Window Cleaner

Still think that's more to do with our defence than Lukaku's brilliance. Good player though.

Tettey had a good day at SMS but other than that he's pretty average, don't think he's even a regular starter for Norwich now. Any player can play out of his skin once in a while but only true class brings consistency.

nope can't see that, we have our chances. Spurs are fading fast...clapped out no doubt. Dembelé might be out, he's quite influential for them I think, Holtby doesn't have the pace of the PL yet and I don't know what the status of Sigurdsson is just now. .

So then Essex away, not a great batting show from us yesterday but with the hosts now at 73/6 the wicket must be "difficult" to say the least. If we can just wheedle out that stick in the mud Cook fairly quickly perhaps we can even rise up from our 197 all out yesterday.

but when they go into nervous nelly mode nothing sinks in, they just see a black hole and nothing else; It's been that way for years. The best time was the great escape, few expected anything and each game saw a bit more euphoria creeping in.

But this is Saints fans all over, they swing from one extreme to the other at the slightest setback. On the OS the poll showed that over 80% expected us to win against West Brom who are a decent side. A draw was a good result for us even. So we lost 3-0 and now manic-depression is setting in again, perhaps we have a lot of bi-polar disorder amongst our supporters, who knows. We have done well of late but when that happens fans expect it to continue for ever and to be honest we just don't have the squad to win every game. The lads have done fantastically well of late but they're not robots and some are obviously at less than 100 % but our poor squad depth means that they're playing 90 minutes anyway. We will probably get another 3 or 4 points this season but even if we don't the lads have done enough and they know it, pity that a lot of supporters don't.

who is ?

came on as a late'ish sub for Parker on Saturday, Dembelé went off injured fairly early on though, don't know his status.

he might have gone to the Emirates to meet DD and his people if they'd shown any sort of interest in him of late. Morgan is very attached to the idea of playing for France at every level and the idea of the 2014 WC is important to him, said so to several french journalists, feels he's being passed over. CL and international football, for Deschamps the 2 are interlinked.

Jos has had some good games against certain sides, certain types of player. What he can't handle is fast skilful lumps. In the air it's passable but on the deck if Fox doesn't cover correctly Jos isn't good enough to bail him out. Sometimes Morgan has gone to that side to sort them out, that works occasionally if the opposition don't have too much in midfield but on Saturday i don't think Morgan was even 100 % fit, didn't Poch change the sides over Cork left, Morgan right ? and Corky didn't have the best of games and was getting into some scrapes .

Can't see why anyone would think that Wigan will beat West Brom anyway. Certainly not the West Brom that beat us last week-end. I think the relegation issue will be all over bar the shouting this week-end anyway. QPR and Readng gone, Wigan hanging on by their fingernails to a 1000/1 chance if they beat Swansea,Arse and Villa by a shedload of goals. It will let them concentrate on their cup final.

pedantic I know but it wasn't a 5 year contract. It will be about international football and nothing else if Morgan goes. Deschamps could help us out but as he's a knob I'm not counting on it. He was at the Emirates on Sunday, wasn't at SMS on Saturday. Did our players have Sunday off ?

In fact I think it would be reasonable to say tht the modern PL has depassed the physical condition of your average European footballer. Gaston wasn't fit enough, Forren neither but it will come. Remember at the start of the season even Super fit Saints didn't last much more than 65/70 minutes against the steamrollers of the PL. It's why you need a homogenous squad, 25 players of PL quality and not 14 or 15 and 10 hangers on. We have seen this season that our "squad players" just weren't up to scratch when called upon or were just too insufficient to even be called upon.

In fact one of my biggest beefs with Fox is that he doesn't get forward enough and to be honest from what I saw on Saturday we were hoofing far too much, Jos and Fox in particular. Morgan was dropping far too deep to get the ball because if he didn't Jos just hoofed it towards Lambert who had a bad day. We weren't pressing high with anywhere near the intensity we have in other matches of late. When Gaston came on it looked better because he added a bit of oomph (ok maybe a bit too much) and a bit of physical presqence. Personally I would like to see us go back to the Lallanaless side because for me he adds precisely zero to our pressing game.

Then again how do we know that he doesn't have a buy out threshhold in his contract. They seem to be pretty standard in most football player contracts these day. Used to be the totality of the contract, so 4 years at say what 35K a week that makes somewhere around 8 million plus a penalty clause, 10/12 million tops then.

don't know, our defence was so poor on Saturday that you just can't judge any opponent on that game. West Brom's 3 pronged attack was just too good for our defence though. As have been most serious multi-player attacks this season. It should be the first thing we address once the season has ended. Maybe it's been done already who knows but we just cannot afford to start next season with either Fox or Hooieveld in our side or even as first change players. Need a CB and a LB, a real one not a 17 year old kiddy.

don't understand the logic, if we draw at Sunderland we'll be on 40 points and Wigan and Villa can't both win their game together. So GD makes no difference.

contracts mean nothing, that's why there are hundreds of millions of transfer fees each season. They give security to the player and in the worst case scenario financial recompense to the club. Look at some of the fairly recent transfers of young players, was Gaston out of contract or Phil Jones or Sturridge or Joe Allen ? no they were all on fairly recent contracts. Morgan's future with us will be decided on his desire to play for France at next season's WC. Deschamps is ignoring him, if he doesn't get a (surprise) call up for this summer's S Am tour then his chances for 2014 are shot unless he moves to Utd,PSG,Arsenal,Lyon or perhaps Tottenham. I know for a fact that Rowley and no doubt Wenger have been watching him often enough so if Arse make an offer that NC doesn't feel inclined to refuse then Morgan may well move on.

exactly Wigan's absolute minimum is now 2 wins and 2 draws. You can write off their game at the Emirates so 3 wins it is which isn't going to happen.

we might even start Guly, who knows Spurs looked a bit sh@gged out to me against Wigan and they'll be getting edgy about their CL chances which basically come down to beating Chelsea anyway. A pair of fresh legs might be handy against them.

who says we're out of contention for the fair-play league. Red cards aren't the end of the world.

Unsurprising, they've been watching him on and off all season. Steve Rowley has been a regular at our games. However the Arse need to worry more about keeping hold of Wenger than filching our players. PSG want him to replace Ancelotti who'll go to Madrid to replace Mourinho who'll go to Chelsea if you can follow all that.

not for me though,no.

we aren't going to suddenly recall Richardson, either Clyne will move over and Cork or Maya will go to right back or Forren will start at LB. Richardson is history.

good, think he does a decent job. Wasn't he 4th official on Saturday ?