HarvSFC

Essentially, we need a summer of 2014-15, which saw us bring in Tadic, Pelle, Forster, Long, Gardos, Mane, Bertrand, Alderweireld and...Taider. Only thing is, is that we brought in approximately £100m from player outgoings. Can't see the same happening this summer.

Noticed his name in an article regarding a coaching qualification: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61162356 Can only be a positive.

We were. Whenever I've seen Arsenal he's been the weak link. I remember him getting subbed off tactically after 35 minutes against Nottingham Forest in the cup because he wasn't up to it against a Championship side. Same as Firpo at Leeds, Perraud was the best of the bunch that we were linked with last summer.

I don't care who we sell in the summer, this team's too inconsistent and more consistently crap, than good. Even favourites like Stuart Armstrong and Romeu, who've had good moments and good seasons are showing now that they can't consistently perform in the Premier League anymore and have been poor for well over a month and have been crap for near seven consecutive matches now. We need the Palace reboot under the new owners and hopefully they've got the financial flexibility to give us that, so that it's not a sell one and replace with three from the bargain basement such as last summer was. Only players who haven't dropped off over this period are KWP and Forster. Onto Brighton, yay.

Going to be a painful evening for Ollie Lancashire going by the club's line-up Tweet.

To be fair, Howe took charge of Newcastle on November 8th. He got one win in his first nine matches in charge with his second and third wins coming on 22nd January and 8th February. Their signings obviously did make an impact and to be fair they did sign well in hindsight, as I doubted a few of them at the time in my want for Newcastle to fail. Even Targett's playing well there, although, again like when he had Grealish in front of him, he now has Saint-Maximin, so his job is slightly simpler in that he doesn't need to get up and down the pitch. They're deploying the "dark arts" well now and to be fair they now have a "never say die" attitude, which showed in their match against Leicester at the weekend. I didn't see last night's. We were in a very similar position when Hasenhuttl first joined. One win in 16 league games, in 19th place, a very unfit squad with Hughes' poor training regime. We beat Arsenal in Hasenhuttl's second game, which is becoming a bit of a habit and Huddersfield in his third. No January signings and we finished 16th. Yet, some won't credit that, as they do other sides... 🤷‍♂️

How did Bielsa and Rangnick get their mythical reputations?

Like ours against Chelsea, the Manchester United players are just walking around when not in possession, while Liverpool pass it around them at ease. Always find it bizarre as at their simplest they are still professional athletes, so you'd expect them to be able to break into a jog at the very least. And this is supposed to be a major rivalry.

Happy Portsmouth will have to spend another season in League One day everybody. A 93rd minute Morecambe equaliser to confirm their status.

Based on his time here and against our other right-backs of the Premier League era, I'd rate him fourth: KWP - Clyne - Livramento - Cedric - Chambers - Martina - Pied And there were occasions during Cedric's time here under Koeman when he was benched for Martina. Overall, he did a solid, yet unspectacular job here and Saturday showed that he certainly isn't good enough for Arsenal, as he can't hit a cross for love nor money. Then there were the back post incidents here due to his height... So, he had faults both going forward and defensively during his Southampton career. It was a case of he's doing a job, but we could certainly do better.

Why's it not being played after the season? There isn't a summer tournament that it could clash with, as with the Euros last year.

I might be making this up, but weren't reports at the time of the new McCarthy deal suggesting that they had been offered deals on "second choice terms", hence why Forster turned down the offer. There's no doubting that Forster's the better of the two now, and I was a long-term McCarthy supporter, as he was doing the simple things right, while for a very long period Forster simply wasn't. I remember when simple catches from him were being sarcastically cheered in the stadium and any shot from range and on target seemingly went in. However, he now seems to be the player we originally signed, before the injury and before the new contract. But, that in itself then brings a new element of risk with any new contract. For many years now, we've been hoping for a team to sign Forster, but that simply hasn't happened, as no other club could afford to take him on/match what we were paying. That left us with a large outlay of our wage budget going on a player that wasn't in the matchday squad for a large percentage of their contract and a major player within the "unsellables". So, yes, Forster was incredible today and for years I've been saying we need a goalkeeper who we can come away from a match saying "fucking hell, how did we win that?" and Forster was that goalkeeper today. However, next week he could drop a clanger, as he did against Leeds two weeks ago. That's Forster now and in order to progress with the goalkeeper position we need someone more consistent and again given his history, there's no telling that if we did offer him a new contract with a promise of him being our number one, that his form doesn't fall off a cliff again, hamstringing us in the market again. It's too risky for a club with our budget. A good servant for the club, eight years, but at 34 now, I think his best option would be to take up the Scott Carson/Lee Grant/Andy Lonergan role at a big club as their homegrown quota, or I could see a return to Newcastle as their number two, where he will be paid a lot more handsomely than he would be as our number two here.

