saintsmike25

What did I say about the low ball in the box will be the one that Bristol can't cope with.

The Bristol defence obviously aren't comfortable when the ball is zipped in, or with the inswinging corner, what we have to do is utilise Antonio. I don't think Connoly is having the best game however he's running the channels which is making sure we're always having a runner and an option. Hopefully we can raise our game and be a bit braver on the ball and not be scared to play our football and use Lallana as a playmaker to hit the ball to Lamberts feet. We can definately win this game.

Good save Kelvin a bit sloppy from us.

Oh you were at it too?! I asked about how he managed to stay so injury free. The guy is a true gent & has alot of interesting things to say. Sorry for the sheer amount of ****s on my course especially the guy at the back who sounds like a ****, looks like a **** and is a ****.

Are you suggesting Leyton Orient actually scouted us and perhaps spotted that we're not Man Utd or invincible and have weaknesses? My how will Alan Pardew cope with that revelation.

The most important thing in this game is MOMEMTUM. We showed alot of heart to come back from 2-0 down when before we would have folded, now if the team picks up our next game against Bristol Rovers, with the same forward momemtum and we start a pick quicker we'll pick up a win no doubt. I'm delighted with the comeback, and it's a shame we missed sitters apparently, we're creating tonnes of chances too. With a few more wins we'll be in mid-table. Pardew has a dilemma now.. start with 4-4-2? the 4-5-1 ensures we 'dominate' at times but perhaps leaves Lambert a bit too isolated, why not try it in the cup? and give Antonio a start too he deserves it. Whilst Waigo is playing well it sends out a message that every player has to earn their place in the team. Also, i don't think we can play Jaidi EVERY game we need someone else he's 35 or whatever. It's a shame i can't trust Perry or Lancashire at the back.. COYR.

Lets not get too negative! We're obviously playing well, there's a chance every 2 minutes just not one of those days where we're putting them away. Waigo/Lallana have missed sitters from what I've heard as to has Connelly. It's not like earlier in the season when we got battered from piller to post against Swindon and Huddersfield. Sometimes the luck doesn't run for you.

To Madeira..

You have to look at the fact Oldham haven't been beaten in 5/6 games. The teams we've beaten aren't the form sides, Gillingham/Southend/Yeovil. I'll be happy with a point, to keep up some form but I can see Oldham getting all 3..

2-1 Oldham lets not get too carried away.

Get in

Have we seen Papa play in games like 'this' yet? I think Papa has done more in 3 games than Wotton did in a season for us.

I hope he makes a name for himself, good player and a nice guy too who wanted to ideally stay at Southampton.

By the way when Gillet came on for 10 minutes I can see why Pardew left him out. Seemed like a headless chicken and didn't really do much well at all! However Paterson looked like a man possesed to get back in the team.

Okay. Davies 6.5 - Did what he had to do well and dealt with crosses although punched the ball a bit too much for my liking, however his positioning for there goal was questionable otherwise he'd be a 7, he didn't really have many saves to make. James - 7/10 - Played well after a shaky start in the first 20 minutes, looks assured in possesion, and got more physical when needed. Definately one of the players who needs alot of encouragement. Trotman - 8/10 - Did really well a great physical presence who dealt superbly with Jackson him and Jaidi seem to have developed a very good understanding Jaidi - 8/10 - Lacks pace but uses his brain and bosses the back 4 and dominates in the air, today he struggled at the end and the match fitness is coming in but he played very well today they struggled to create chances Harding 9/10 - Really put in some great challenges got down the byline, took their players on, our best defender today, the 9 is because he bounced back from a bad game and showed what he's made out of and frustrated them time and time again. Wotton 7/10 - Didn't really do 'much' but clearly was biting in the challenges and what he had to do he did well, i think it helped the defence and he stuck to his role well and had a reasonably good game. Still rate Morgan above him, he tried to indimidate the Gillingham players with some dangerous tackles.. Mellis 8/10 - Really unlucky not to score, really works hard and it goes unnoticed what i like about him is he's so direct and moves the ball to feet quickly and showed good movement. Also his quick feet are very useful as shown today. Lallana 9/10 Again is in absolutely top form, when he gets onto lamberts flicks and infront of him he's a major goal threat as the first goal showed superbly taken it was really never in doubt, his quick turns caused problems if only he had more pace.. and his second goal was a superb team goal and a great finish. Really linked up with Waigo and Lambert well and worked his socks off. Hammond 7.5/10 - Did everything he had to do well, had an early good effort on goal and it's reassuring to have a box to box midfeilder like him, he was kinda quiet today but did everything well and passed the ball nicely. Waigo 8.5/10 - Really like the way he plays, he gets alot of hard challenges but gets back up and likes to help out the defence and seems to enjoy the defending side! he lacks a bit in "tricks" but when he turned the ball seemed to stick to his feet and really took his goal well. However someone teach him how to cross... but really helps out with his pace, played very well. Lambert 9.2/10 - Really really really awesome today, won everything in the air linked up with the midfeild well, was very unlucky to not score another goal with a superbly struck freekick and was ALWAYS dangerous, worked his ass off today, and a great finish for the first goal.

