Lighthouse

What about Germany, France, Morocco, Egypt, Mali, Indonesia, Australia, Iraq, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nigeria and Burkina Faso?

Without paying to read that article, the headline doesn’t surprise me. The Muslim women I went to school with were generally very academic and one particular individual was top of the class in pretty much everything. Then in our final year of sixth form she went for some work experience/placement scheme and didn’t get it. Basically she had no hobbies and interests aside from going home and studying every day and after 5 minutes of the interview had run out of things to talk about. No idea if that’s a general trend but I’d be interested to see how their sports, art, drama, D of E etc. Compare.

It’s only really Hoj and Bertrand who are regular starters, plus whoever ends up being our first choice RB next season.

If you want to carry this on, it's nice and safe on the Duck Rape thread. Fill your boots.

Man City on the last day of last season.

I wouldn't get your hopes up on that. If those three AND Vest all leave, then we'd need two but now that we've settled on 2 CBs in the team, we really only need 4 in total. The fact that we had 6 on the books in the first place (and none of them were good enough) is somewhat ridiculous.

Personally I think it’s wrong for any parent to impose any religious belief on their children. Extreme or otherwise. Sadly that’s not going to change any time soon and we will continue to live with this sort of nonsense.

Yep. Let's say, worst case scenario, they beat us and also win their 'easier' home games against Palace and Newcastle. That would only put them 4 points above where we are now, with the following fixtures left. Sheff Utd (A) Burnley (A) Chelsea (H) Liverpool (A) Wolves (A) Man Utd (A) Spurs (H) Leicester (H) City (A) Everton (A)

Perhaps the club feel that there are no U18s good enough and that having inadequate players in the centre of the pitch will be to the detriment to everyone else. Or maybe we just fancy the look of this guy and its a no risk 6 month try out before we maybe sign him in summer. The answer certainly isn't that we want to develop other clubs youth players, so there must be some reason for it. I'd give Crocker the benefit of the doubt until I have reason to believe otherwise.

Proper Four Lions stuff that, attacking a chemist.

Decent result for us at Turf Moor, neither team pulling away from us.

Everyone? Well in that case, naming one poster should be a piece of p*ss.

I've never regarded Zlatan as anything other than a complete helmet, no matter how good he is. What's the strongest team of complete helmets we can come up with? Neuer ? - Terry - ? - ? Noble - Keane - Pogba Alli Suarez - Zlatan

Yeah, if you like. Looking at the run in: We don’t have to play Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs, Leicester, Wolves or Palace. West Ham don’t have to play Sheff U, Brighton, Leicester, Everton, Bournemouth or Palace Watford don’t have to play Villa, Bournemouth, Everton, Spurs, Sheff U or Wolves If you want to think they could get 7 points more from what’s left, you go ahead.

Pessimism I can understand and I'd probably say a cautious 6 points myself. However I think you're massively overestimating Watford and West Ham there. They would both have to win their next five to see us needing wins against Bournemouth and Brighton. Even with 5 points and nothing from Utd, City and (as usual) Goodison, that only sees us needing 4 from Arsenal at home, the two games you mentioned, Watford away and Sheff Utd on the last day. I just can't make a case for us being anywhere near the drop zone.

It's not half looking grim for the Hammers after that. There will be massive pressure on them for our game, looking likely to be their only win in the next 8 if they pull it off.

Well, we're 11th and all the teams we've played twice are in the top half of the table; Liverpool, Leicester, Chelsea, Spurs, Wolves and Palace. With our run in and the way we're playing, a decent top half place is on the cards.

Not expecting anything, more interested in how other results go personally. Still, let's give it a go and see what happens. COYY/B!

Probably not helping matters but if we’d hung on against Wolves and Arsenal we’d be 4 points behind Chelsea with a game in hand.

Glenn Johnson on Soccer Saturday. We must never forget he stole a toilet seat from B&Q when he was at Pompey.

Except that nobody else has actually got a pony. All those teams down the bottom with problems and all these great players available at knock down prices. I mean Villa have the worst defence in the league and didn’t sign one of these top class centre halves they’re selling down Poundland. Bournemouth can’t score for toffee and they have gone and bought a 20 goal a season striker. It’s almost as if 2/3 of the league wants to get relegated. Such a shame there’s only 3 places.

I’m not sure how good you expect Southampton reserve CBs to be. Our first season up we finished 14th, our reserves were Hooiveld and Seaborne. Before that we finished 8th and got to a cup final with Higginbotham and Paul Williams. Our best season ever we had Yoshida and Gardos. Now I fully agree we need to be looking at a first choice CB in summer but there are precious few of them lying around in January.

We finished sixth in the League with Yoshi and Gardos as back up CBs and Cuco Martina as back-up RB. We’re no worse off than that now.

We won't need two CB. Four is enough, so one more in if Danso leaves, that makes six needed if those five leave. We signed eight when we first came up so hardly impossible.

How about an underwhelming window overall for pretty much everyone? https://www.theguardian.com/football/ng-interactive/2019/dec/30/football-january-transfer-window-latest-deals-premier-league-europe I count 8 signings of any serious financial outlay, two of which were Spurs replacing their best player they've just been forced to sell and signing a player who was already there on loan.