Saint Pete

Yep, hopefully we are able to send him back to City and at the least get another more suitable loan in who has the capability to play as a lone striker in the way we need him to.

Sounds like a decent away point in the end given the poor first half and key players unavailable. Probably has cemented a few truths about our squad depth though, particularly with Mubama. Action needed there in January you feel.

I'm not so sure about that. Remember they got off to a great start last season too, think they were comfortably in the top 2 behind Cov at Christmas? Then pretty much imploded in the run in when the pressure levels went up. I'm still unconvinced by their manager, thought he cracked last year and could see that happening again if and when they have a dodgy spell. Also, as you state, they are very reliant on Lankshear for goals, more so than us with Larin, so even a short spell out for him could cause them to stutter. Still early days.

OK, so was Matt Le Tissier "bang average" in your estimation too since your definition depends on whether players moved on or not?! If Noble scored that many and assisted a fair few as well, that would put both of their records in the top 30 or so midfield all time Prem records, so wouldn't describe either as bang average, that mantle would go to the many hundreds of midfielders who have played many PL games and not achieved that kind of record. We're lucky to have 3 such strong midfielders for this level in any case. Let's see who ends up being in the first choice pairing when all are fit, glad it's Tonda making that choice as suspect he will be considering both their respective experience and qualities as well as current form and won't consider that notion as "pony"!

Parker a good Championship manager, but suspect he won't impress the mega entitled West Ham fanbase due to his not so great top flight record. So needs to hit the ground running otherwise can see it getting a lot more toxic there which would be a shame.

It's completely relevant! 😁 You have said with certainty that JWP is only the 3rd best midfielder at the club currently so it's fair to evaluate that based on their careers and performances to date and for JWP and Downes that includes their time at clubs at the top level in the Premier League. Also, bizarrely, you have described JWP's Prem career of over 400 games, 50 odd goals and nearly 50 assists as "bang average", so I was interested to hear your description of Downes's efforts in that top league to date when he has had opportunities for West Ham and Saints since you clearly rate him as the better player? Care to respond on that?!

How has Downes faired as a Premier League player in his career to date?

My guess is he didn’t want to move abroad at this stage due to family situation (second child) and no suitable Prem loan came up in the summer. So plan will probably be to try again for a Prem loan in January unless his attitude to a move overseas has changed.

That's a very good point, he may not be as obviously combative as Downes, but I think his positional sense and experience/know how is already proving invaluable to us and as you say can be considered a contributor to our much improved solidity in recent weeks. On the debate over which 2 of our CMs will be first choice in big games when all our 100% fit, only time will tell and it's a nice problem to have. But JWP has something that the other 2 contenders don't have at this point in their careers and that's the experience of over 400 games at the very top level, which I think gives the best managers a high level of trust in him. So my gut feel is it will be JWP plus one of the other 2 for the biggest games depending on Tonda's tactical plan, if he wants to be more on the front foot and pressing high Jander, if he wants to be more protective of our defence then Downes.

Disagree with Gary Neville whining on about players having to go off and wait on touchline after going down with a head injury. He's obviously forgotten about how teams were regularly using the head injury rule as a means of disrupting the flow of the game. I remember a number of Saints game where it became almost farcical with the opposition clearly using it as a tactic to go down clutching heads after almost every aerial challenge, knowing that would mean the ref had to stop the game. At least the current rule now gives some form of deterrent for teams doing that while also protecting those players who might genuinely be hurt.

It sounded more likely we will see Larin back first rather than Jander to me.

If they think he's so rubbish, perhaps they shouldn't have spunked £25m on him?! Not that I think they do, sure he will get his chance. If it doesn't work out, would take him back in a heartbeat (at a knockdown price)!

This sounds like utter b/s to me, sorry. Emery is known for taking time to introduce players to 1st team so don't think it is any more than that at this stage. Crazy (and a shame) though really that a player like him is not playing football, but that is modern English top level game I guess and the impact of Champions League. He ihas now been added to Champs League squad at least (he's on their bench tonight), sure he will get more chances eventually.

