Window Cleaner

but they don't get trotted out in important games though do they. Guly has been with us what 4 years, I feel that he has been handsomely rewarded for the little that he has produced, sums far beyond the totality paid to all the others no doubt. Past it but there's just nothing else because our youth policy is flawed somewhere along the line.

And in the wake of all this has one person bothered to wish SRL a happy birthday ? 32 today isn't it.

Liverpool didn't play their strongest side though did they, if they had Henderson would have started instead of Allen, just like Morgan didn't start for us yesterday, came on in the 2nd half just the same. Allen is obviously a better player than JWP or Guly though and therein lies the difference. Now if they'd started Henderson who knows what they might have done because I've seen Allen roundly criticised today. Arsenal were what about 4 players down on their strongest side as well but their replacements are better than ours, as were Sunderlands. People just need to let this go and accept that our squad is too small and not all of them are good enough.

Dream on phillip, dream on. The very problem seems to be that players like Stephens and Isgrove aren't good enough to step up into the First XI for Cup games, not even a home jaunt against Yeovil which should easily be within their capabilities if they're ever going to make anything of themselves. If these lads (some of them are 20+) are ever going to be capable of PL nay European football they should be pushing garbage like Jos and Guly out of the side altogether but they aren't. We've taken everything viable out of the youth squad already, the rest aren't up to scratch that's all. We should be looking for bargains like the CB that Sunderland had yesterday, 24 or so, about 6ft 6 and an Argentinian international, he's playing already Stephens and Turnbull are just eternal white hopes. They'll be let go soon, as many have been before them.

OK, but to me winning is winning and losing is losing because at the end of the day that's all that counts in football, especially knock-out competitions.

Being an apologist for players who perform poorly on a constant basis is a Southampton tradition. You've only to mention that Davis is garbage or Guly or Jos or even Lambert and someone will jump on you quoting performances from a wet night at Dagenham or Stevenage at sometime back in the dark ages. We're no longer in League 1 or the NPC and we need players who are PL standard every last one of them. If we continue carrying the junk forward for sentimental reasons results like yesterday's will just keep on happening. I want new players, internationals every one if possible and I certainly don't want any more money wasted on Guly Do Prados and Kelvin Daviss.

But Liverpool still lost against a reduced strength Arsenal side right ? I just don't see the difference, a defeat is a defeat at the end of the day.

Future Cup attendances ? Yesterday's game was watched by 16777 souls in the SOL, of that about 700 were ours and yet nigh on 1100 went to Hull on a Tuesday. The FA Cup is dead as a crowd puller. No-one cares, this year's final will be between any 2 of Citeh,Arsenal and Everton because they have the squads to handle it. Key players won't give a toss about it anyway because they'll all have far more important fish to fry a couple of weeks further on.

perhaps they have experts there who can help when faced with depression after getting beaten by Sunderland, you'd think they would have wouldn't you, it happens every time.

Lallana can say what he likes, it obviously wasn't our biggest game of the season, for him perhaps but he's not running the club now is he. Anyway for Lallana his biggest game of the season will be the one who that gets him on the plane to the WC, perhaps the international in what 17 days time, before that he's got West Ham and Liverpool to consider. You just cannot underestimate the effect that the WC is having on players just now. The club already knows who's in and who's not for the games in March, they've been sent lists of players susceptible to play.

But then you'd have to know who choses which young players get a game a which don't. I do not like the Academy first approach myself, obviously we've unearthed some rare talents but there are far too many that don't make the grade and I fear that the illusion that they might is stopping us from signing the players we need. To me if a young player hasn't broken into the frst team squad by the ge of 19 or so then he probably won't make a PL player at all. I honestly have no time for players like Stephens and Turnbull when it's obvious that we're crying out for a decent CB to replace the Dutch Donkey.

McQueen or Gallagher makes a great difference, we'd not deliberately hold back Gallagher just because we weren't particularly interested in the Cup, there must have been some other reason. I am sure that if we knew more about the management of the young players by Reed we'd understand more easily. In the main these are not first team squad players and therefore they must fall under the command of Reed rather than Pochettino.