What pardew wants is a foil for Lambert because he's uncertain of Waigo, preferably someone whose pacy so we can free up Lambert upfront, someone who knows league one football/championship football. You have to remember Waigo is new to it and is learning and at times that can be steep compared to the pace of Serie A & B.

I'll admit Fifa is looking very good this year and is instantly likeable I'm going to get both titles, because PES still is the game I'm more comfortable with, I'd go as to far to say both titles are looking superb this year and Konami have made changes in the right direction but for the BETTER game is Fifa for most people (not me included) I've been playing PES and ISS ever since 1998 so to transfer to another series is hard for me. I still get those magic moments from it, the problem i find with Fifa it doesn't capture the same sort of multi-player moments that PES does. But this year we should be glad we have two great games to choose from, it all comes down to your own preferances and style of play.

Funny how most of the ones calling for his head haven't been to a vast majority of the games. Frankly the way we do play means we will be midtable we can give the good teams of the league a good game and take points off them, what we HAVE to do is start winning the games we SHOULD win. Notably the home games against the likes of Brentford/Colchester etc which we're drawing however, i can envesiage a good result come Saturday the loss will have buoyed the players. We don't have injury problems either.

Agreed for 20 minutes we played like a team possesed and then the obviously tiredness kicked in for players like Waigo/Morgan/Lallana and even Mellis the younger players have the stamina issues because they don't pace themselves. Mellis wasn't awful today, but defensivily i see where you're coming from, but harding had a bad game.

I actually feel strange although we lost, it was an absolute sickner, we were pushing for the winner and the problem i'm convinced today for whatever reason, Harding had an absolute shocker he couldn't deal with a player running at him at pace it's where their second goal came from, whilst Davies made a shocker too but that was down to bad communication with Trotman, our defence can't deal with pacy strikers now it's got 'bigger' however Davies should have been much quicker off his line. Their goal was absolutely stunning, it was hit in Christiano Ronaldo like fashion from out of nowhere 30 yards or 35 yards and is one of the goals of the season certainly one of the best I've ever seen at St Mary's. Morgan and Hammond were superb at times, i felt when we were 2-1 up and having our best spell we tried to "overplay" it in Arsenal like fashion when we NEEDED that third goal at times we passed when it's easier to cross/shoot.. and is anyone frustrated that our players DON'T take on the man and always cross from deep it can be frustrating as we should be teaching them to run at defenders instead of giving the chance for the defence to reshape and organise for a predictable cross. Lambert won alot and played very well at times I thought, Melis looked good was really biting with the challenges, Lallana was playing very well tonight when him and Morgan linked up we cut them open. What we have to do is work on feeding off lambert from his flick ons which can be done on the training pitch. Moaning is useless, Bristol were a good side, Kuffour & Dickson were VERY good strikers especially Kuffour who was a pain in the ass when he picked the ball up in the hole all game.

The corners are much better in PES. The AI is far better. The tactics are much more useful I find. Crossing seems FAR too easy on Fifa.. (on PES it's more satisfying as you have to judge where your player will be) Fifa i hit it midpower everytime = perfect header. Dribbling it depends I like how it's harder on PES, on Fifa it's easier but it feels like the ball is stuck to the feet sometimes.. There's no way on earth the shooting is better on Fifa than PES, the shooting on this years PES is absolutely immense, the only thing that needs slight improving is chips, anyone score a screamer on FIFA & then on PES & Tell me which felt more satisfying. The fact is it's down to opinions, Marco you strike me as someone whose more of a Fifa player, but what people are starting to find is this years PES if you give it a chance is a grower if you read the PESFAN forums then you'll see alot of people who were initially disappointed with the demo who are now hailing it as one of the best PES's to date. Fifa is more instantly likeable but I don't get the same feel for the game, and the novelty just wears off for me after a while, it's a great game but just somehow feels a bit too.. 'forced' the defending in Fifa just feels pretty awful too.

Happy with that we're still unbeaten and keep battling till the end which is a great quality to have. As long as we keep picking up points like we have been doing, but we HAVE to start putting chances away. Hopefully Pardew will work on patterns of play and get our wingers to get to the byline. Why not have Morgan taking corners? his delivery from the freekick was apparently very good. He can ping 60 yard passes so he'd surely be more use than Lallana at them. Only one point from parity. :]

"Couldn't score in open play" No pleasing some people. Happy to get off the mark, notice how much more solid our defence is? We'll eek out alot of 1-0's and 2-1's this season. Our next few fixtures are very winnable. We shouldn't fear anyone given our performance away at Charlton too. Again we're looking a tough proposition to beat which is the first thing we need to do and then build on attacking. Waigo sounded like he gave us a bit of spark needed when he came on.

