shurlock

Bus 1 from Winchester with one other. #on the top table.

Sure Andy Crosby is a bit handy. Ditto Frazier. Two no-nonsense yorkshiremen. Jaidi's probably a bit tasty with his head and elbows. And then two from the polak, KD and Guly. Wouldn't discount Harding either. Think he wouldn't run.

I think SDR still offers something - its just not the wing. He is direct and quick, can turn and beat a man under pressure and has a decent shot. He has singlehandedly changed games when he has come on - his performance up at Cardiff, feeding off Lambert's flicks and layoffs, was outstanding. That earned him a start against Watford, albeit he was put on the wing. People can't get their heads around the possibility that he might be better as a second striker but it potentially solves a few problems. If Schneiderlin isn't working on the right (I think hes been OK), I would move Guly back back there and put SDR upfront. Secondly, it makes it less necessary or likely we will bring in somebody like Maynard - SDR can play on the shoulder of the last defender. Instead, we bring in pace on the wings and direct cover for Lambert which a Maynard-type player never will be.

Check his cliche-free interview - says it all.

NA started Morgan again on the right. Wonder what people thought of his performance? Its always going to be a case of square pegs and round holes with Morgan, Cork and Hammond in the side; but thought he did well - indeed, he was involved in most of our good attacking play in the 1st half, played neat triangles with the forward players/Richardson and we arguably looked blunter when he went to the base of the diamond in the 2nd half. Its good to see Morgan being coaxed out of his shell and, hopefully, when he reverts back to CM he doesn't forget that he doesn't need security clearance or travel documents to break forward. It also seems that Morgan is fast becoming NA's first choice midfielder. Interesting that whenever NA needs one of our players to do a job -i.e. to mark Koren or snuff out a dangerous Blackpool midfield, Morgan is entrusted. Hammond has been off the pace recently; and though Cork looked better today, getting forward well esp in the first half, his distribution was pretty poor. IMO Nige gave his best interview yet. His comments on De Ridder were especially revealing, admitting that he doesn't see him as a winger and that his crossing his not up to scratch. Rather, he is more dangerous as a second striker or in the hole, driving at defenders. The consensus on here was that De Ridder was a defensive liability; it turns out that he isn't seen as enough of a threat from a wide position. I agree with NA: SDR tend lofts/chips too many crosses and his decision-making is still raw as illustrated by our glorious chance in the dying seconds. At home, our lack of width doesn't matter as our fullbacks can take up the mantle; but its a different matter away from home where the fullbacks are busier defending. Its more or less inevitable that some width on the right will be brought in Jan.

Are you leaving from Winchester? Does each location have its bus 1? Wonder which buses from the three departure points will arrive first in pompey?

If you're creditworthy and can take advantage of bargain basement interest rates, its a great time to borrow and invest....

"Thursday night, Channel 5, Thursday night, Channel 5"

NA has been quite happy to play Fox and Harding together for periods, so a Butterfield/Richardson combo isn't out of the question.

The only save from the Brizzle and Donny games that came close to being excellent IMO was Lallana's first time shot against James after he had been played in by Morgan. The others were pretty routine - Guly was never going to beat Ikeme at the near post from that distance. Keeper was well behind it throughout.

http://www.teamtalk.com/premier-league/7357390/Cox-may-consider-Albion-exit would he be value for money and worth a bid? not seen much of him myself.

Biggest mistake isn't lack of communication -too many twitchy people on here with weak bladders- it was the need for a second ballot that had to be done on the fly. That reflected any number of things: the club overestimating demand, the OB putting too many restrictions on who could get tickets and our fanbase not being as 'super' as presumed. Had a second ballot not been necessary, everything would have run like clockwork.

Exactly, some touchy people on here.

This fixture means more to the fans than the players - and am happy if NA et al. view the game as just another 3 points up for grabs, albeit at a team with a resolute home record. Frankly, it takes more bottle to go on the kind of run we did last season, see off a team like Huddersfield and not cave under the near insistent pressure of being promotion favourites than play a local rival away. Am less bothered about their their form than having a full squad to pick from which at the moment is touch and go. No doubt, if we lose though, this place will be chockablock with all kinds of moronic suggestions that the occasion was too big for us.

