Lallana's Left Peg

Not sure how a thread that asks this question can reach four pages of debate. He's a great Manager and vitally important for the way the club wants to move forward with the Academy. He's only been Managing in this country a year and is learning all the time himself. He has made most players in the squad either better players or play better consistently which has resulted in our squad reaching 8th in the Premier League. He's made some mistakes, but never the same mistake twice as far as I am concerned. We should be thankful he is our Manager.

A good team, and Maya deserves to keep his place in the starting 11 as well. Also the bench looks decent.

I could be wrong but I am hearing that Lambert may not be fit (or if he does start, not fully fit).

I was referring more to their style of play and the areas of the body a West Ham striker may well get injured in as a result

West Ham striker in injured back shocker

No but it isn't unusual for him to start to miss training sessions around this time of year as he has to manage his hips.

If you listen to his interview on SaintsPlayer he says the priority is to develop the young players and to finish as high up in the league as possible. The cups are a second priority by that assertion and I think we all knew that. He even mentions about going for silverware a bit more in a few years when the squad has matured. I'm still not convinced we can finish higher than 8th this season but if he and the club think otherwise then fair enough and I am glad he stuck to his guns rather than apologised or anything like that. Also it is good to see that perhaps there is still a long term plan that is being worked towards in the grand scheme of things.

If we were in a genuine race for 4th I would understand it. But it is not so much ignoring the FA Cup that annoyed me, it is ignoring it without a clear view as to why we did. It can't be because of the Europa League issue because if we finish 6th or 7th there is a high chance we're in it via the league.

Calmed down although still think it was a massive opportunity scorned. Anything but 3pts at West Ham and fans will understandably turn back to it.

Could be one of those ones where if it is really boring that is really good news, or if it is really active then that is likely bad news.

I don't know that he did. But suggestions are that he did and that would correlate with the removal of him as a Director from records in Companies House at that time, unless that is a co-incidence.

Now then, maybe it is the menace in me but this has all gone quiet in a big way. Cortese hands in his notice back in October and over 4 months later still no new Board? It is of course entirely plausible that we are waiting to announce it at a time when all new members are available but until that time comes I can't shake the thought that our owner is open to the sale of the club and our owner has created this 'window of opportunity' for interested parties to step forward before she puts something in place in the meantime. To be honest, it would be a sensible strategy as well.

It's been a great season so far and it looks like it will finish one as well, but in the cold light of day if in the summer the Manager and / or a few of our best players leave, what will it mean? It'll mean when we had a chance to progress in the cups with one of the better teams in our history we turned our back on it and for no tangible benefit. If, however, our Manager and players stay then it means it has been an even better season because it has meant the club has been able to push on and use it as a platform for further progress. So I'll judge this season on 1st September 2014.

This is a bit over the top. Whilst it would be nice to think that clubs represent fans and whomever owns them are just custodians, the reality is that ship sailed a long time ago when the sport of football became money orientated. Saints have adapted to be a part of that. We weren't complaining when we were spending millions on players. We weren't complaining when we had plans for a new £30m training complex approved. We weren't complaining when our owners kindly wrote off a £40m investment which helped us go from the bottom of League 1 to the Top 8 of the Premier League. We aren't owed an explanation for yesterday, and the club should never be accountable to the fans. The club will realise soon enough if the fans are unhappy and I guarantee they are aware of the fan reaction. However, I don't want them to come out and respond to it because it sets a dangerous precedent. The club need to be strong and stick to what they believe they should be doing. They haven't done badly at all and whilst there have been bumps along the way they have been pretty driven at getting better and done a good job of that. As a fan I am gutted about yesterday, I cannot fathom why we didn't give it a better shot. From the team selection right through to the general performance of those who did play it felt like a massive opportunity scorned for a reason that doesn't appear logical to me. But after a few days I will get over it and we move onto the next game. But lets not allow this one thing to undermine everything that has been achieved this season. We had a similar reaction in the Capital One Cup (although admittedly it was not as big) and that was soon forgot about after we got a few results in the league afterwards to push ourselves up the table. There is a bit of pressure on the West Ham game now. Lose or even draw that and people will point to this weekend. Win it and people start looking at how some of the teams above us in the table get that little bit closer.

I don't know how it works but I would like to think that if Pochettino wanted a youth player in his squad he'd be given priority over an U21 game. In fact it'd be arse about face to do anything but that.

Well that is another thing that is a bit weird. Gallagher is given the weekend off of the Stoke game to deal with the passing of his Father and then comes straight back into the travelling squad for the Hull game. He doesn't get on (but is given a lot of running to do before the game) and then instead of taking him up to Sunderland to be the option of the bench for when we need a striker we decide to give him 90mins on the Friday for the U21 team and instead send McQueen up there. Gallagher only missed a few days of training and two games and although he didn't play he wasn't injured and there is no doubt he could have contributed at Sunderland if we had decided we wanted him to do so. Therefore whilst I could understand why we had to freshen things up a bit to deal with knocks etc. some of the other things we did just absolutely showed that the FA Cup is not a competition the club cared about anywhere near as much as the fans did.

Academy debutants in all competitions: Lloyd Isgrove (I think), Harrison Reed, Omar Rowe, Jake Sinclair, Sam Gallagher, Sam McQueen Academy debutants in the league: Calum Chambers, Harrison Reed, Sam Gallagher. With others on the bench in games.

Variety is the spice of life. I find the people that get so offended by the obvious wind ups as silly as those who do the winding up. But it is just a messageboard to mess about on and although I've only been on it a few years whenever the club pulls off a great result everyone is on board and getting on. It's when there are some negative things that happen when people argue and wind-ups start.

Hmm so on that basis only Boruc, Cork, and Schneiderlin were rested. Chambers and Clyne appear to be splitting games, and Wanyama is a senior player. If the changes were forced then I have some sympathy, even if the performance wasn't good enough.

It wasn't quite that bad but for an FA Cup game the intensity was poor throughout the team. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out throughout the week as even with a weakened team the players on the pitch could have raised the tempo and done far more. At times it felt like we were playing the game out of obligation and I bet Sunderland couldn't believe their luck. There is massive expectation on the West Ham game now and failure to get 3pts there will really make this result seem even worse.

Not all, but he is responsible for the team selection and must take his share of the blame for their performance as well. Whilst I understand the need to rotate when we make the players train so hard and run so much in the game, I don't understand how we can play Sat-Tues with the same team but then the next Saturday we make 6 changes. For me, if the FA Cup isn't a priority we should never have talked about trying to win it over the last week.

That was unacceptable, and it is the first time I've said that in a long time. **** team selection, insipid from those who did play, and just feels like a wasted opportunity all round and what is worse I absolutely do not understand why. Hope they ram it down my throat with a Top 6 finish, but that seems incredibly unlikely.

Every club can do this to be fair. Over the course of a 38 league game season you can have no complaints. I think our league position is very fair I don't think we can feel hard done by in any respect.

Haha - it's an American term for when players are feeling a bit hurt without a specific injury. I fully appreciate means something else in England

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that more than a few players are carrying knocks / banged up. They may well declare themselves fit but I am not sure if they could perform to usual levels. Still, unless this game goes to a replay we're only playing on weekends from now on so lets negotiate this game with a positive result and then we should be ok.