pingwing

Right train back from stoke now and some time to take it in. On the one hand 2 points dropped in the short term, long term one point wouldn't have other wise seen us get. Guly, other than the defensive laps for their first, man of the match! The had no answer and drugged with him out wide. We were excellent first half, doing what we do as ell as any team in the league, pressing them in their half. After their 2nd we stopped and tried to hold out for 3-2, which has and never will work. Shame but Adkins has to learn from that now! They were a lot better after the sending off and playing 5-0-4, mostly because we let them and assumed the still didn know about punch. Adkins should have known to keep the ball from them an pressure for a 4th. Still a point is a point. Again stars of today, Guly, cork, morg, fonte and yoshida. All really good hard fought games. Stand out problem kelvin! No command of the area came for everything regardless Of how stupid it was and generally showed why we needed a prem keeper today badly.

Lol "Get your own academy" we say, "you are our academy" they shout back.... Doubt he will be sold, we probably have turned around and gone yeah £23m and he's not all that interested in join you. Very different to the AOC "I want to play for Arsenal because my dad told me too" fiasco.

Not sure if serious... You'd rather have a L1 poacher, an unproven journey man and 34 year old who hasn't been good enough for a long time?? Mayuka and Rodriguez both have some pace and mobility, when Readings 3 don't really, both can pass and move into channels, none of Readings 3 can...

It goes winger, gk, lb, cb then another winger in order of sorting out the squad. Currently we only have 2 playable wingers, Lallana and Punch, one is injured leaving us stuck and lopsided. Hopefully Lallana isnt out long and we get someone to cover in either way (or as competition for Punch) as we need creativity, not Pardews tactic of MORE STRIKERS = MORE GOALS.

That's one of those FM13 transfers.... £8m release clause when you load up the game, everyone knows about and 30 teams fight over him. Doubt in real life he is a. quite that good yet and b. up for that sort of money.

Good point but should have won (like the home game) They were utter turd, Kelvin gave them a goal, took a stupid handball to get the much deserved break through, should have scored a handful from the chances we had. Work to do for Saturday but at the same time we are back on track for the christmas period. Only one more game of not having a prem keeper or a decent right winger. Punch was too predictable (again) and Kelvin committed the same cardinal sin Gazza and Boric have done of giving points away for no reason. Jan will come and we will fix it, hopefully nicking a point saturday! Also Yoshida MOTM, got to everything in the air and made sensible clearances in the first hour when they sat 2 forwards on our 2 cb's leaving us no choice. Jos in the same situation gave them 2 stupid goals which was just unbearable.

Bullets well and truly dodged

1. Winger who can a run with the ball, b take people on, c work it into space, d cross. 2. GK, hopefully experienced but good. 3. LB, need to take the pressure off Shaw. 4. CB

Urm so our players are gods that can do no wrong? I agree it is silly to bemoan his fee as over the top considering his performances (and age) but sometimes he just needs taking off the pitch because he has no answer for 2/3 people sitting on him, no matter where on the pitch he plays. He is a great player, will be a world class player, but when he is not given the time and space Messi is he will not always perform. Today is a prime example of it and we suffered by persisting with him regardless. Should have been subbed at half time for Steven Davis or Guly and left Myuka to either be up front or down the left because Gaston was taken out of the game by Sunderland's tactics. i feel that is a fair analysis of what went wrong today, just wanted to express that directly and quickly, instead of with a long and drawn out post with the same conclusion...