Super Fraser Forster. Won us the points today with his heroics. Great reaction from last week, we actually fought for it today. Cedric really does have the second best agent in football behind Choupo-Moting. Poor scouting brought him to us, how he then played for Inter and ended up at Arsenal, lord only knows.

Perhaps confirms Salisu will be off in the summer? He’s been bad, Bednarek’s been bad, either could have been dropped, so interesting that he’s gone with Salisu. Hopefully Valery and Lyanco have good games, certainly could do against Nketiah.

Dyche was the original sackee by the Pozzos at Watford, replaced by Zola. As the old saying goes, you're never more than six feet away from a former Watford manager and they did reappoint Sanchez Flores, so they could do it again, I suppose.

Dyche was their survival card. That's them gone ffs, they had one job.

Yep, although still raw definitely one for the future. Think he will need a season of bedding in up here, rather than being an instant star. Reminds me of Jay Rodriguez when he first joined. At the moment Stuart Armstrong and Broja are our only ball carriers and there's no guarantee that Broja will be here next season, he probably isn't going to be. Johnson provides that and incredible pace, which again I feel we've been lacking since Mane. Would certainly fill a few gaps in our team. Now, we just need Forest to stay down, poach their attacker... and their manager?

I feel Davis isn't as appreciated, as he had a questionable start to his Saints career, then was part of the worst Saints team of recent history, possibly ever, then was part of a Saints team that dominated for three seasons, so he wasn't as busy, then he wasn't good enough for the Premier League, although he did save a Van Persie penalty. And of course now it looks from the outside that he's in a position that he isn't wholly qualified for. However, for one of those seasons here, he won our player of the year and then for three consecutive seasons after that, he was named the goalkeeper of the division, despite us not winning the league in any of them. He of course stayed with us when it looked nailed on that he was going to West Ham. Very hard to find a good goalkeeper at League One level if he did need replacing and he was a key member of the team that won consecutive promotions. Bialkowski, who has built a solid if unspectacular career in the Championship showed in the Blackpool fiasco what may have happened had Davis spent a prolonged period of time out of the team and of course, we all remember his possessed performance at Leeds that season which won us a vital three points. Of course, he isn't in the conversation alongside Niemi, Boruc, Forster or even McCarthy. But, he was a top player for what we needed at that time.

How it started:

Savic vs Grealish in the tunnel tonight. He needs to pick his battles better.

And even then, Toney has been beefed up by 5 penalties. 7 goals without penalties, same return as Che Adams after bagging 31 in the Championship last season. The same will happen to Mitrovic again next season, also.

When Livramento first joined he showed he is an exceptional talent. However, he is still just 19 and it’s hard for many to be consistent at Premier League level, let alone a teenager in their first season. He’s been off the boil for a few months now, since Villa kicked him to bits in the home match and it’s now poor management to keep playing him each week, rather than taking him out of the deep end. The club will answer back at fans via Twitter when the decision makers get one thing right that was initially ridiculed by fans, such as the West Ham starting lineup, which now looks more costly in the long-term, but that also means nothing when they’re not taking Salisu off long throws, continuing with the high defensive line and not playing KWP in his strongest position/his natural side, as we’re seeing the same result every week now.

Another similarity is that Colwill's from Southampton too.

He should be on the to let go list alongside Walcott, Djenepo and Redmond this summer, unless he's still unsellable. Same contract situation as Redmond and he isn't as good as Redmond. If you could personify average, it would be Elyounoussi and one we could definitely improve on with a bit of a budget.

Today was inexcusable. No excuse for professional footballers “going on the beach” for months before the season’s over just because they can’t get relegated. Shit mentality and feels like we need a squad reset like Palace had last summer. It’s all getting a bit stale again. We’re used to losing, but it’s these losses where the team put in 0 effort and the opposition just run through us unchallenged that shouldn’t be accepted by anybody at the club, yet they seemingly are as they happen every season. I don’t get how a professional sportsman can accept taking in £50k+ a week to treat a match as though it’s a training session and I guess I never will, while the club charge £399 for season tickets and there’s no point in turning up for the last handful of home matches. I can’t wait for the five sub rule with Chelsea bringing on Pulisic, James and Ziyech today, while we used Valery, Diallo and Smallbone.