Some unbelievable passing from Kane in the Bayern-Arsenal game. Great assist for the goal but several others too, including one from one end to the other from a goal kick!

Well, there is reason to think he would have been "kicking bricks" in U21s as you put it as that is exactly what he was doing for the majority of the part of last season that Tonda was in charge. Tonda made the call to bring Edozie back into the fold when previously he was out in the cold under Still. So clearly he felt Edozie was the right choice as backup rather than Robinson and has continued with that view into this season. Like I hinted in my post, I don't really agree with Tonda's (and/or Spors') choice but once they had made it, there's little point in Robinson staying to be 3rd choice and that's not realistic to have 3 choices for 1 position? We are not Chelsea. I hope Saints are not lining him up for a move as I think he can be useful for us, hopefully in the Prem.

I get that there was a plan behind what Tonda did, but I think a lot of what you say above could have been achieved without moving so many of our key players out of their normal natural areas of the pitch. It seems like we totally uprouted most of what we do so well at home to counteract how the opposition play, which as some others have said is giving too much respect to a middling Championship opponent. We should be largely letting them worry about our many dangerous attacking weapons when we are at home. The same kind of thing was evident with the starting of 3 CMs in the Pompey game, which wasn't needed in my opinion vs a very average side. That said, I agree we had the chances to have won the game, but I still think it would have been a performance that could have been much better even if we had converted one of those opportunities and got the win.

I guess Tonda & Spors made a call that Edozie was going to be the backup for Scienza in the squad this season. There's definitely an argument whether that was the wrong call and Jay should have been the backup with Edozie going out on loan or sold instead. But having made the call, it's much better Jay is out getting 1st team experience at a good level rather than waiting around in our U21s, which is what would have happened. Monza looks a good fit for him so far and it will be a great life experience for him in Italy too.

Perhaps it would have been better to start him in his natural position on the right though rather than playing all 3 attacking mids out of position from the start? Just a thought.

Not a complete disaster after the wins earlier in the week. But definitely a missed opportunity to close/keep up with the top 2 and the kind of game we should be winning. Tonda needs to stop pissing about with formations and playing people out of position and keep it simple from the start of games. We got away with it vs Pompey, but dropped 2 points today that we might not have done if we had started players in their natural positions. If the starting team doesn't work, then is the time to try different things later in game, not from start vs a team we should beat.

Because Tonda is determined to play all of our attacking players out of their normal positions by the end of the match?

Haven't been watching the game, but feel a little sorry for Fellows if he's been given a start but played out on the left. Don't understand the logic from Tonda. I'm a big fan of his, but think he is starting to try to be too clever with formations rather than keeping it simple. Which is all we need to do when our players are significantly better than the opposition.

Shocker of a start for Burnley really, 8 points from 11 games and only 1 win. Surely auto chances gone already. I guess with play offs going down to 8th place now you can't totally rule them out of that yet but will need quite a turnaround.

I think that's a good sign Tonda is learning what works best with this set of players. Putting extra defensive players on to defend a lead isn't that effective when your defenders aren't that good! Far better to have players on who can help you keep the ball further up the pitch away from our goal.

I think that IS a negative way to look at it. A more positive view would be that after less than a quarter of the season, we have already fully reversed the impact of the 4 point deduction on 17 of our 23 competitors (74%). We have another 36 games to pick off at least 5 of the remaining 6 teams to get top 2, and we have already started reducing the 4 point deficit on 4 of those teams. Yes, there are 2 teams that have outperformed us so far this season, but there's no guarantee both of those teams will continue at the rate they have achieved so far. I don't think we will be far off if we continue the way we have started and I also think we have potential to improve, particularly away from home.

Yep, fair point. Wasn't writing him off in any way, just probably not the ideal debut getting brought off at HT, which I'm pretty sure was not pre-planned. But sure he will get more chances and of course we know he was bought primarily as a CB anyway so no judgement should be made on 45 mins at RB.