Right what lads? We did everything but score! First 55 mins we had everything, gave them one chance which they took and that was it. Ramirez was utter gash today, first truly rubbish performance from him, just wasn't at the races at all. Myuka was pretty good, if we stuck with him, subbed a woeful punch, a gash Rameriez and not bothered with a l1 De Ridder then it could have gone our way. Then again we will get a result or two we just don't deserve later in the season anyway (today should have been 0-0 really) so it will probably even out. Nice everyone was fit (especially seeing as Sunderland seemed to be making death substitutions) but we really need to be more effective going forward. De Ridder is as poor as Punch but just utterly worse in every way. Punch is terrible and showed it and Gaston had a nightmare (partly because 2 men sat on him and partly because he couldn't deal with it). Left Lambert and Myuka isolated sadly so when the ball did get to them and they looked dangerous it didn't work out sadly. Subs realyl didn't work, De Ridder is terrible, Guly came on too late and Morg was subbed only because in 2 weeks his yellow card ban is reset. Shame as Davis for Gaston would have worked better and just abandon the left completely.

Today he was gash on left, gash on the righttt. Gaston ramerez just looked utter ***** Should have been subbed as he couldn't pass or take a touch today

He did what he was told, ran at people and covered the left. Shame he's terrible but shear pace should have created more. Fun to see him but I should have won my bet with a mate that he would have been subbed off, after about 5 mins looked so horribly out classed it was embarrassing

I like the Adkins way, seems to be a better way of handling the team and players we have instead of just shouting at them or something similar. It's good he has the ability to ask all of his staff how to improve things and work on them properly.

2 weeks of bickering and nervousness comes to a head in 14 hours, so excited for once! (instead of the usual nervousness)

Great lad and a saints legend really. Nice he sees coming to us as the turn in his career, turning point for the club that has worked out so well for both sides.

5 games = all season now? He was world class against United (partly because Evra was doing a Danny Fox on where the lb should be playing), great against QPR (where everyone stood off him second half and was in the right place for the first), good against Swansea, good against Newcastle and really good against Reading (plus scored that screamer against Stevenage but did nothing else). He was terrible against City (fluffed an open goal and another big chance), played around against Villa for the first goal (though did get a goal so can go on the alright pile), was subbed for being so useless against West Ham, not really involved against Spurs either and Fulham had his entire game plan sorted within about 2 mins of that game. He has some great moments but also has some dreadful moments when defenders press him and force him out wide. Should just take the money and run as I doubt he will accept a reasonable contract extension and we can just put a sensible bit of extra money towards a replacement. It's not like we are Everton and have to sell to buy new players in... (just have to make the space in the squad)

Probably one of those better prospect moments more than anything else. Clearly has some talent but is 22 needs nurturing and breaking into the premier league properly (well hopefully otherwise they are just making it up as they go along)

I'd take a couple of million for him, no way we can give him a big/long contract as he's just too inconsistent. Some weeks he's a world beater and some weeks he can maybe put one in but waste 5-10 more chances by ending up as the last man there and having such poor finishing/composure. I am sure we can get someone better in who probably wont command stupid wages anyway so it's not really the end of the world if he does go.

Please don't ruin the highlight of the football experience. Though next season I would much rather have the West Brom "win a house" game, that was pretty much the best thing I have ever watched at half time.

Went online to buy some for a mate, queued from 9am to 9.15am, logged in, bought tickets, waited a min for the email, got it and tickets ordered by 9.20. Online system hasn't failed me yet.

I was thinking that after we played them on the train home. Even if Pogrebnyak was on the bench I still don't think any player of theirs would really push for a place. Puts into context how much of a smash and grab they did last season and how much better our transfer window was.

Oh ffs! Only good thing Thatcher ever did was kill of the unions and yet she still didn't have time for this bunch of wasters. If they had any real guts as a union they would strike on days/weeks it actually mattered instead of a day off.

10, beat Sunderland, beat Fulham, beat Villa, draw at Stoke, loose to Arsenal. Though Arsenal seem in all sorts of problems so could beat them, Villa seem to have finally started to make a go of it so its harder to call, Fulham are still naff, Sunderland are a joke and Stoke if we play our game properly we can take something from them...

Didn't the article say fat Sam was just jealous of us having lambert not that he was going to try and sign him... Looked like the sun making things up and pretending it's news again

The big chance economy graph is brilliant!