SaintJackoInHurworth

Commentary on Sky Sports Score centre for Blackpool v WHam says 'xxxx (Blackpool) shoots. It goes wide.' Then next one says 'yyyy (Blackpool) shoots. It goes over.' and so on... pathetic!!

Didn't get to watch the game earlier, so only just seen highlights on the football league show. Fox sending off was a total joke - he shouldn't have had a yellow card even!! First one was a completely fair tackle which he won and the second one was possibly a foul but was nothing and the sort of challenge that referees usually let go! Complete joke! As to the game overall, I think it should have been called off - conditions were atrocious. Also, Chris Hughton's comments were fairly laughable - to suggest they were well on top when Saints had 54% of the possession (at one stage, before the sending off it was almost 70%) is ridiculous, let alone to suggest that they would have been the better team if the conditions had been better!! Shame Billy Sharp couldn't have done better with his chance (did you lose concentration for that bit Saints Fan CaM?!!) but I think the pitch largely accounted for that. I was a little surprised that Connolly started rather than Sharp and that Puncheon is getting so many starts suddenly! On another note I think Wham were pretty lucky with their win. Their second goal was clearly a foul on a keeper. I couldn't believe Fat Sam's comments at the end of the match either! West Ham should have actually had a second player sent off imo. Taylor was late on Lowry and should at least have been booked. Bizarrely on The Football League Show they said that Lowry was the one fouling Taylor because Lowry caught him with the follow through of his kick. Next thing they will be saying that kicking a ball hard should be a bookable offence because of the risk of your follow through catching a player who arrives late with a tackle!! I think Rosenior was just a 'little' biased there somehow!

Of course, we could just forget about defence and go for something like this: Puncheon DeRidder Connolly Holmes Reeves Guly Barnard Lallana Sharp Lambert Lee Reeves gets the nod over Ward-Prowse as he used to be a defender and is now a striker-cum-winger, whereas Ward-Prowse has always been a midfielder. As for Puncheon in goal, hasn't he had experience there already? Or did I imagine that?

That's an interesting one and closer to my view - though surely you would want to swap Cork and Chaplow around - Cork is the more defensive holding player, Chaplow the box-to-box player. Another similar possibility might be this: ........................Davis......................... Richardson....Fonte....Hooiveld.........Fox .........................Cork......................... ..........Guly.......Chaplow......Lallana...... ..................Sharp.....Lambert..............

Danny Butterfield hasn't half put on some weight! No wonder he's not been playing!

On a slightly less conspiracy theory tack... I wonder if seeing AOC's performance for Arsenal at the weekend has had anything to do with Puncheon's decision? Maybe he has realised that he actually lost his place in the side to a good player?! Perhaps realising that AOC is no longer here has brought him to realise that he could potentailly stake a claim for the left wing berth.

It's a shame we can't produce a top international/Champions-League quality full-back who can bomb up the wing and also play as a top class winger. Like that guy at Spuds... what's his name? And which academy produced him? We should be keeping tabs on any young defenders they might be churning out! And then who's that young defender the top clubs have been trailing recently? Luke somebody? Which club is he at? If only we could turn out top defenders like those two.... .....OH!!

You missed a few players out of that 'squad'! We also have: Puncheon, Doble, Dickson, Reeves, Ward-Prowse, Shaw, Hoskins, Forte, Forecast and Stephens. Most of those are youngsters some of whom will develop into first-team players whil others will end up being sold. A few, though are not so young and are seemingly surplus to requirements: Puncheon, Forecast and Dickson. I would think selling Puncheon needs to be our top sale priority.

We could certainly do with having Guly fit, but if he isn't fit then I would give Reeves a start. He was excellent when he came on against Coventry on Saturday. I hope we don't put Doble in there though - he was too static.