Dont think he's doing that - more likely, he's just condescending you reader/fan and reminding you how jolly hard it is to police a football game-from ensuring that you don't become proverbial sardines to reducing any aggro between fans- and that you simple f**kwit of a reader/fan has no idea of all the contingency measures in place which you ungrateful f**kwit of a reader/fan interpret as restrictive but which is absolutely necessary to having a nice day out at the beautiful game. So sit down, be cooperative and politely listen to those who are in the know and are ultimately responsible for your sorry freedom.

Technically, the 'and' meant they were separate clauses -and so only Heysel was mentioned in reference to football violence. The two statements were illustrations of why the the OB as a whole needs to be proactive and necessarily has different priorities to fans. Either way, Burrows doesn't come across as the sharpest tool in the box -part of an elite that can't talk straight or entertain an original thought; but dutifully parrots cliches that make it impossible to have a proper conversation and just numb you into apathy.

IMO he was just making a few headline observations about how the OB have to approach football culture from a fundamentally different perspective from your average fan, namely safety and security and these considerations have to inform their decision-making at every step, even when they appear OTT. It hey aren't on the ball, tragedy can ensue and they carry the can. Its a general point about the priorities of the OB, not football violence.

Everyone's a victim of this, that or the other. Pick your battles - in this case, they're bigger and better ones. Would prefer some transparency about the specific facts justifying the bubble, not getting distracted by a few parroted lines by some copper on auto-pilot.

"We all too quickly forget the events of Hillsborough, Bradford and Stairway 13 and too readily deny the link between football violence and tragedy, as seen at Heysel". Grammatically, they're separate clauses - only Heysel is mentioned in the context of football violence.

A total non story. The majority of the article is about specific circumstances justifying the bubble as they relate to previous Southampton and Portsmouth fixtures - none of us have the intel, the cost-benefit calculations, a sense of the wider political pressures to say whether the bubble is justified. There are few lines on Hillsborough - and that's only to say that sh*t can happen at the football -they're unimaginative and cliche at worst. More importantly, the article makes no link whatsoever between football violence and Hillsborough and Bradford as some imply. Im no fan of the OB but this is a total red herring and the OP looks like a mug for jumping on it as further evidence that we're somehow the victims of some injustice. Man the f**k up -and if you want to discredit the OB's case, do some proper homework.

Last season we had the best away record in the league under NA. Total myth about NA being sh*t away for us.

Its actually W11 D4 L5 = 37 points from 19 games which is an excellent return and extended over the season was better than Brighton and Huddersfield's. Indeed, we had the best away record in the league. This season, I think we've been very comfortable away from home. Away games are a different proposition FFS. Other than Reading, Brizzle and Donny, we've deserved something from all our games and can count ourselves unlucky in a few. For me, the worry isn't our away form in the abstract -too many people looking for patterns that don't exist or jumping to conclusions about NA- its our recent form both home and away.

Not sure. We absolutely battered Walsall - if we had done that at Donny, I would have been much more satisfied. Rochdale were flying high and had a very good home record -like Brizzle, they did us down the wings; and Tranmere's Tranmere, always a hoodoo club. Different team, different problems - even the Brizzle and Donny performances were very different.

Second half we went to a 4-3-3/4-3-2-1 with SDR playing up the middle and closer to Guly and Lallana in the hole; with the subs, we switched to playing with width -Holmes on one wing; and Lallana on the other with Guly and Barnard down the middle. Both formations were balanced; yet we probably worked more chances and enjoyed greater pressure in the first half when we had less 'balance'. Am all for balance but not if it means sacrificing quality. Barney offered nothing. Ditto Holmes, though I have more time for him than some others. And Butterfield upfront is a joke. For whatever reason -match fitness, quality at this level- all those three players are far behind our regular starters at the moment, so the idea that with their 'balance' things would have been different is hard to take seriously. Without better quality in the squad, starting Hammond, Schneiderlin and Cork wasn't ideal but made sense. My only complaint, perhaps, is that we didn't play Lallana up with Guly in the first half (we did in the 2nd) and play Schneiderlin somewhere else -say CM with Cork on the right and SDR on the left. But I wouldn't have changed the personnel.