Lighthouse

Decent finish that. Let’s hope we can concentrate better with this lead.

We’re outplaying them by any metric you can muster. All the play is in their half and if Armstrong, Suga and Les could do the simple things properly, we’d have been 3-0 up at half time.

We’ve completely outplayed Stoke here, they’ve not had a sniff apart from two goals from individual howlers. So we’ll add them to the list, along with Smallbone, Bazunu, McCarthy, Wood, Fraser, Manning, Bree, Stephens, Diaz and Armstrong. We’re a bit short of decent options, all things considered.

Do you think a different manager would be able to build a better game plan around the hapless performances of Les, Cornet and Suga?

Suga…. I want to like you, I really, really do.

Decent half overall, shame about Fraser’s injury. Hopefully it’s not too bad.

Bit of a lucky deflection that, shame as it’s been their only meaningful attack.

You think it’s pessimistic to have a reliable goal scorer on the books for a scenario more than half of promoted teams end up facing?

He’s about as reliable a Championship scorer as you’ll find, definitely worth keeping with that in mind.

Didn’t he present Get your own back?

Looked decent so far without actually scoring. As I type, there it is!

ABK is not in our plans and clearly hasn’t been for a long time, I’m not sure why you were hoping for/expecting anything different tonight. I’m not sure what this forum’s obsession with Lucy is all about either. Personally, I think that’s a decent side which should have too much for Stoke.

People who put ‘POV’ on all their social media posts. I know it’s POV, that’s literally how a camera works you f**knugget.

Tadic for me, scored a goal and set up six others in one game. That’ll never be beaten. Mané is the fifth best player I’ve seen for us, after the three I mentioned and Niemi.

Luis Boa Morte went on to be a much better player at Fulham than he was in his season here.

I don't know why people say stuff like this, when it's very obviously not true, as if Russ somehow doesn't know that his job depends on results. The persona this forum creates for him just gets weirder by the day. Next week people will be saying, "we won 7-0 in spite of Russ and he shot Bambi's mum."

Chance of a cup QF to at least give us some cheer this season. Hopefully we put a full(ish) strength team out for this.

Or maybe because it’s literally only Arsenal (and Inter if we’re doing all comps) who’ve gone to the Etihad and done better than us this season. Compared to Ipswich going there and being 3-0 down in 16 minutes, we have actually done alright.

I see you've correctly identified that, 'all his fault' and 'blameless' are the only two possible options.

Neither are a big reason we are where we are now. Ralph is the reason we aren't another Stoke or Swansea, when Gao owned us with absolutely zero interest in running a football club. Selles was just the man holding the parcel when the music stopped two years ago. The damage had been long since done by years of terrible recruitment and the appointment of Jones. You seem to be equating clubs and managers. Those teams are average, Saints are woeful.

I really can’t get my head around this kind of attitude some of our fans have towards Martin. If you think he’s out of his depth and want him sacked, fine, but to actively detest him based on sound bites in response to leading journalist questions seems way out of proportion.

Thanks for liking my post from June last year Jonny, I needed that for my self esteem today.

I think if people were coming up to me saying, "hey, don’t you think you ought to be sacked?" Every week, I’d probably get a bit fed up and sarky about it too.

It’s literally the post I was referring to.

That ‘even worse’ is being propped up by a JWP free kick and a win against an equally awful Leicester side. Martin got us promoted, has played half as many games in the PL and has a real chance of making a cup QF on Tuesday. If there’s no sign of any results by December, then I’d probably try a new manager.