I'm sorry but I don't understand how so many people have voted for Harding and Ward-Prowse. I suspect that a lot of people who were not at the game have been voting on this one! I am not knocking either of them: * Ward-Prowse took his goal well and had a few other moments where he did ok, but he also could have done better on a few occasions. This was understandable in the light of his inexperience (and I am sure he will improve on this), but if it had been Guly he would have been slated! * Harding did his job ok, but to be fair he was beaten on a few occasions and looked decidedly uncomfortable whenever he had the ball on his right foot. On a number of occasions he mis-kicked the ball because he wanted to kick with his left even though the ball was on his right. To say he was one-footed on Saturday would be an understatement. That having been said, it seems to be a confidence issue as when he did try kicking with his right he kicked it ok! I also find it astonishing that Schneiderlin has got two votes! He was woeful and IMO should have been subbed at half time. I don't quite understand why we play Schneiderlin alongside Hammond and Cork. When he came back to be more defensive, Cork was there doing a great job and bringing the ball forward, whereas if he went further forwards, Hammond was there linking up play and pressuring the opposing players and Schneiderlin was just surplus to requirements with Lallana and Ward Prowse also playing in the central midfield area. He also seems to be unable to hit a shot on target. I get the feeling he has put himself under pressure to score a goal with his early season comments and yet that is not his strength. His greatest strength is passing out of defence/the back of midfield, so personally I see him as cover for Cork should he happen to get injured. The votes for Bart are a tad surprising too. I accept he made a few good saves and on the whole did quite well, but he was severely lacking in confidence whenever he had to kick the ball out. It was quite embarassing for him at times. The away fans picked up on it and responded when he received a ball that he needed to kick out. I would suggest he needs to do a bit of training in this area or it will affect his whole game! Finally, I thought it worth saying a word for Reeves. Understandably he hasn't received any votes as he wasn't on the pitch long enough to be considered for MOM. But, I have to say that he showed the greatest moment of skill of any player all afternoon shortly after coming on the pitch: He took the ball up the wing and then started to weave in and out to create space to get past the defender and get a cross in. He completely left the defender floundering. It was a moment of real quality.

I also forgot to say... I don't know how you can say Harding was MOM - he had as much confidence with kicking with his right foot as Bart and frequently mis-kicked the ball or failed to deal with it correctly as a result. He also got out of position far too many times. I appreciate that part of his role is to get up the wing, but he has got to get back too!! No, in my opinion, MOM would probably go to Cork. Best performance of the match while he was on the pitch IMO goes to Ben Reeves who was brilliant for the few mins that he was playing. I couldn't give him MOM though as he didn't play for long enough to count really!

While I agree with some of what you say, I don't know how you can you weren't impressed with any of the other youngsters. I'd agree that Doble had a poor game, but Hoskins had a major impact as sub in that his work rate when he came on started to give their defence something to do and created the space for Ward Prowse to get his goal. Similarly, Reeves produced some of the best skill we saw all day after coming on. He terrorised their defence with some clever dribbling and then having shaken off his markers, got a good cross in which almost resulted in a goal. As for the lad who came on at the end, you can hardly complain about his minute on the pitch! It didn't really give him much time to do anything!! In terms of Ward-Prowse and Martin, I would say Martin did pretty well and Ward-Prowse showed promise, even if he did fluff his lines a couple of times... and as you rightly say, he took his goal reasonably well.

The Football League has always been on the basis of goal difference since I can remember! However, there is at least one significant football tournament which has experimented with a variation on this. The variation which has popularly been used is for positions to be decided on the result between the two teams who share the smae point score. In my opinion it's a silly system and goal difference will always be the best way to decide it.

What is it at the moment...? ...Most of our players are sporting beards! I wasn't at today's match, but from the gallery pictures it looks like Dan Harding was one of the only ones without a beard! Is this just the aftermath of Movember or a superstition or something?

OK - I wasn't at the game, though had originally planned to be there as it is one of the few fixtures that are less than a couple of hours away from me. However, it seems to me that comments here fall largely at either of two extremes: 1. Panic, we are doomed unless we spend mega millions and will soon be in a relegation struggle. 2. Don't worry, we have had a mini wobble and now we will go on another amazing run-in until the end of the season, breaking world records in the progress! (Ok - I exaggerate!!) Can I suggest a few thoughts from hopefully a more balanced perspective (though tilted towards a glass half full approach I think!): 1. We are still top. 2. The fixtures against Blackpool and Pompey will be tough ones and we may not be top for much longer. 3. We are nevertheless likely to be more motivated for the games against Blackpool and Pompey. 4. We tend to do better against better opposition or opposition for which we realise the difficulty of the tie - which suggests we could be better in the next two games. 5. Our away form has been poor for some time - it was quite poor last season. 6. Our away form is worst against clubs in the North - in the amazing run that we have had over the past ten months I have yet to see a Saints win!! I don't get to that many matches, admittedly, but I get to some of the away matches up north and so this statistic stands out for me! 7. When Alan Pardew was manager I rarely saw Saints lose! For some reason under Pardew we did as well or better away from home as at home, whereas with Adkins our home form has been immense but our away from distinctly dodgy. (NB I am not trying to say that one is better than the other, just that they each have their strengths and weaknesses). 8. We did not expect to be doing this well at the start of the season. Before the season started most fans on here predicted we would have a relegation struggle and finish mid-table at best. 9. We have got our two best strikers injured and our next striker (Barnard) is not fully fit. Other strikers have been sent out on loan! Chaplow is also injured. 10. Lallana is maybe also still struggling with injury. 11. Chaplow was being criticised by many on here at the start of the season. He wasn't getting picked with Cork and Hammond on fire, with Lallana and Guly supplying Barnard and Lambert up-front. 12. Schneiderlin has never been good at getting goals and has generally been used in a more defensive/distibutory role in midfield rather than as an attacking midfielder. Hammond has generally taken the more attacking role. I would have thought playing Hammond up front with MS and Cork in midfield might have been a more logical decision. Alternatively, Lallana could have played up front and Schneiderlin out wide or we could have used Butterfield as a winger.