Well after playing both FIFA and PES2010 I'm stuck in some ways I think both games are infact very very very good. My impressions of PES2010 so far. At first I started playing and I tried to play it like I did with PES2009 with lots of quick one two's and easy running, however it's been fixed, there's no one way to get around the defence, and the main thing for me is that defending seems to be fixed. Your defenders always seem compact, gone are the days of your defence splitting open like Paris Hiltons legs, your defence stays compact and each player works for each other, which is extremely noticable, however I've only let in 1 goal on the demo and I've been playing on proffesional. Which is fairly disappointing, as I quite like the challenge of losing to begin with and bettering myself. However it seems far more challenging than the FIFA demo in where I'd get 10 clear cut chances per game on the highest difficulty setting. The passing however does take alot of time to adjust too, gone are the days where you can ping quick one touch balls like PES2009 this game REALLY makes you think about what your next move is and what your next pass should be, which means the focused player will get rewards. However some throughballs need a bit of a rework, but what I've discovered is the throughball button IS pressure sensitive meaning they go further if you hold it down longer, this applies for long through balls. It's much easier to lose possesion, if you play risky football, which is why the A.I are very good at keeping the ball in there own half to fashion out chances, which is fairly easy to defend against. The graphics are superb, every player model is far better than FIFA, and each player has a certain uniqueness to them, which makes me want to get this game to play with every player & every team. When you play with Messi you can feel he glides about and he's head and shoulders above anyone on FIFA.. he just feels the same as the other players. The face models are superb, it makes watching the opening scene really worthwhile. The lightening effects and staduims are the best they've ever been it truly looks superb. The dribbling at first feels clunky, and like your players are heavy in comparison with FIFA it's true they are, however start to use R1/RB correcting and the (XBOX arrow thingy) you start to use feints and tricks to outmanouvre the defence. It's been picked up on the little feints look FAR better than fifa when you trick a defender you just want to look at the replay at how you did it, it looks like in real life defender getting wrong footed by a bit of genuis and only certain players can do it. The shooting, probably the best it's been for me, you really can arrow shots in, place shots, use lobbed shots, much like PES5 the trick is if you're in space have a pop! the game rewards those who dare to shoot. I've scored a variety of decent finishes, some arrowing into the corner from tight angles and a couple of very decent long rangers, but my goals have been varied. There's no "one" easy way to score. The crossing doesn't feel as good as fifa, but in some ways it feels more rewarding, in FIFA every cross seems very easy to get on the end of, almost too easy. In the demo I have to think about the runners coming in, how many taps where my players will be positioned and when you get it right, with one of my first goals a diving header by David Villa, it's very satisfying I've scored about 4 headers, each one was a case of picking out the right cross, with a target man it's very effective, especially if you play with Italy or Germany. Low crosses seem very satisfying too, however some more 'whip' is needed i think for the final build. Goalkeepers - I haven't seen any clangers yet, YES no cheap goals as of yet, this was my biggest concern, that Massimo Taibi would be playing for every team regardless of stats.. I've yet to see him appear or the rebound goals which were oh so simple of PES2009. However more playtime is needed. Set pieces - Corners seem easier to defend than on 09 where you had to manically tap like a maniac to get that ball out, and you can also really get good whip on the balls into the box, and on free kicks they're scorable and were one of the good things about 09. One minor gripe is sometimes that your team should be more attacking and take up more aggressive positions. I think this is down to the tactics that are default on the game, I think with tweaking your team to your advantage this will change, sometimes you want players to make forward runs, and they don't leading to "dead end" situations where you have no choice but to play the ball back in frustration. Slide challenges are back with a vengeance they're extremely effective and can be timed much easier, defending feels fun again. First touch, I haven't figured out how this works, at times it feels unresponsive as it was very easy on PES2009, I'm trying to still play around with it, when the ball is played into a striker more often than not the defender will tackle him regardless of where the strikers first touch is, however I think with some practice i'll have it figured out. All in all.. I feel like i have to relearn PES again, which is the sign that it's back with a vengeance there's that satisfaction when I score, whilst FIFA seems great to begin with, I don't get that same feeling when i score I almost find it too easy.. too many chances in each match. In PES it's like learning to ride a bike again, i feel with practice will come great rewards with this game. If you notice more and more people are playing a few more games and starting to realise it's depth and subtleties. It's going to be challenging, but I think they're starting to get the balance just right in terms of simulation the 'arcade' feel seems to have gone, this feels like a serious football game where each chance you have to earn, and you have to use tactics and your head to make things happen you can't play this game on auto-pilot as you can with FIFA. Personally I can't wait till the game comes out, of course I'm one of few.. but hey.

The animations are good. The shooting feels a bit better however far too easy to score, keepers aren't really very good at all. Through balls again far too easy. Defending at times seems less in 'control' Slide challenges are pretty useless. Crossing is MUCH MUCH better. Dribbling still a big weak point, the "anologue stick" is fairly redundant. Still gonna stick to pro. And the A.I seems really not very good at all.