliant.

I think Fox was not just taken of for his defensive error(s) but mostly because he wasn't sticking to the game plan (i.e. passing the ball, not hoofing it to SRL). The second half we were able to use our front 4 more effectively because we passed the ball instead of hoofing it.

Lallana had the flick on, Ramirez vollyed the ball to Lambert. All-round great goal. Clyne is better at left-back then right. We've got our own Phillip Lahm.

Puncheon is a bit of an enigma. Awful first half, great the second. Ramirez hasn't seen much of the ball but in both the 2nd and 3rd goal his flicks were instrumental. Like I said at HT, all we need is a good final ball. We got three!

We played decent, Villa created almost nothing and a stupid give-away just outside our box cost us. The final ball is lacking, otherwise we're playing quite well. Just a bit more tempo second half and no ****ing about in our own half.