There is a lot of rubbish and nothing-ness on this thread, but this is a great post by St Marco and sums it up perfectly - AP did a good job and was unfortunate to miss out on promotion despite the points deduction. NA is doing a good job as demonstrated by our form over the past year. My only complain is why in all the time that Adkins has been manager have Saints never won a single game that I have gone to watch?!!!! Or, more practically, the challenge for Adkins (to improve further on all that he has achieved) is to make Saints better at winning when they go up North. Derby is not quite up North, but hopefully we can travel a bit better for tomorrow's game!!

I suspect it could be positive for one and negative for the other: * Positive for Forest as he is not that bad a manager if you give him the chance to manage half decent players. The players he has had at P*mpey are far from half decent, but at Forest he will have a much stronger squad to work with. * Negative for P*mpey - more uncertainty, with a squad of bargain basement has-beens and no half -decent manager is going to fancy it... except perhaps Avram Grant!

These results are great for us, but of course they are also great for Cardiff and Middlesbro. Let's hope that it's us rather than them that are still happy tomorrow!!!

We have had a great record under Nigel Adkins and it is understandable why he has such great support among fans at present. However, as a fan living in the North of England, I am generally only able to see matches up north and I am therefore acutely aware that our record under Adkins at this end of the country has been generally quite poor. Here are the stats for last season after Adkins was appointed in September: 25/9 Sheff Wed: Won 1-0 16/10 Huddersfield Lost 2-0 13/11 Carlisle Lost 3-2 11/1 Oldham Won 6-0 22/1 Tranmere Lost 2-0 22/2 Hartlepool Drew 0-0 12/4 Rochdale Lost 4-0 i.e.: P W D L F A Pts 7 2 1 4 9 11 7 (nb it's worth bearing in mind how bad it would look without the Oldham win) Adding in this season, there are the following two results: 13/8 Barnsley Won 1-0 24/9 Burnley Drew 1-1 So the 'table' would look like this: P W D L F A Pts 9 3 2 4 11 12 8 So, why is our recent record against Northern teams relatively-speaking (i.e. in comparison to our other results) so bad?

A couple of other things I forgot to say... * Connolly had a poor game today and gave away the ball too many times. I'm not sure it was his fault - I think Burnley crowded him out well. Like has been said elsewhere, I'm surprised that De Ridder did not come on to replace him towards the end. * Chaplow had a mixed performance after coming on. He wasn't really the hard working, in your face Chaplow that can make such a difference. He helped to give the side more balance when he was eventually moved out wide, but he gave the ball away far too often. I think Guly did more for us in the first half than Chaplow did in the second. * As has been said elsewhere, apart from the goal (which he couldn't do anything about), Davis did not have much to do, but I was very disappointed with his distribution from the back. Kelvin never used to play the short pass like that - he has only done that since Adkins has been in charge, so I think Adkins has instructed him to do this. Yet I don't think it is something that Kelvin is good at. I think Adkins has got this tactics wrong in this area - he needs to play to his players strengths. * I didn't quite get why Lambert became a winger in the second half - surely he is better in the middle?! Again this is another reason why De Ridder should have replaced Connolly. Alternatively, if he was going to move one of them out wide, I would say Connolly is better out wide than Lambert. Of course it may have been that Lambert was the one who opted to move out wide having found the middle crowded when Lallana was moved inside. Whatever the reason it didn't work and just left our best goal scorer out of position where he could not score the goals that he is capable of.