The fact that Fonte was on the bench is confusing many, he was never ever going to play with that leg. If we'd had a problem at CB I'm sure VW would have dropped back. We just didn't have anyone else to put on the bench, the U21s played on Friday night and the 18 yesterday was all that was left. Check for yourselves. Lallana runs a lot every game, yesterday was his 12 th game in about 50 days I think, you just have to be fair to the lad, he gives his all every game but when the tank is empty it's empty.

they didn't put out a weakened side, they put out a different side because they have made the signings to be able to do so. Look through it one by one, it's a side full of Argentine and Italian internationals. Dossena,Borini,Giaccherini all Italian full internationals, Vergini and the keeper both Argentine internationals. Poyet has made some handy signings and their squad is far more homogenous than ours. He doesn't know who is better than whom yet, these lads have only just got there in some cases. Time they got the WPs and all it must be just about now that they're available. They're in a crap league position because Di Canio got it all wrong but of late they won 7 out of their last 10 and will be away from relegation soon. Their side yesterday was better than ours if only because we had 3 absolute duffers who should be nowhere near a PL club. I would have liked some of their signings actually, particularly the CB Vergini, Argentine full international for a 400K loan fee and we have to play Jos flipping Hooieveld...yeah right. We made no signings so what can you bloody well expect because we have to play donkeys against thouroughbreds.

Maybe he had to do that, could be just speculation on my part though, I have no idea who is really running the club just now.

Ties in with Mauricio's statements about signings, said he had all he needed in the Academy, obviously toeing the party line there then. Still think that Cortese wanted to sign players but he was told that no money was available and so he resigned back in October when he'd have been planning any signings. To me we are cost cutting and the results are there for all to see, ie the smallest squad of Senior Players in the PL.

What's the point if they don't actually contribute anything positive really. Gallagher I liked, full of energy, you could see he has some potential. All the rest are just there to make up the numbers and cloud the issue. I mean this McQueen lad has been out injured for ages so what do we do, stick Gallagher in the stiffs (but we took him to Hull) and put a debutant with just a bit of U21 football under his belt in the last 9 months or so on the bench. I know about Gallagher's recent bereavement but why take him to Hull and then not Sunderland. We could have left him in Southampton for the Hull game,bit more time and all, and then taken him to Sunderland. Sometimes you have to wonder if we know what we're doing with these young lads. "Oh by the way Mauricio you have to use a kiddy on the bench for the cup" "OK which one" "Oh I don't know stick a pin in the list".

I see that Everton dispatched Swansea with relative ease today then, so that's: Clubs that had their midweek game postponed 3- Clubs that didn't 0. Travesty of footballing justice really, still never mind "big clubs" always get their own way and do whatever they want. Don't fancy your midweek game ? Never mind find a wobbly chimney or an icy puddle within 30 kilometres of the ground and call the health and safety brigade.

Not so sure about that. Doesn't matter anyway, we lost because we couldn't score so what ifs and might have beens are totally irrelevant today. Team was too weak and that's it and all about it. You just cannot leave Lambert on his own in attack and hope to get a result, without a secondary attacker of quality (ie not Guly) he's just totally useless. When I see Osvaldo just playing bit parts for Juventus it makes me angry, someone needed to bang some heads together and get Osvaldo onto the pitch for us for the rest of the season, then again as we are a rudderless ship not much hope of that. I'd wager that if Cortese was still here Osvaldo would be as well.

Well president in name yes but he's just a village idiot so you can cut him some slack, anyway the Treiweiller was a bit of an old boiler, not that the new one is much better looking though.

Pity ART's fake tweet story got closed because it appears that Giroud smuggled a tart into his room the night before they got hammered by Liverpool, and him a born again christian or whatever he's supposed to be. I wonder just how often that happens in football really, might explain some shockng performances though. It's all over the French press, then again they do like a good scandal where footballers are concerned.

It's nothing new, wasn't it stated in the Cortese exit threads that his kids had been withdrawn from their school just before the news broke. Same old stories going round and round with a few genetic modifications.

I know not, take it up with fanimal, seems to be the only person who knew, just relaying information in a post on the "back from the game" thread. http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?49090-Back-From-The-Game-Thread/page2#.UwDQjGJ5OSo Post 9 I think.

Perhaps, but the situation still needs sorting out, strange that we've had no news on any of that stuff of late. What happened to that Williams bloke then ?

Perhaps Wanyama doesn't give a toss, have you ever thought of that, last season he was playing in the CL, he chose us above other clubs because he believed that he would soon be playing at that level again (yeah right), the man who signed him and sold him "the project" has gone and he no doubt might just feel a bit aggrieved about it all. Anyway his agent is probably setting him up something better, hence the Wanyama to Citeh stories, no doubt put about by his agent. Cortese's departure is not anodyne in the performances of some players, it certainly had soemthing to do with Osvaldo's behaviour. The players obviously know far more than we do...fortunately, but the club really needs to sort it's management structure out so that there is no longer any confusion regarding targets and who actually runs the circus. Failing to appoint a real CEO straight away is obviously having a negative effect on some.