Saint Pete

Ridiculous idea from the FA - can't see how this would have any benefit for the England side, only further encouragement to the top 4/5 clubs to stockpile players who they have little or no intention of ever playing in their first teams. There is a problem with talented English youngsters joining the big teams for big wages and then not getting games, thus stifling their development, but this is approaching that problem in a completely arse about face way! They need to find ways of limiting the big clubs (e.g. Chelsea) from having these massive squads of players in the first place, so that they remain in or join clubs lower down the prem or football leagues and get games for them instead. We have a great system of depth of good size football clubs down the leagues who would love to have the young talented players turning out for them, not playing against them for 'B' teams of the rich clubs!

After last night's Newcastle result, we are now assured of 8th place (barring mathematical miracles) so there are now no sensible reasons why the club shouldn't be sitting down and discussing a contract extension with MP, and plenty of good reasons why they should. There is no good reason from our point of view to delay until the end of the season as the sole priority is now next season. It's all very well saying that he still has a year left on his contract but this is not just about MP, it's about convincing our best players to stay on in the face of the offers that will come in for them in the summer, and there's no doubt this will be easier if MP has committed to the club longer term. It will also be disruptive to our planning of signings over the summer if there is still uncertainty over the manager's plans, so the sooner this is sorted the better. This of course is all from our point of view - what we don't really know is what MP's intentions are, but if he is not prepared to sit down and discuss an improved deal now that the league position is decided, my suspicion would be that he may see his future elsewhere.

I'm slightly more worried about him going after reading this, as up til now I had assumed that the board would already have been talking to him about an extension to his contract by now?

Lovren should have been subbed shortly after the Spurs equaliser as it was pretty obvious he'd lost his head at that point. Really disappointing defeat as Spurs were there for the taking today. Our defensive frailty seemed to affect the rest of the team in the second half and we stopped doing all the good things we were doing in the first half.

For me, this was the key to the game yesterday, rather than Cork coming on for Wanyama. Once Lambert dropped deeper and started getting on the ball and pulling the strings, the rest of the forward players came alive, and there was only going to be one winner after that. So, although Cork played well second half, Lambert was MOTM for me, as he was ultimately the match winner for us.

I think it will be a case of horses for courses from now on. For me, there will still be games where Lambert is the better option due to his ability to hold the ball up and bring others into the game. (In the home game against Hull for instance, I thought he was outstanding). I still don't think that Osvaldo is combining that well with Lallana, Rodriguez, etc, but hopefully he will continue to improve now that he's got the confidence of a couple of goals behind him.

Strange decision not to start with Clyne?

Yes, you're right, he did become a bit part player at the end of last season. I think what's worrying some though is that the players who were selected instead failed to win any of our last 6 games, scoring only 3 goals in the process (1 of which was scored by Puncheon himself from the bench!)

For much of last season, I thought JP seemed more likely to produce an end product (goal, assist or sh*t!!) than either Lallana or Ramirez. He did seem to fall right out of favour towards the end of the season though, but not sure why. He didn't start any of our last 7 league games, of which we only won 1 and that was against Reading! Don't really see JWP and Davis as being players competing for the same spot as Puncheon, as they don't have the direct goal threat that he has. Puncheon provides a different option for the 2 wide positions, whereas JWP & Davis are really more central players. It seems odd, but maybe there's more going on that we don't know about yet.

Clint Dempsey apparently on the move from Spurs. CHDAJFU? 30 years old, but a proven track record as a striker in the prem.

If he's a "top class player", we need to see more end product from him than we did last season. I think he's got a lot of talent, but is yet to prove that he can do it in the prem, for me. This will be a crucial season for him.

I agree that it's never a good thing to have players being signed by someone completely independently of the manager. That's where things often go wrong with the "Director of Football" role, which usually only works well if they are working closely with the Manager imo.

Adkins at the time, when asked about when the Forren signing, said something along the lines of "Ask the people who know what's going on". As the Forren transfer was done practically the day Adkins left and we know Cortese had been talking to MP for some time before that, I think we can safely assume that it wasn't and Adkins signing, don't you?

There's a bit too much relying on the odds of other teams results to go our way going on here, isn't there? We need to concentrate on putting the points on the board ourselves and forget what the rest are doing.

We need a result in one of our last two IMO. I honestly don't think 39 points will be enough. This is our penalty for not making sure of things in the West Ham/West Brom home games.

I don't agree that today's match alone means that NC was correct, as if Adkins was in charge of Saints and Poch was in charge of Reading today, I still would have expected Saints to win comfortably, as we have a superior team. That said, I agree it's time to move on from what happened with Adkins now.

We should never sign anyone who is not rated highly by 100% of fans on his current club's message boards.

By that logic, you would never hold anyone accountable for any decision they made!! Sorry, but if we end up getting relegated after sacking a highly successful manager in favour of a guy with zero English football experience, I will be holding Cortese fully responsible for that outcome. The decision will only be justified by a significant improvement in our league position over the next couple of seasons, since Cortese is clearly unsatisfied with our progress up to this point. When you take a gamble like this, you have to be prepared to take the flak if it doesn't work out.

Complete and utter madness. The man has achieved back to back promotions, and was well on the way to keeping us up this year, and this is how he is repaid. How can we expect loyalty from our managers and players when the club shows this level of disloyalty to a man who's achieved so much for the club? I really don't see what more Adkins could have done is his couple of years with the club. You can moan all you want about tactical abilities but you have to take into account that we are playing against a lot of teams this year who simply have better players than us. Did I hear this new guy doesn't even speak good English? Apparently, he's a great man manager though! Is that in the same way NC is a great man manager? NC is reminding me more and more of Lowe with each day that passes.

Absolute madness. Back to back promotions, and well on the way to staying up this year, and this is what the man gets.

Sounds like Portaloo/Wotte all over again

Yes, Guly did miss a chance, but I think you'll find that Rodriguez also missed a couple of equally good ones in the first half, and he didn't even get his efforts on target. It seems that people are all too quick to criticise Guly, but conveniently forget the mistakes of more "fashionable" players. Guly's link up play and touch was excellent when he came on, and he totally justified Adkins decision to bring him on in my opinion. Not having a go at Rodriguez by the way, who I thought had a good game, but should have had at least one goal with the chances he had, and was tiring towards the end.

I'm sorry but I don't understand why it's a bigger risk to play Kelvin Davis, who's been our regular keeper throughout 2 successful promotion seasons, than to play Gazzaniga, who last season was playing in League 2, and has made 2 glaring errors in the last 2 games?

It was a great cross from Kebe to be fair. Don't think Kelvin would have made it if he'd come for it, as it was whipped in too fast.

Guly created 2 goals and scored 1 in the Coventry game, didn't he? If that's just "OK", then we need more "OK" players in the team.