pingwing

Because Puncheon has done exactly the sum total of nothing in the premier league for us (or the champ for that matter). On and I thought Guly was alright tonight, put him self about a bit, dropped deep which helped with the formation and shape, just came on too late.

Just use the 4-3-3 from the first day against city, that seemed to work well when we packed the midfield and stopped worrying about our back line like they were going to wet them selves if morg or davis moved more than 10 feet from them.

Well I'm just home after finding the M1 to be a bit of a mess around Luton. Not sure why everyone is doom and gloom about this, we were never going to take all 3 points (getting a bit above our station here) against a team who haven't lost at home in ages. We gave it a pretty good go but just looked lost when they stuck 10 men behind the ball and let us pass it about the last half an hour. Positives, Clyne has a great tackle, nice and quick and when he pushes forward properly with some confidence can pick out a pass. Lambert for 90 mins as a complete striker (and being 2 strikers for most the game) worked so hard it cruel he didn't put away that chance at the start of the second half. Gaston looks good even when not 100% fit. Gazza has more going for him than Davis and Boruc at the moment. Yoshida coped well with a poor Lukaku for the most part. We only conceded 2 and neither were nonsense rubbish goals. Negatives, Fonte and Maya need more confidence that they will win the ball when they press, too much just showing them onto the weaker side and then a chance being created. Lallana has way to much pressure to over play the ball and we are expecting too much from him. Fox is poor, we all know he's poor and theres nothing that can be done till 9am 1/1/13 when someone to replace him will be announced. Morg bottled it after about 5 mins and never got back into it, shame as he can be great. Steven Davis had the same game as Morg and isn't a deep lying midfielder to sit with Morg in front of the back 4, but without them there we concede. Myuka just didn't seem confident which was a shame and Gazza needs to talk more with his back line (and fast) as there were a few moments for calamity thankfully avoided. Jay Rodriguez gets his own special mention for the one of the most inept performances of the season from any player in the premier league. Was like watching us play with 10 men till he was subbed, as bad as Puncheon (insert one of about 5 games). He isn't good enough on the left, he's utterly useless on the right and isn't confident/good enough in the middle for the formation to work. Wanted to cry seeing him come out of the tunnel for the second half. We were robbed with him as he isn't ready, which everyone else knew. Only option left is to start Mayuka on saturday and hope that works. Overall though Adkins can't be sacked for that game, we were in it, playing good proper football, just missing the luck, a little bit of movement and Calamity-Foster to actually much it up like he looked as if he was about too. The main problem away from home is we do the 4-2-3-1 where the 2 sit too deep and the middle of the 3 should drop deep to compensate, Rodriguez just can't do that so it has to be Lambert, Gaston or Lallana. When we do that we loose the width and shape and get stuck looking for Rodriguez, who is a terrible target man. The other one we did was 4-3-3 with 3 sitting in front of the back 4 and 3 up top, though this requires a higher work rate and leaves us with a lot less attacking options, we should really be reverting to that even when cashing the game (as we did at city) because it generally better suits our players. It leaves Lallana out wide as well as Myuka/Guly/Gaston with Lambert up front, just don't seem to have the confidence to play it and get goals sadly. I feel both formations can work, we just need to have more confidence in our back 4 and not over protect/nanny them as much to play penetrating football as today the midfield was all Mulumbu and we couldn't deal with that. Either way keep Adkins till after QPR, loose to QPR then we have to seriously work out what to do.

Expensive, but trains are already sorted and it'll be a cheap drink away day (especially as Chelsea away is moved out of December making the rest of the away games simple to do)

Straight red is a 3 match ban which is brilliant for us!

5/10 It could be a whole lot worse, thankfully there have been very few games where we just look massively uncompetitive, just too many spells of it during some of the games. Several of the new guys look to be excellent players, we just need to make a performance last over the 90 mins as too many silly errors have cost us big time (Fulham was the worst for me)

Well the right result happened and to celebrate I got QPR tickets.

I liked Martin, sold in the champ last season, ahead of Seaborne before his injury but not better than Jos. Would be cruel to throw him in the prem any time soon though. It's a shame Palace aren't giving him the games/need the stability from their full time squad. I think a season long loan at Shrewsbury should have been the aim, poor L1 team he would have shinned in to develop his skills and more importantly match confidence. He's one of those players caught between a rock and a hard place though, being with us in the prem this season would have ruined his chances of getting better but he's gone somewhere to get nothing more because he has the Guly label of "the cause of aids"

thank you loved that!

Yep! Davis is that player I am still ecstatic we signed, the one player I really wanted from Rangers falling apart like a house of damp cards. His only disappointment is he hasn't scored that many, which is the same as Cork last year really. Other than that he has been a key player and an essential part to our midfield this season. Nope no more Puncheon never! Hopefully Adkins sees he is useless and relegates him to the reserves where he belongs.

Villa had the worst set of songs ever sung at football, copying their songs is a burn at the stake offence! Nearly as annoying as other teams trying to do oh when the saints go marching in and not being the saints... (this is why St Albans can get away with it but not Spurs) Oh and hopefully somewhere there is a picture of Clyne jumping the barrier to celebrate with the rest of us in block 3. That was an amazing moment! (wish players came to our good side more often)

But we have Gaston, Gaston Ramirez... To this sort of tune [video=youtube;NKR2n-G-wdM]

Basically we need results, so Cortese has said yeah results = job Nigel. The one reference to Reading is telling that they are the bench mark for who we are competing against. I stick my speculation that if we don't start looking stronger/getting a few more results it'll come down to beating Reading in December.

ZOMG!!! (probably is new thread worthy as its Gaston, Gaston Ramirez)

Thank god everyone is seeing this and its not me getting depressed at him.

Unless its MK Dons where the only acceptable result is 8 red cards and match abandoned at 0-0 after 5 mins.

Shut up and take my money! On the Gaston scale of mad transfers, if this comes off I will try to go to say 70% of all away games if he signs (have to be realistic after the commitment to season tickets for Gastons contract).

Burton Albion, entirely from Football Manager.

Hahahahaha!!!

Whey that was me That pub is pretty good, got a ticket for WBA though, shame as it was nice chatting to you all and meeting other saints fans about here.

Shout and scream at the ticket office to let you collect some reissues at West Brom on monday?

Lukaku vs Kelvin Davis?!?!?! Wack everything on an 8-0 West Brom result if thats the case...

But we are not a L1 club any more, Prem tv money next season doubles at least, even finishing 19th or 18th makes more money than the League cup (and is more of a money spinner than coming 20th)... If money is the justification the Prem is where its at. If its a trophy desired the Fa Cup has a better reward for success anyway, bit more prize money and Europe if you reach the final and the other team are already going to Europe. Worth a bit more effort than the League cup anyway.

It's depressing that doing the job he has been asked to do doesn't account for more. West Ham he was clearly given the COVER FOR MAYA instruction which at times turned him into a left back, did a good job at protecting Maya considering neither are really the players that should be over that side. Same with the City game, he was upfront for 70 mins to hold the ball up and frustrate the defence, not score or do anything more. Did a good job at that as well. Gets silly that he is seen as the boo guy with little fault of his own, especially when there are players who are a lot worse getting regular starts because of a lack of depth in the squad (I will have to repeatedly point the finger at Puncheon who has categorically proven he isnt premier league quality at all and Fox who has been struggling a lot).

The same team who's only player to score for them is Steven Fletcher and who generally look a bit clueless this season, not leaking many goals but couldn't score in a brothel. By the time it gets to mid December I see us banging a few past them with little response.