Saint Pete

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.

2 clean sheets in a row with Stephens at CB. Who would have thunk it?! Importantt win for a few reasons really - Keeps momentum and feel good factor after the derby win - Gets us over the hump of our first away win of season - Gives us confidence that we can still win a tricky looking away game while resting a few key players, which we will need to do as season progresses Main downer on the night (excuse the pun) is Downes injury, he has been so important for us so far this season, just got to hope he is not out for too long. Also not a great start for Abbott getting hooked at half time. Other than that, a good night that makes me a little more confident our squad outside first 11 may possibly be good enough after all (but still more needed from a few).

Interestng line up! At some point, we do need to work towards trusting our backup players more and I think that does mean biting the bullet and starting some of them so we can rest the likes of Larin and Scienza. Intriguing that he's gone with Dobbin in preference to Mubama, will be interesting to see how he goes up front. Very powerful bench available if the score is tight in the second half.

I don't know him either. But I would think most sensible Geordie fans would take 8 points from 6 games and mid-table after losing their best players and their manager plus bad injury list so far. They won't be happy about last night though obviously! Not sure about club strategy, Eddie Howe clearly wasn't happy about the player sales!

I don't think it would be right to play all 3 of Downes, JWP, Jander regularly, agree you need the balance of another more natural wide player. There's enough games in the Championship though that all 3 will get plenty of game time if we just play 2 of them and this will also keep them fresher. That' s what we did last season with Downes/Jander/Charles so see no reason why we wouldn't do that this season now we have JWP instead of Charles.

In fairness, he's been given a tough start. Lost most of their top level players (Gordon, Tonali, Guimaries) and quite a few others out injured at the start of the season (Burn, Joelinton, Livramento, Ramsey). They signed a bunch as well but that's a major upheaval to handle as s new manager.

Yep, Coventry seem over their dodgy start now. It's early days but I fancy all 3 could stay up even if it was the usual 3 spots, they all seem to have a bit about them.