Pamplemousse

Credit to Puel - he had a full 7 days to work with the players and it paid off. Man Utd will obviously be a tougher ask for us. But they have 3 games before the Wembley game, which has to play in our hands.

How long before the first comment of 'we're papering over the cracks' ?

Will batman and Alpine front up and admit they were wrong?

Gabbiadini without a doubt. He's exactly what we've been missing. Bertrand, Tadic and Romeu too. Defoe is still in Stephens's pocket.

Nah, I said 5-0 I think

Sunderland forum was very confident as well. Reminds me of the fake hope we had in our relegation era.

This is Tadic's best game for a while. He's played himself into the cup final. Would like Redmond to do a bit more, although we've largely been attacking down the left hand side.

How long before someone says it's 'papering over the cracks' ? For the first few minutes, we were woeful. Then we got on the ball a bit more, got the goal and have looked comfortable ever since. Clean sheet is vital now. At least that second goal takes a bit of the pressure off the defence, but hopefully we push for a third and kill this game off.

We're going down with Puel

That is a ludicrous comparison

JWP has played better than Hojbjerg recently As for Long - apart from scoring the goal at Swansea, he was anonymous for most of that game. He's better when we will be playing on the counter attack - we will probably be dominating possession for large periods of this match.

#SaintsFC team to face #SAFC: Forster, Cédric, Stephens, Yoshida, Bertrand, Romeu, Davis ©, Ward-Prowse, Tadić, Redmond, Gabbiadini.

This'll be a good way to commemorate George Burley's time here

I agree about the minute's applause thing. It's rather tiring now.

Imagine what can be done with an entire TWO WEEKS for the next match It would be typical Southampton to lose at Sunderland but then go on to win at Wembley.

Wishing us to lose. You are not a true Saints fan.

I have to be right eventually, so I'll go for 5-0 to Saints. Easy peasy

Premier League HTH

I've found that American 'soccer' fans are generally much more knowledgable and intelligent than the average British fan. You demonstrate that point rather well... Also, as a 'tourist' who went to an MLS game, I was welcomed with open arms. As I would, and most Saints fans would do, to any tourists who want to come to SMS.

I was just about to post something like this. Why are people so desperate to play down us reaching the final? Why are people unable to recognise that it is a brilliant achievement? I don't get it. As for other managers, Koeman was interested in the cups - we got to the quarter finals of the League Cup twice and the team bottled it on both occasions. In the earlier rounds, you could arguably say we named stronger teams than Puel did. For the big occasion (two of them), Puel got the team to perform. That's a fact.

Good, we don't need fans like you.

To be honest, this has been my inkling for a while. I don't see anything to suggest he will leave this summer. Hopefully we'll get another year and he'll improve so much that Barcelona/Real Madrid can blow any PL Club out of the water for him.

Difficult one. VVD definitely. Romeu is a good shout. JWP as well (he gets a lot of stick on the forum for his on the field performances) but off the field he seems level-headed and a good chap. Mouez Hassen and Jérémy Pied have both liked my tweets so I'll say them as well.

As is well documented, the bestest clubs go for quality over quantity

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38885629 A return to his spiritual home?