I haven't read the whole of this thread, but having been at the game, I thought it would be worth giving my perspective of the game... Firstly, I disagree with a number of things that Adkins says about the game, but agree that we could have won it. In fact it could have gone either way, but we had the best chances, including the Lambert header that bounced up and hit the bar. I do not agree, however, that we started the second half brightly and that Adkins half time change did the trick. That sounds to me like Adkins putting a gloss on a change which he made, which did not work. But before I come to that, let's start at the beginning... We started the game brightly and Cork looked like he was going to boss the game in the early exchanges, but then Burnley somehow managed to turn it around and they had a good spell. Then we tried to come back into it more again, but Burnley managed to crowd us out in midfield and most of the rest of the first half was a relative stalemate. What was clear, however, was that they had done their homework and worked out how to nullify our midfield threat. Key to this was their man of the match, Bartley, who was first to every ball and was quick to turn defence into attack and lead them out on the counter-attack. Nevertheless, they carried little attacking threat of their own in the final third, despite some threatening counter-attacks being built. In that first half Cork had been by far our best player, with just occasional flashes of brilliance by Lallana and some good runs up the wing by both full backs especially Richardson. Defensively we had never looked all that confident though (though Hooiveld did ok) and Hammond seemed to be totally out of the game - I certainly don't recall him doing anything. Do Prado meanwhile was in and out of the game - doing some good stuff, but giving the ball away too much on other occasions. Lambert and Connolly meanwhile were mostly feeding off scraps. Adkins clearly realised that something had to be done, but rather than do this with just a tactical adjustment he decided to take off Do Prado for Chaplow. At the time it struck me as a bold move and potentially the right one bearing in mind the way Burnley had bossed the midfield at times. I was less sure, though, whether taking Do Prado off was the right option. And so it proved... contrary to Adkins report on the match, Saints were all over the place at the start of the 2nd half and Burnley were all over us. We had completely lost our shpae following the changes, with no width and Lallana, Chaplow and Hammond all trying to occupy the same space in the middle. It was no surprise then when Burnley took the lead that their pressure deserved. Fortunately, that served to wake up the Saints players and we started to put on some pressure and, after ten minutes, Adkins acted to sort out the midfield by replacing Hammond with Schneiderlin. That gave us more stability at the back and provided a platform for Cork to move the ball forwards. Chaplow meanwhile appeared to move out wider, helping to restore some balance to the side. There were some signs that our confidence at the back was not good and we were losing far too many balls in the midfield with Bartley continuing to dominate for Burnley. But then, with ten minutes to go the goal came - a scrappy affair if truth be told - and from then on until the end we looked comfortable and if anyone was going to win it was us. Credit for the draw must go to Cork, Lallana and Schneiderlin. Fonte and Hammond on the other hand had poor games, while others failed to really ever display the quality that has come to be expected this season. All in all, I would say a strange match, in which a draw is a fair result, but it could also have been so much more if either Lambert's chance or one of those that Lallana had, had gone in.

* I know it's an unfair comparison, but on a direct comparison of form in competitive matches over the past 11 months, ours is as good as Man Utd. Take a period of time less than eleven months and our form is better - except if you compare only form this season. * In our last 15 matches, we have won 14 and lost one. * Since the beginning of April we have played 19 games, won 17 and lost just two. * Since losing to Walsall at the beginning of March, we have won 21 of the 24 subsequent games, drawing one and losing two. * Since losing to Man Utd at the end of February, we have played 30 games of which we have won 25, drawn two and lost just three. * Since last Christmas we have played 38 games, winning 30, drawing 3 and losing 5. * Since losing to Huddersfield on the 16 October 2010, we have played 47 games, winning 36, drawing 4 and losing 7. * Since one year ago, we have played 52 games, winning 39, drawing 5 and losing 8. * At home we have 14 (not 13!) straight home wins in all competitions (excluding pre-season) - we have 13 straight home LEAGUE wins. * Since losing to Brentford at home on 11th December, we have had 16 straight home LEAGUE games without defeat. Over the same period we have lost only one home game in 19 home matches - the defeat against Man Utd in the cup. During this period of time we drew one home match (the game against Notts County) and won 17. * Over the past year (actually since the beginning of October as we didn't have any home games for the last couple of weeks in October lst year) we have played 28 home games in all tournaments (excluding pre-season friendlies). Our record in those games reads as follows: P.....W.....D.....L.....F.....A 28...24.....2.....2....66....16

I think we will finish somewhere in the top half and have the potential to finish in the automatic places if we can remain largely injury-free, especially if Hooiveld turns out to be a class signing or Aaron Martin develops another notch and forms a great relationship with Fonte. However, should Fonte get injured we could struggle defensively. I think, however, that we will continue to create and score a lot of goals and cannot see that being a problem. So, even if Fonte gets injured we could always do a 'Peterborough' by outscoring our opponents! Consequently I have voted 'play-offs'.

I think Hines is a good signing by Howe. Seems a bit like the sort of signing Adkins makes tbh and would have been quite happy if we had signed him, as he has potential. I think he could do well for them.

I'm sorry - but as someone else mentioned above, he was rubbish when we played Leeds a couple of years ago. From what I have seen of him (especially in that match at Eland Road), he is just a goal-hanger. While that may get him a fair few goals, he misses shed-loads of opportunities too. That was the opinion of Leeds fans I spoke to at the time too. Nigel's approach seems to be to encourage players to work for the team and I don't think goal-hanging really fits with that system. Lambert, Connolly and Barnard are all better strikers IMO. We need to be looking at players who are either better or have the potential to be better strikers in the next couple of years.